As the need for home health care rises, so does the number of local home care agencies, and while at one time you may have been the only home care facility in your area, today you likely find yourself in competition with several other agencies. So how does one compete in such a seemingly crowded market? Showcasing your agency’s accreditations via social media marketing can help your business stand out in the crowd.

Consumers are looking for the best of the best when it comes to spending their hard earned dollars, and when it comes to adult children searching for solutions for home care for their elderly parents, your agency’s accreditations can be their deciding factor. So, you want to make sure that this vital information is posted wherever your potential clients are searching. LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter–among the hundreds of other sites–have changed the way that we search for information. As these sites become more pervasive there is no question about where people searching for resources will turn when looking for more information about in-home care. These sites are excellent places to engage current and potential referral sources or potential customers in conversation, answer questions, and also show off a little.

LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a network of professionals and companies and is a perfect place to showcase your agency’s credentials. The site allows you to set up a profile for your company that can display agency information, your current employees, new hires, and any accreditations you may have. Keep in mind, though, that, while LinkedIn is a great place to showcase your business, it is primarily used by other professionals and job seekers as opposed to consumers.

Facebook
In recent years, Facebook has become a wildly popular place for business marketing, and why not? With a following of nearly 500 million people, who wouldn’t want to have a presence on the most popular social network in the world? The benefits of marketing your agency on Facebook are numerous, but in terms of touting your accreditations, the main benefit is that your Facebook profile is highly customizable for text and graphics. Create a welcome, or landing, page for your company’s profile that displays the logos of all programs through which your organization is accredited. These logos stand out to people who are searching for home care services and instantly establish credibility for your organization.

Twitter
Most people think of Twitter as a brain dump of 140 characters at a time, and while that may be fairly accurate in some cases, the site also allows you to completely customize the look of your page to fit your company’s brand. As with Facebook, on Twitter you can post your accreditation logos, not to mention send out tweets about them to your followers.

But don’t limit your social media thinking to just the sites listed above. Social media marketing also encompasses your agency’s website and blog, for example.

The Agency Website
There is simply no more important place to have good information than on the agency website. Accreditation featured prominently right on the home page says to anyone who stops by, “I am a quality provider; stay and look around.” Linking all social media from the website and then using the power of the social media engagement to assist the search engines in ranking your site higher just makes using the Internet all the more important. And the more mentions and activity that occur on social media and as updates to your blog and website, the higher your ranking.

Blogging
Companies have been using blogs to supplement their websites for years, and it’s likely that, even if you haven’t yet tested the waters of social networking sites, you have at least tried your hand at blogging. Your agency’s blog is a great place to showcase your accreditation logos, and don’t forget to use the posts themselves to explain what each accreditation means and why they are important.

Bragging about yourself can be difficult, but boasting your company’s accreditations shouldn’t be. These credentials are essential to your business and they help customers make vital decisions when comparison shopping. Don’t be afraid to use social media to flaunt your accreditations and get noticed!

Stay and play on the Internet and use your accreditations as a way to market your agency through social media and all communications.