New Media Marketing in the Medical Beauty Industry

After the epidemic, medical beauty institutions have been affected to some extent in terms of brand exposure and attracting new customers. This is also a problem that we operators need to think about and solve.

In fact, brand exposure and attracting new customers can be broken down into three concepts: advertising reach, brand power, and conversion power.

The concept of product and effect integration has been very popular in the medical beauty circle in recent years. As a balance between brand and effect, it actually emphasizes the importance of brand building and attracting new customers.

In fact, the two are not contradictory. The healthy growth of a brand mainly comes from more people buying it. The two complement each other.

So how can we in the medical beauty industry balance branding and customer acquisition? The strategy is to find a platform that can better reach new customers and influence more new customers.

To implement this strategy, it is necessary to evaluate the traffic locations that can efficiently acquire new customers and gradually transfer the budget to these efficient locations.

In this fragmented era, how can we get more new customers to see our brand content? This is what I’m going to share with you next: understanding and playing with new media platforms.

1. Understanding and playing new media platforms

Compared with online vertical platforms and referral platforms, offline beauty salons also have cross-industry channels. Why should we choose new media platforms?

First, let’s look at user attributes. According to the latest statistics from SoYoung’s big data, the average age of medical beauty consumers is 24-25 years old. This group of people has been active on new media platforms for a long time. This is the first point, the user advantage.

Secondly, let's look at the platform traffic. Taking daily active users as an example, Weibo has nearly 300 million users, Douyin has more than 600 million, Video Account has reached 350 million and is rising rapidly, Xiaohongshu and Bilibili have both exceeded 50 million. This is the second point, the traffic advantage.

Finally, let's look at user search habits. For medical beauty or beauty products, the younger generation of users are gradually abandoning traditional platforms such as Baidu and WeChat official accounts. They are more likely to search for popular science on Zhihu, SoYoung, and Xiaohongshu; check the reputation of hospitals on Dianping and Weibo; and convert from Douyin and Video Accounts to stores.

2. New Media Platform Awareness

We introduce several mainstream new media platforms suitable for medical beauty promotion.

The first one is Weibo. The role played by Weibo is the brand display area of ​​hospitals or doctors. It is an important part of IP creation. A good Weibo account is a permanent billboard. I will explain in detail later why it is a permanent billboard and what advertising spaces are there on Weibo.

The second one is Tik Tok. With the fragmentation of public time and the trend of reading in the form of videos, Tik Tok is more in line with users’ usage preferences and firmly occupies the first place in short video traffic. Therefore, our medical beauty industry cannot miss out on short video traffic.

The third one is Xiaohongshu, the largest lifestyle sharing community in China, which has a very high grass-planting effect. The post-90s group is very large, and this is the gathering place for beauty-loving women.

The fourth one is Zhihu: What kind of users are there on Zhihu? They are a young group of knowledgeable middle-class people who pursue quality of life. To be honest, when users encounter problems or make consumption decisions, they don’t trust Baidu very much. Instead, they habitually search and ask questions on Zhihu because of its originality, authenticity, and strong basic sense of trust, which is also the content tone of the Zhihu platform. We can grasp this type of high-precision users.

The fifth one is Bilibili. The users of Bilibili are basically the new generation, with those born between 2000 and 1990 accounting for 78%. They have a strong interest in consumption and judgment. Internet celebrity projects spread very quickly, such as chopstick legs, wine glass legs, elf ears, etc. Moreover, users gather in economically developed areas and are the main consumer force in the future.

The last one is Video Account. I believe many people are familiar with Video Account because it has grown so fast. It has 1.2 billion WeChat users and 350 million daily active users, and its growth rate is still rising rapidly. Its growth rate far exceeds that of Douyin and Kuaishou.

For us in medical beauty, the current opportunity is that the threshold for content review is still very low. Unlike Douyin and Kuaishou, it will not allow images of surgical needles and knives to appear. Therefore, it is recommended to make arrangements as soon as possible. It is a very good tool. The stimulation of videos in the circle of friends every day can help us better convert offline to stores.

