G5 Search Marketing

This blog was originally published by Long Term Living.

By Devin Davis

Wanting the best situation for a loved one drives senior housing prospects to seek referrals. And there’s no quicker way to source referrals and reviews than on the Internet – through Social Media channels.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at the Top 5 Social Media Channels for engaging with Senior Housing prospects:

1. Facebook
In the past year, Facebook has become synonymous with Social Media. And with good reason. This site boasts the largest online community with 3000,000,000 members and users across every demographic (the oft-quoted fastest growing demographic on Facebook is the coveted Senior Housing decision-makers – women 55+). Net: Having a presence on Facebook is a necessity. Ignore it at your own peril.

2. Twitter
Twitter has buzz. And buzz, particularly on the Internet, goes a long way. It’s growing even faster than Facebook, but its user base (more than 20,000,000) is much smaller. Twitter is not only a great way to push content to prospects, but its also a great way to respond to brand concerns about your communities. You can monitor conversations here as well as any other social media site, giving you a chance to hear the chatter about your brand across a heavily used medium. Think of it as reputation management – online.

3. LinkedIn
This is the professional networking site. One of the more established social networks, it has succeeded by targeting businesses and business professionals – active and retired. For Senior Housing – this is a great place to pick up valuable ideas and news (by joining relevant groups), find talent (via your company portal) and find the answers to questions that have been plaguing you professionally (via Questions & Answers).

4. MySpace
People. And lots of them. While MySpace is considered by some industry followers as the “has-been” of the social networks, its user base of 125,000,000 makes it hard to ignore. Recent demographic data shows users of all ages but skews toward rural areas. For communities based in rural areas, MySpace could be a boon.

5. Blogging
This is a great way to talk about your community – events, amenities, what sets you apart from other local Senior Housing providers. The best part? Once you get that nicely worded blog out on the Web, you can push it to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace – giving you extra content and building blog awareness. Blogging software makes this process simple. WordPress happens to be a personal favorite because its intuitive and easy-to-use.

Next up: “Social Media Best Practices” – the do’s, the don’ts and the why nots.

Tags: Assisted Living, Blogging, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Senior Housing, Social Media, Twitter

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 at 11:49 am and is filed under BendTech, G5 Search Marketing Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.