A Guideline for Senior Living Communities

Potential residents and their loved ones are establishing trust with your community each time they interact with your brand. This is especially true in today’s digitally advanced age. More and more research and decisions are made online. You need to make sure that your business’ marketing and digital presence not only accurately represent your community, but also build relationships with potential residents. Are you unsure how to effectively manage your online business listings, reviews, and social media pages? Use the following guidelines to get started.

Business Listings

Did you know you have control over your senior living community’s online business listings? It’s time to take an inventory and start managing them for accuracy, consistency, and connectivity.

Online business listings serve two primary purposes: 1) to validate your business information, website, and location to potential residents and search engines like Google and Bing; 2) to ensure search engine users can find you. If you’re new to digital media management, we recommend using a free tool like Moz Local to find and catalog your business listings across various search engines. Once you have an inventory of all of your listings, check to make sure all listings are accurate and consistent.

Checking your business listings for accuracy also lets you know if you need to add new listings, delete duplicate or outdated listings, or add a Google My Business (GMB) listing. Recent changes to Google’s search algorithms depend on an accurate GMB. With it comes an expanded listing, with location, phone number, business hours, reviews, and ratings on the results page.

Online Reviews

Review sites allow you to confirm ownership of your business and manage the information, photos, videos, and call-to-action buttons that are shown on a review page. But, it’s more than that: review sites significantly impact purchasing decisions. Just how much of an impact can reviews make? Let’s take a look:

Decision-Making

  • One negative review can drive away 30 new customers: this statistic accounts for all industries, not just senior living, but it’s important to note their impact.
  • 90 percent of consumers read online reviews before visiting a business; 83 percent of those readers will use reviews to make a purchase or lease decision.

Building Trust and Influence

  • Online opinions have been shown to be 84 percent as influential and trustworthy as personal recommendations.
  • Positive online reviews make 74 percent of consumers trust a local business more.

You’re probably wondering if you need to engage with or respond to your reviewers. Most of the time the answer is yes. Negative reviews can have a significant impact. We recommend responses to negative reviews that are simple and avoid emotional or personal language. The best thing to do is to apologize, address their concerns specifically, and provide a potential solution. Positive reviews could receive a simple, “Thank you (Name)! We are happy you are part of the (Your community’s name) family!”

Social Media: Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube

You may think a social media presence isn’t necessary for your senior living community. But, think of how often you work with a resident’s loved ones, especially in the beginning. According to the Pew Research Center, 78 percent of people between the ages of 30 and 49 use Facebook, and 40 percent use Instagram. More than half of adults 50-64 use Facebook (65 percent) and YouTube (68 percent). Instagram, however, is not widely used in this demographic. Currently, 41 percent of people 65 years and older are using Facebook;that number is likely to grow as the 50-64 year old group ages. Whether you’re using social media for advertising, making new local connections, or sharing creative content, updating and engaging is essential.

Videos and photos uploaded to Facebook and Instagram give potential residents a glimpse of your community and what life would look like for their loved ones Start with photos and a virtual tour of the grounds and resident apartments, but be sure to also include staff interviews, resident testimonials, and an overview of your community’s features. Social media is also a great way to introduce yourself to neighboring businesses. Is there a great cafe down the street? Let your Facebook followers know by sharing one of their posts. Consider adding a virtual tour of the neighborhood and feature walkable restaurants, grocers, and places of worship.

Now that you’ve added introductory videos to your Facebook and Instagram pages, you should also consider starting a YouTube page. This may come as a surprise, but there are four times as many boomer-aged YouTube users than viewers under 18 years old. Over 60 million boomers age 55+ visit YouTube every month across multiple devices. Videos are a great way to introduce potential residents and their loved ones to your staff, community, and features. You can also upload videos directly to your website.

Take Ownership of Your Online Presence

This may sound like a lot to maintain, especially if you are new to social media and reputation management. We know it can be a daunting and time-consuming task. You can take ownership of your online presence with simple steps and tools. Or, you can partner with G5 and let us help you with our automation tool, G5 Reputation and Social.

G5 Reputation and Social brings all of your social media accounts, business listings, and channels into one easy-to-use dashboard. The dashboard monitors your social media portfolio from more than 20 sites, including senior living specific sites like Caring.com, SeniorAdvisor.com, and A Place for Mom. It also monitors location mentions on Facebook, Twitter, and blogs. A daily email will recap social media activity, reviews, and online mentions. G5 Reputation and Social will also analyze billions of online conversations to identify key topics that will drive better customer experiences for your community.

Ready to learn more? Check out G5 Solutions today.