3. Let’s look at the gameplay of each platform and the content review rules

1. How to use Weibo

Let’s first look at Weibo. I just mentioned that Weibo is an important part of building a doctor’s IP. Doctor certification on Weibo is relatively simple. All you need is an ID card, a professional qualification certificate, and a proof of employment. Other application conditions, such as the number of followers, the number of mutual fans, are relatively easy to handle.

Weibo also has a content review mechanism. During the operation, we must pay special attention to blog posts, pictures, and private messages. In the blog posts, do not touch the official banned words, do not include external links and contact information, pictures should preferably be original, and then post nine pictures, try to have no watermarks, and high resolution. Try to get the other party's contact information, sensitive words must be harmonized, and it is best not to send QR codes directly, because Weibo also has the concept of weight. Excessive marketing or violation of content regulations will result in a reduction in authority.

When it comes to Weibo, there is another concept that must be mentioned, and that is the real-time account.

What is an account with real-time function? The Weibo platform has created an operating mechanism to improve the user experience of those who are frequently active on Weibo.

In other words, only Weibo users who are often active on Weibo, have high interactive behavior, and produce original content will have this function.

Simply put, if you want more people to see the information you post, you must first let the system determine that you are a high-quality user.

This brings up a gameplay: How to maintain an account?

• Post more than 2 Weibo posts every day. Pay attention to original content. You can copy it from other platforms, such as official accounts, Zhihu, Xiaohongshu, etc., but it must have never been posted on Weibo.
• Like and interact every day, but be careful not to like too many times in a short period of time. It is enough to like, comment and follow more than 30 times.
• Unless there are special circumstances, do not delete blog posts too often. Do not publish advertising and marketing information during the account maintenance period, and do not allow the word WeChat or WeChat QR code to appear.

According to the user's search habits, you will see from top to bottom: drop-down words, drop-down avatars, user rankings, popular ads, and real-time ads.

Weibo drop-down avatar: When a user searches for a specified keyword, such as double eyelids, Weibo accounts with the keyword will appear under the Weibo search box.

Only three accounts at most will be displayed in this position. The more fans an account has, the higher it will be. Of course, these accounts must have a drop-down avatar function so that they can improve keyword rankings by increasing fans.

So what are the advantages of this advertising space?

The position of the Weibo drop-down avatar is displayed. When potential customers actively search for keywords, up to 3 accounts will be automatically displayed below the search box. The target group is accurate and effective, and real-time traffic interception can be achieved.

Only accounts with high authority and many followers can appear in the drop-down box. Similarly, high-authority accounts can create a strong sense of trust for our potential customers.

It takes a lot of time and manpower to create such an account by yourself, so it is better to rent one. For the rented drop-down avatar account, you can change the avatar, introduction, and pinned blog post to your own information, and update the content every day, so as to package the account as your own and increase customer trust.

We can see that there are many entries on these accounts. These are the Weibo drop-down words. When searching for a keyword on Weibo, the preview words, association words, and guide words that appear in the system drop-down box are the drop-down words.

For example, if we search for the keyword "double eyelids" on Weibo, the preview word "double eyelid surgery" that appears at the bottom of the system is one of the drop-down words. Click the drop-down word to enter the user's Weibo homepage.

Fans who come by actively searching for keywords are all very accurate potential customers. If we make our Weibo account and content more professional, it will be easy to attract fans' attention and trust.

The advantages of this ad space are also quite obvious:

The ad position is at the front, and it has a first-hand impression, which can achieve long-term and stable exposure and intercept potential customers. Clicking the drop-down word can directly display the matching Weibo account, and the drainage information is obvious. The drop-down word is officially recommended by Sina, which is conducive to increasing consumers' trust. The higher the ranking, the more obvious the effect.

The drop-down box shows the Weibo user rankings:

When searching for a keyword on Weibo, the user list and user account rankings are displayed. For example, if we search for the keyword "double eyelids" on Weibo, the user ranking that appears at the bottom of the system is the Weibo user ranking.

