Mobile SEO services are really important for healthcare practices these days, since a good deal of search is carried out on mobile phones. Social networks such as Facebook are capitalizing on this trend.
Facebook Local Is Here
Your specialty healthcare center needs to figure in local search results. But it’s also important to have an active Facebook business page with good user ratings and reviews particularly since the social media giant has now launched Local, an app that helps users search for places or events in their vicinity. So not only is appearing in Google’s local search results important, but figuring in Facebook Local’s suggestions as well since it looks set to become a really popular tool for people looking for something in their town or city.
Facebook Learns Lessons from Failed Events App to Launch Local
Facebook’s Events app was not as successful as Google Calendar. But that hasn’t discouraged the social networking giant. It is kind of re-launching Events, but is now aiming it at Foursquare, Yelp and other such local search platforms, and it’s called Facebook Local. This is an improved version of the Events app and aims at enabling people to find stuff to do or places to visit nearby.
Facebook really wants to be an influencing factor in local search. To provide these results, Facebook will be drawing on its 70 million business pages along with reviews of these businesses and check-ins of the user’s friends.
As of now, ads are not featured. So you can’t expect to stand out with some marketing, but Local’s product manager Aditya Koolwal indicates that advertising could be incorporated in the future.
This App Can Really Get Popular
Facebook Local is available for Android and iOS. With this, people can look for places such as restaurants, clubs, picnic spots, tourist destinations, cinemas, and hospitals or clinics. They can also search for events such as concerts, exhibitions, etc. Users must log in to their Facebook accounts to use the app. That gives the app further information about the places or events the user’s friends have liked on Facebook.
Users Set a Destination and the App Shows Them What They Want
Users can search for events and locations by category or by name. They can also browse the listings on Facebook. For the users the app organizes locations and events into various categories such as music, games, fitness, food, drinks, and health. These results can be sorted in terms of popularity, relevance, rating and distance from the user’s location.
When users select a location, they also get its address, working hours, Facebook rating, popular keywords used by people on Facebook when describing the location, and also pictures of the location posted on Facebook. Other information available includes directions to the location with the help of a maps app, and links to call the place. Users will also be led to check out the location’s Facebook page or its website.
As users download the app, they have to log in to their Facebook accounts. That’s how Facebook Local can reveal what their friends have liked and who among them has liked a particular location. They can allow Facebook to track their locations, or decline the request. They can also set a location, such as a town or city as their preferred destination for recommendations. The place need not necessarily be the location where they are residing.
Easy Categorization of Events and Destinations
The home tab of the app has a search bar at the top with links for browsing locations on the basis of category.
Below that home tab you have lists of upcoming events happening nearby in three sections:
- The “For You” list mentions trending events near the user’s location and events RSVP-ed to by the user’s friends through Facebook.
- The “Events” list mentions events nearby in chronological order.
- The “Guides” section classifies the events by interest such as games and music, arts and culture or causes and fundraisers. Causes and fundraisers are something your clinic or hospital can conduct to attract the socially conscious.
Even if users don’t allow Facebook Local to track their location, they need to set some location to use the app for searching or browsing. This enables Facebook to gauge the interests of people in that location. If users set some location, it is an indication that they are interested in the destination.
Identifying People’s Interests in a Destination
For your healthcare center to make the most of Facebook Local’s potential, it would be great to organize interesting events that raise health awareness and are related to the treatment options you provide. Since users on social network apps usually search for restaurants, malls, theaters, nightlife destinations, and events normally connected to these, your events must revolve around what people tend to like in your destination, such as awareness programs relating to health hazards of binging, impact of regular partying on the body, things that could go wrong in a club, alcohol and drug rehab programs, etc.
The experts at an experienced healthcare digital marketing agency offering mobile SEO services can strategize the right plan to make use of emerging mobile search services.
