Hashtags in Healthcare How Can you Master this Art?

As a healthcare professional, social media offers you a valuable way to engage with patients, potential patients, and fellow industry professionals through platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, and others. Keeping your sanity while doing that in an efficient time and manner is the big challenge, and in order to conquer that challenge, healthcare hashtags are essential.

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Hashtags are basically just phrases or acronyms with a "#" sign before them. #coronavirus might be included at the end of a tweet about the latest COVID-19 data. By clicking on that hashtag or manually entering it into a search box, users can view all the shared content from everyone who has used it.

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Visibility is the first value of the healthcare hashtag. You won't be able to get your tweets or posts noticed if you don't use hashtags. Let's assume you just started using Instagram, and you only have less than ten followers. Using hashtags allows people unfamiliar with your business, social media channels, or your posts, to find you on social media.

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However, hashtags aren't just about promotion. In addition to helping you find the posts you want to read, hashtags can also help you find the people and organizations you want to follow.

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Suppose you want to follow health care professionals treating diabetes. Diabetes awareness is commonly discussed under the hashtag #diabetesawareness. Using that hashtag allows you not only to read those specific posts but also to follow the accounts they originate from. This is beneficial to get the market beat and current efforts on your area of expertise and to keep a close eye on your competitors and their content.

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Visibility is the first value of the healthcare hashtag. You won't be able to get your tweets or posts noticed if you don't use hashtags. Let's assume you just started using Instagram, and you only have less than ten followers. Using hashtags allows people unfamiliar with your business, social media channels, or your posts, to find you on social media.

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However, hashtags aren't just about promotion. In addition to helping you find the posts you want to read, hashtags can also help you find the people and organizations you want to follow.

‍
Suppose you want to follow health care professionals treating diabetes. Diabetes awareness is commonly discussed under the hashtag #diabetesawareness. Using that hashtag allows you not only to read those specific posts but also to follow the accounts they originate from. This is beneficial to get the market beat and current efforts on your area of expertise and to keep a close eye on your competitors and their content.

In general, the hashtags you use and follow will depend on your practice fields and what you are interested in. Take Instagram, for instance. It is a visual platform. You will find tips on eating well, exercising, and following a healthy diet. Many influencers promote healthy lifestyles on this platform, making #healthy one of the most popular hashtags regarding health, with over 160 million posts.

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For a better understanding, check the examples below:

• #healthyfood - 81m posts
• #healthylifestyle - 68.7m posts
• #healthyliving - 30.1m posts
• #instahealth - 17.3m posts
• #dentist - 7.7m posts
• #maternity - 7.5m posts
• #medical - 5.8m posts
• #healthiswealth - 5.2m posts
• #healthcoach - 4.7m posts
• #virus - 3.6m posts
• #medicalstudent - 1.2m posts
• #disease - 722k posts
• #doctorlife - 327k posts‍‍
• #healthyteeth - 306k posts
• #healthcareworkers - 294k posts

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In order to use social media efficiently, you should use healthcare hashtags in your posts and determine what you follow. Now that you came to realize the importance of using hashtags, their mechanism and advantages, let’s dig deeper into the way of choosing your hashtags mix and best practices to create a solid hashtag strategy across the different platforms.

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