Click on the account to directly enter the user's homepage. The personal homepage can publish industry-related content to create a professional image. The homepage can leave contact information to achieve direct conversion. Directed search matches accurate customer sources, with a higher ranking than peers, grabbing 25% of Weibo's natural traffic, and continuous and stable private message consultation

Then, looking down, we see the popular advertising positions on Weibo: when searching for a keyword on Weibo, the blog posts displayed in the first three positions on the comprehensive page are the popular Weibo posts. You can showcase industry products and add contact information in blog posts. The top three popular ads account for 35% of Weibo’s exposure, providing continuous, stable and efficient traffic push.

Below the popular positions are real-time blog posts, which can also display cases.

2. How to play on the Douyin platform

Many people have a question: How can medical beauty companies create a Douyin account? The ban is too serious!

Indeed, the TikTok review threshold for the medical beauty industry is very high, but we don’t want to give up such a good traffic position, what should we do?

There are three ways to play that are more suitable for medical beauty accounts:

• The first one, which is also the one I recommend the most, is the perspective of an aesthetic blogger, who uses the personality of a consultant to analyze appearance, express aesthetic concepts, and do some light science popularization of medical beauty.
• The second is from an amateur’s perspective, recording one’s own experience to share the entire process of consultation, surgery, and recovery;
• The third is from the doctor's perspective. The doctor's review is the most stringent, so identity authentication is required. Douyin's authentication is relatively difficult. First of all, it must be an on-the-job physician in a tertiary hospital. Information screenshots of the National Health Commission, practice certificates, qualification certificates, departmental professional certificates, etc. are also required.

No matter from which angle you operate the account, you need to be familiar with the content review mechanism and avoid violating sensitive words in the title. For the medical beauty industry, I have compiled a list of the latest sensitive words, which I can send directly to everyone if necessary. The video content must be original and high-definition. Ordinary accounts are not allowed to post operating room scenes, as they can easily be blocked.

Many friends in the medical beauty circle have also asked me whether Xiaohongshu can certify doctors? How to authenticate?

First of all, doctor certification is very difficult. Previously, there were some internal channels that could be used, but now it is almost impossible. In addition, Xiaohongshu also has strict controls on official advertising, and currently only 20 whitelisted companies are open.

Therefore, when operating Xiaohongshu, you must not cross the red line of content review. The positioning angle is similar to that of Douyin, with three types: bloggers, amateurs, and doctors. Sensitive words must also be avoided.

The Xiaohongshu platform has an inclusion review mechanism. The concept of inclusion is not unfamiliar. We all know that Baidu and Zhihu have it. Simply put, only notes included in the Xiaohongshu platform can be searched by users, get corresponding exposure, and have the opportunity to become popular and rank high.

It is very difficult to place an official advertisement on Xiaohongshu, but through operational means, there are two advertisement positions with very good traffic exposure. The first is the Xiaohongshu note ranking: when searching for a certain keyword on Xiaohongshu, the ranking of the keyword-related notes that appear will be optimized to make the notes gain more exposure and realize brand product promotion.

In the keyword search of Xiaohongshu, the top ten notes account for 65% of the exposure of Xiaohongshu's page, which is a huge search volume.

The second is the hot comments on Xiaohongshu. After searching for a keyword on Xiaohongshu, select the popular notes and @Xiaohongshu’s main account in the comments. Users can click @account to directly enter the user’s homepage and optimize the comment to the front position.

Seize the best position for comment exposure. Because Xiaohongshu tends to be a platform for promoting and removing products, comments are very important and can account for about 30% of Xiaohongshu's exposure. Only by improving comment rankings and optimizing exposure can you seize the opportunity to gain traffic.

The best advertising placements on Zhihu are article rankings and pinned questions and answers. Article ranking is to optimize the ranking of keyword-related content that appears when searching for a certain keyword, so that the content gets more exposure and achieves brand product promotion.

The top questions and answers are questions related to the search industry. The answers will be maintained at the top position to quickly harvest accurate traffic.

Author: Content Marketing-Tan

Source: Content Marketing - Tan