One of the more recent tactics that has demonstrated success is the “Social Media Takeover”.
By definition, a social media takeover is a social media campaign where either consumers or employees take over a brand’s social media channel for a short period of time. They prepare copy that corresponds to photos and/or videos that are being posted across the social media and use a brand-specific hashtag. A social media takeover helps to reach new audiences, increase engagement, build your brand and drive traffic to your website.
A social media takeover can include:
- Brand evangelists, loyal consumers, clients, customers
- Internal takeover with staff employees
Key Benefits of a Social Media Takeover for Senior Living Communities
Building trust, confidence and a sense of familiarity are highly important objectives in senior living marketing today. And with that in mind, social media takeovers provide an excellent means of sharing a more “up close and personal” side of your organization to seniors, their adult children and other sources of referral.
As noted in the article, “The Key to Smart, Safe, and Successful Social Media Takeovers” , social media takeovers can offer several important benefits for senior living providers. These include:
- Increasing audience engagement: Whether it’s a Q&A session on Twitter or a series of photos posted to Instagram, a social media takeover is all about providing quality content that your audience can engage with.
- Building your brand: Think of a social media takeover as the ultimate third-party endorsement. Hosting a takeover with an individual who exemplifies your brand (your employees, for example) can help humanize your voice on social.
- Driving web traffic: Capitalize on the attention that a takeover generates and push people from social media to your website.
- Reaching new audiences: If you choose residents, family members or other brand loyalists, each party involved has their own audiences. Therefore, teaming up can potentially expose your community to new followers and influencers.
Our #SageAgeTakeover Story
Says Debra Gawet, Social and Digital Content Strategist for SageAge Strategies, “Here at SageAge, we recently implemented a social media takeover where our SageAge team members “took over” many of our social media activities for a period of time. It was a wonderful opportunity to let our incredibly talented people share their personalities, interests, inspirations and talents as well as their affinity for helping seniors.”
SageAge Strategies launched its social media takeover called #SageAgeTakeover in July 2018 with a goal to increase our presence and following on prime social channels including Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram and LinkedIn, and to use social media to highlight our company culture and values by providing interesting and engaging content.
Each month through October, different team members participated in the takeover with each team member “taking over” our social media for one week. Using SageAge’s mission and values as a guideline, team members shared interesting and engaging photos and videos that captured what life is like for them on a daily basis as part of #TeamSageAge.
Our Takeover Findings and Results
Our SageAge takeover was highly successful in achieving our established goals as evidenced by the following highlights and channel-specific social media data shown below:
- We noticed a substantial increase in all engagement metrics being analyzed.
- The higher number of posts per day meant a higher level of engagement.
- Videos, GIFs and Boomerang uploads proved to perform better than single image uploads.
- There was an increase in engagement from other team members visiting the social media channels to support the team members participating in the takeover.
Because our #SageAgeTakeover was so successful, we’ve decided to continue the takeover with a team member “taking over” our social media each month.
Detailed Results for Each Social Media Channel:
Facebook:
Fan Increase: +2.45%
Post Sent Increase: +287.50%
Impressions: +255.03%
Engagement: +345.31%
Engagements per post: +21.62%
Twitter:
Follower Increase: +.06%
Tweets Sent Increase: +263.64%
Impressions Increase: +140.84%
Engagement: +158.04%
Retweet Increase: +525%
Instagram:
Follower Increase: +47.27%
Media Sent: +517.86%
Engagement: +479.75%
Impressions: +566.26%
LinkedIn:
Follower Increase: +7.01%
Posts Sent: +247.73%
Impressions: +426.34%
Engagement: +1250.86%
Debra adds, “Given the results of our own social media takeover, we would recommend that our client-partners and other senior living providers consider a social media takeover, as well. All it takes is a little planning and organization and the willingness to showcase your people and your culture to those seeking information on senior living services.
“A takeover can also boost your employees’ spirit and morale while being enjoyable for residents and their families. And with the holidays upon us, the opportunities for fun and creativity seem endless.”
One word of advice. Prior to launching a social media takeover, it is important to establish your goals, specify your implementation plans and identify baseline engagement metrics with which you can compare your end results. In other words, make sure your takeover is strategic. Otherwise, you will be unable assess its business value to your community and effectively plan for future takeover possibilities.
Providing Social Media Expertise and Integrated Marketing Strategies that Generate Results
If your senior living community needs assistance in creating resonant social media strategies that inform, engage and attract new prospects, SageAge Strategies can help. Our professional team of social media experts excels in creating and managing content for your blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and digital marketing efforts that are compelling and generate leads.
We use the latest best-practice knowledge to provide optimal search engine rankings; valuable, shareable content about your community; a “thought leadership” positioning for your brand; and direct engagement with increased numbers of prospects for your sales funnel.
SageAge Strategies: Leaders in Integrated Marketing, Consulting and Lead Generation Solutions for Senior Living
At SageAge Strategies, our marketing team excels in the latest senior living best practices such as integrated marketing and social media strategy that increase quality lead generation and grow your occupancy. If you need assistance in any areas of marketing and integrated growth strategy to improve your business results, we invite you to contact us today to learn more about our proven strategies that have transformed other senior living communities like yours.
SageAge Strategies is a multiple-award-winning, strategic growth, marketing and consulting organization that operates exclusively in the unique senior living marketplace. For more information, please call or email Jason McCloud at 614.795.7373 / [email protected]. You can also visit us on our website at https://www.sageage.com/.
Contact Us Today!