In the fast-paced digital world that we’re living in, today’s customer journey is decidedly online. This means that, regardless of where you’re located, what type of business you run, or even what size your organization is, the vast majority of people will likely find you for the first time using the Internet.
In fact, studies revealed that in 2020 alone, an enormous 93% of consumers used online searches to find local businesses.
Yes, it’s true that the Internet has made the world “smaller” in that virtually any organization can market on a larger scale. But studies like the above show that you don’t necessarily want to – you should instead be going after the people who live and work right in your own backyard.
That’s why using social media to help localize your online presence is of paramount importance, especially if you’re in a service-based business like optometry. Getting to that point isn’t necessarily difficult, thankfully – but it does require you to keep a few basic things in mind.
How Does Using Social Media Platforms Help to Localize Your Online Presence?
According to another recent study, the number of “open now near me” searches that people perform on engines like Google has increased literally 400% in the last few years. People aren’t just trying to find businesses like an optometry practice. They’re trying to find ones that are near them, that are open, and that they can visit right now if they want to.
Obviously, you should target as many local keywords on your website and on things like blog posts as possible. However, you likely won’t be able to publish that content frequently enough to maintain dominance in the search engine results pages. That’s what social media allows you to do, however – it gives you organic, consistent opportunities to establish ties with your local community online, building trust and connections along the way.
Not only that, but many people take to social media as a natural part of today’s customer engagement/journey. 88% of Gen Zers and Millennials in particular say that they use social media to research businesses they’re interested in buying from.
Choosing the Right Social Media Platforms for Your Business
As a rule of thumb, you’ll want to identify the social media platforms that are most relevant to not only your optometry practice, but to your customers as well. Facebook tends to skew older, for example, where TikTok is on the younger side. Sites like Instagram and Pinterest tend to split the difference.
Figure out where your target patients spend most of their time online and establish your presence in those locations. As you do, work to establish a consistent presence across all social media platforms. Everything that you put out into the world should ultimately feel like it’s coming from the same core optometry practice, even though people are finding that collateral in different ways. You don’t want to create brand confusion, especially among people who may otherwise be unfamiliar with who you are and what you do.
How to Set Up Your Social Media Profiles for Greater Local Search Visibility
One of the best ways to set up your social media profiles for greater local search visibility is to create a compelling and (of course) locally-focused bio.
Try to incorporate as many local keywords as you can and if you can work hashtags in organically, do that as well. You should also utilize any location-based features that are available to you, like adding your address. This really will go a long way towards improving your overall visibility.
How to Infuse Your Content Strategy with Location Signals
Next, work on creating content that resonates with your local community. Speak directly to the people who are most likely to be your ideal customer.
Showcase your optometry practice’s community involvement and support as often as you can. One easy way to do this is by highlighting local testimonials and success stories whenever you receive them.
Use Social Media as a Way to Engage Your Local Community
Along the same lines, you’ll always want to actively participate in local groups, community forums, and similar examples of community organizations. Attend local city council meetings on behalf of your business if you can.
Whenever you do get local reviews and feedback, respond to them accordingly. Try to run local promotions on social media to not only show off your local ties, but to give back to the people who the future success of your business will depend on.
Similarly, reach out to and engage with other local business leaders in the community. Even if they’re not operating in the same industry you are, it doesn’t matter – you never know who you might be able to help (and vice versa).
Enhance Your Local Visibility with Social Media Advertising
Once you start to branch out into the larger world of social media advertising, always make an effort to target local audiences whenever you can. Facebook and Instagram allow you to do this quite easily. Think about all the information that you give up to Facebook when you create your profile. Now, understand that from the other side of that conversation, the Facebook Ads platform lets you use all that information (including location) to your advantage.
As you create and conduct campaigns, always leverage geotargeting features for specific local promotions. Tie into community events that people are already paying attention to. It’s a great way to tap into a savvy audience and hopefully carve out a bit of their attention at a critical time in your business’ growth cycle.
Collaborate with Your Customers to Create Local, Authentic Content (User-Generated Content)
Whenever possible, you should encourage your satisfied customers to share their experiences. This type of user-generated content is the best type of content marketing – it works just as well as that which you take the time and effort to personally create, only someone else is making it and it is essentially free.
You could even run local contests and campaigns that involve your customers, all in the name of boosting engagement. People love free things and optometry clients are no exception.
You could repost and reshape user-generated content all across your social media platforms, amplifying someone else in a way that also reflects positively on you as well.
Analyze Engagement and Reach to Determine the Best Course of Action
Finally, know that you need to set up analytics tools to track local engagement and visibility whenever possible. Over time, all your key metrics should be trending upward – don’t forget that.
Analyze those metrics to understand the effectiveness of your current localization strategies. Double down on what is working and get rid of what isn’t at your earliest opportunity.
This allows you to make data-driven adjustments to optimize your results based on whatever goal you’re trying to accomplish. You can gear your campaign towards increasing reach or engagement, generating more leads, increasing revenue, and more.
Surefire Local: Your Partner in Social Media Localization
Overall, there are two key things to understand as you continue to build out your optometry practice. The first is that localizing your online presence will never stop being important, for all the reasons outlined above.
The second is that localization is an ongoing effort – meaning it never stops, period. This is not something that you “set up and forget about.” This is especially true given how quickly things tend to move online via social media platforms.
Thankfully, those same social media platforms also provide an easy way to maintain your online presence without too much in the way of additional effort beyond what you’re already doing. Social media is only becoming more important, and it will continue to be used in today’s digital-first customer journey moving forward.
Techniques like those outlined above can help you increase visibility in specific zip codes. They can help you generate more and better customer engagement. They can guarantee business growth by optimizing your social media profiles with local and relevant information.
They do all this and more, all at the exact same time – which is why this is all one element of your optometry business that should never stop being a priority.
At Surefire Local, our goal is to help small businesses like yours with localized online marketing. We’re all about lending a hand to small businesses as they work to establish their online presence. We do this by creating local signals across platforms and profiles, all of which make it easy for new customers to find you, no matter what.
Surefire Local is the all-in-one marketing platform you’ve been looking for in that way – the one that frees up as much of your valuable time as possible so that you can focus on the things that really matter: your patients.
To find out more information about local social media tactics for optometrists that you can start taking advantage of, or to see how you can free up as much time as possible with a platform like Surefire Local so that you can focus on more important matters, please don’t hesitate to contact us today or click here to schedule a Surefire Local demo in your area.