How to Grow Your Funeral Home’s Social Media Following

Everyone talks about getting your funeral home online.

But when it comes to BUILDING your online audience, that’s a whole other story.

Many funeral homes struggle to build and engage their audience on their social media. 

We’re here to tell you that it’s totally possible to have a large, engaged following on your social media channels!

Take the following deathcare professionals for example.

Keep reading to see some examples of how funeral pros rocking it on social media and the lessons they can teach us about growing and engaging your funeral home’s audience online.

Check them out below:

 

Answer your followers’ questions

When Gerald, an embalmer & autopsy tech, known as “@big_led73”, posts on Instagram, his followers are WAITING for his content. Yes, it’s possible to be an embalmer and to have people dying (pun intended) to hear your content! 

Gerald keeps his followers engaged by using his videos to address their very specific questions and comments. His followers love his content so much that they have used it to  help them overcome their fear of death and even to help them fall asleep at night. Now that’s a success story right there!

What we can learn from him: Use your social presence to answer the burning questions you know your followers have. Encourage them to ask questions so that you can tag them in your posts and answer them. That makes them feel special, seen, heard and cared for. Plus, you’re answering questions I’m sure many out there have, who don’t get a chance to find answers to often!

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by G Dubya (@big_led73)

 

Interact with your products and services

Hannah Jackson, known as  “@_thegardenofevie_” on Instagram, is a florist with a bountiful bouquet of flowers and followers on the Gram (aka Instagram). Her feed is full of stunning photos of her products and services, and how her customers interact with them. What strikes us about her content is that she takes a seemingly simple business model (floral bouquets) and finds ways to invite more engagement with her customers through workshops, events and tutorials.

What we can learn from her: When you show off how you and your customers interact with your products and services, others will be inspired to interact with them, too. Make your products and services inviting and inviting through videos and photos and even events and tutorials too!

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Hannah Jackson (@_thegardenofevie_)

 

Show your humanity 

Kari, known as @Kari_the_mortician, is a mortician (if you couldn’t tell by her handle :-P) and has a decently large following compared to most other morticians. For us, we can see that it’s because of her behind-the-scenes peek into being a funeral professional. Not many people get to see the humanity of a funeral professional. So in many ways, she offers that as a service to the industry as a whole to help us humanize our profession!

What we can learn from her: It’s almost impossible to find non-gothic content that shows behind-the-scenes aspects of being a funeral professional. So help our industry out a little! Post cute, short, sweet videos of you being you (just like the post below by Kari) and watch how people want to engage more with you. 

Speak your truth (because people want to hear it)

A lot of times, we play it safe with our voices when it comes to our funeral homes. And for good reason. Of course we don’t want to offend anyone or make anyone feel that we’re not a safe haven for those needing support during a loss. However, there is a fine line between being mindful and shrinking your truth. 

We find that those profiles who speak their unapologetic truth online tend to have higher follower counts and more engaged audiences. That’s because truth has a magnetism to it, even if it’s subjective. Fluff and vanilla mumbo jumbo doesn’t have much magnetism to it at all. We love how @DeathDoulaLA shares things that can be conceived as controversial or taboo, in a tasteful and inclusive way. Being honest, even when painful, builds trust with your client families in a way that would otherwise be difficult to do with a stranger.

What we can learn: If you’re trying to fit in and people please with your social media content, don’t expect much engagement, if any at all. Find your edge where you can speak your truth and not offend. That’s the magical point of magnetism. 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Jill Schock (@deathdoulala)

The conclusion

Getting on social media is one thing. Painting your feed with obits is another. Take it a step further and you’ll find that the more you put into your social presence, the more you’ll receive. If you post thought provoking, interesting content, people will listen to you! Even if it takes a while, it’s totally worth it to have a social presence your funeral business can lean on in unpredictable times (read: global pandemics that keep us locked inside). 

 

What other funeral pros out there do you see rocking it on social media? What can you learn from them? We’d love to hear from you in the comments!

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