Marketing a senior living community in the past meant relying on traditional marketing methods like print and TV ads. Those days are long over because senior living community social media is now an indispensable aspect of the marketing mix.
Just like everyone else, seniors are getting their information in different ways than before. Twenty years ago, print and TV ads were king for marketing CCRCs, life plan communities and assisted living centers. Eventually, websites and now social media have become preferred ways to access information because they’re more convenient.
It should come as no surprise, therefore, that a recent Pew Research Center study showed that 55% of Americans over 50 get their news from social media. For some people, this news must come as a shock. However, the old stereotype of seniors hesitant to embrace newer technology just doesn’t apply anymore. Senior living community social media was often a minor aspect of retirement community marketing in the past. Today, however, it has become far more important.
Social Media Has Changed Marketing
Although traditional marketing still has its place, senior living community social media is where more time and energy needs to be spent. A more integrated marketing approach for senior living communities is a good way to stay in tune with how people are communicating now, as opposed to how they communicated in the past.
In many ways, social media is a marketer’s dream come true. Why? Because your ability to measure different metrics is right at your fingertips with senior living community social media. By contrast, traditional marketing data was often broad and incomplete at times. With social media, you can get highly specific information. For example, you can learn things like:
- Who is looking at you
- Whether they follow your suggested links
- If they retweet your posts
- Whether they comment on your posts
If your community isn’t leveraging the advantages of social media marketing, it’s never too late to get started. Therefore, let’s take a closer look at social media marketing for your CCRC, life plan community or assisted living facility:
Social Media is More Real & More Intimate
Right at this minute, many prospective residents of your community are probably looking at photos of their grandchildren on Facebook. It makes sense for grandparents to embrace social media because it enables them to be closer to children and grandchildren. And the more they engage, the more comfortable they get with social media (even if they don’t think they are). You want your senior living community to be a part of this engagement. Through your social media, you want your community to become a part of these seniors’ lives. If you can do that, your senior living community social media will pay dividends in no time.
Facebook Paid Ads – Your Chance to Target Very Specific Seniors
In the past, everyone did targeted mailings to seniors. For example, they targeted certain neighborhoods. Perhaps certain seniors were targeted according to their age, interests or some other determining factor. With something like Facebook ads, you can designate which seniors see your ads. As a result, you can focus on getting more qualified leads. Remember that just getting leads isn’t always the goal. Why? Because getting the right leads is what counts.
Social Media Makes Promotion Easy
Do you have a lunch-and-learn event coming up at your senior living community? Imagine how much faster you can spread the word about the event through your social media channels like Facebook and Twitter. In the past, you would rely exclusively on expensive, printed invitations because it was the only way to reach a mass audience. With social media, you can run a very low-cost promotion to get prospective residents to your event. Consequently, it’s an excellent way to offer something of value to seniors on social media.
Is Your Senior Living Community Social Media Where It Should Be?
Great digital marketing requires significant social media engagement and a dynamic, content-rich website to support it. Therefore, a website without strong social media support will always struggle to increase web traffic. Consequently, it will always be harder to drive leads to a retirement community’s sales department.
Ready to boost your website and social media presence? Dreamscape Marketing has created hundreds of websites and more than 50,000 pages of content for our healthcare clients. As a Premier Google Partner, we understand what it takes to succeed in digital marketing.
Let’s make your senior living community social media come alive. Call us today at 888.307.7304 or email at info@dreamscapemail.com.
