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How to integrate email marketing with your social media strategy

Abigail
30 May 2026
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Most health and wellness businesses run their email marketing and social media as two entirely separate activities. Instagram posts go out on Tuesday, the newsletter goes out on Thursday, and nobody thinks too hard about whether they are actually working together.

It is an easy habit to fall into, and a fairly costly one. Here is how to get both channels pulling in the same direction.

 

Why the two channels are stronger together

 

Social media is brilliant for getting discovered. Someone finds your content, follows you, and starts to trust you. The challenge is that social media algorithms decide who sees your content and when. Organic reach on Instagram has been declining for years, and on Facebook it can be lower still. You are always, to some degree, at the mercy of a platform you do not own.

Email sits in a different category entirely. It reaches people directly, with no algorithm in the way, and the return on investment reflects that. In the wellness industry, email marketing generates an average return of 42:1 on spend, and across healthcare more broadly, email open rates consistently outperform the cross-industry average. When social media and email are working together, you have discovery and direct access in the same strategy, which is a considerably more resilient position than relying on either channel alone.

 

Use social media to grow your email list

 

Your social platforms are one of the most effective tools available for building an email list, provided you are deliberate about it. Instagram and Facebook both allow a link in your bio or profile that goes directly to a sign-up page, but what you are offering in return matters a great deal. A vague invitation to subscribe to a newsletter will not move many people. A free five-day meal plan, a practical sleep guide, or a beginner’s stress-reduction toolkit, something your audience would genuinely find useful, is worth considerably more than a generic prompt.

Stories are another underused option. A link sticker pointing to a free download takes minutes to set up and can quietly do its job in the background while you get on with everything else. On LinkedIn, sharing a useful piece of content and inviting people to access more via email tends to feel natural, because people are already in a learning mindset on that platform. The principle throughout is the same: make signing up feel like receiving something rather than giving something away.

 

Use email to extend the life of your social content

 

This works the other way round too, and it is something most wellness brands barely touch. If you have put real effort into a piece of social content, a well-produced Reel, an in-depth carousel, or a behind-the-scenes Story, it is worth sharing with your email list as well. It gives subscribers a reason to follow you on social, and it means your content reaches more people without requiring you to produce anything new.

You can also use email to build a little anticipation. Letting your list know that something is coming on Instagram or TikTok this week costs almost nothing to write and can meaningfully increase early engagement when the content actually lands. Segmented email campaigns, where different subscriber groups receive content relevant to their specific interests, see open rates 14% higher and click-through rates more than 100% higher than non-segmented sends. If you are currently sending the same email to everyone on your list, there is meaningful performance being left behind.

 

Keep your messaging consistent across both channels

 

This is where a lot of wellness businesses quietly lose credibility. They are talking about one thing on Instagram and something noticeably different in their emails, and audiences pick up on the inconsistency even if they cannot quite articulate why the brand feels slightly off.

If you are running a seasonal campaign, a January reset series, a summer wellbeing push, or a back-to-school stress management theme, it should show up consistently across social and email with the same language, the same focus, and the same tone. In health and wellness, people are placing real trust in you. A brand that feels coherent across every touchpoint builds that trust considerably faster than one that feels disjointed.

 

Send email subscribers to your best content

 

Not everyone who follows you on social will see every post, but the people on your email list have actively opted in. They have indicated, in fairly clear terms, that they want to hear from you, which makes them a warmer audience than most social followers. When you publish a blog post, a guide, a video series, or any longer piece of content, telling your subscribers about it drives traffic, adds authentic value to the email, and gives people a reason to keep opening your messages.

It’s also worth considering timing. Around 58% of people say email is the first thing they check online in the morning, which means a well-timed email pointing to strong content can be the first genuinely useful thing someone encounters in their day.

 

You do not need to overcomplicate it

 

None of this requires sophisticated automation or a dedicated in-house team. Starting with one or two points of connection between your email and social activity each week is entirely sufficient. One social post a week that promotes something on your email list, and one email a month that highlights your best social content or teases something coming, is already more than most wellness brands are doing, and it compounds over time.

 

How we can help

We manage both social media and email marketing for health and wellness brands, so we have a reasonable handle on how to get the two working together rather than running in parallel and ignoring each other. If you would like to talk through what that might look like for your business, we are happy to have that conversation.

Get in touch.

 

Sources

WifiTalents: Marketing in the Wellness Industry Statistics (2026)

Net One Click: Email Marketing Statistics for Healthcare (2026)

Da Digital Sense: How Health and Wellness Brands Can Maximise Email Marketing ROI (2023)

Designmodo: 60+ Email Marketing ROI Statistics for 2026 (2026)

Growth Navigate: Email Marketing Statistics: Key Data Points for 2025 and 2026 (2026)

Campaign Monitor: 2025 Email Marketing Benchmarks (2025)

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Which social media platform is right for your business?

Abigail
17 Apr 2026
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If you feel like you are supposed to be posting everywhere, all the time, you are not alone. The pressure to maintain a presence on every platform is real, and honestly, it’s exhausting. You do not need to be everywhere. You need to be in the right places, doing the right things.

Here’s how to work out which platforms deserve your time and energy.

 

Start with your audience

 

Before you think about content, you need to know where your ideal clients actually spend their time. A luxury yoga retreat and a sports nutrition brand are not going to find their people in the same place.

Among Gen Z, 41% now turn to social media first when looking for information, compared to just 32% who prioritise Google or traditional search engines. That shift matters enormously for health and wellness brands. Your customers are not searching on Google. They are searching in feeds.

The question is: which feeds?

 

Instagram: still the home base for wellness

 

For health, wellness and lifestyle businesses, Instagram remains one of the most powerful platforms. It is visual, aspirational, and people actively go there looking for wellness content.

Instagram has 2 billion monthly active users. The 25 to 34 age group makes up the largest share of its global audience at around 31.6%, followed closely by 18 to 24 year olds at 29.5%. That is a significant concentration of exactly the audience most wellness brands are after.

It works well if you have strong visual content: movement, ingredients, transformation, or considered lifestyle aesthetics. Stories and Reels give you space to show personality, share useful content, and build genuine community.

The challenge is that the algorithm rewards consistency and real engagement. Posting and disappearing will not get you far. You need to show up regularly, and put some thought into what you post when you do.

 

TikTok: the platform that rewards being useful

 

TikTok might still feel like a stretch for some wellness brands, though we would encourage you to look at the numbers before dismissing it. The average TikTok user spends 61 minutes per day on the platform, compared to 49 minutes on Instagram.

TikTok leads in engagement with an average 7.4% video engagement rate, compared to Instagram Reels at 4.3%. People are more active on TikTok, not just watching passively.

The platform rewards authenticity and usefulness over polish. Nutritionists breaking down diet myths, physios demonstrating techniques, or wellness educators explaining complex ideas in plain language – that sort of content does well here. Roughly 49% of Gen Z uses TikTok specifically for product discovery. If you are trying to reach a younger audience, that’s a number worth paying attention to.

The demographic is skewing older every year, but TikTok remains strongest for brands targeting under-35s.

 

Facebook: underrated for community and local reach

 

Facebook might not feel like the most inspiring place to spend your marketing energy, but for certain wellness businesses, it genuinely works. 58% of 30 to 49 year olds and 54% of 50 to 64 year olds report daily Facebook use.

If you run a local studio, a clinic, or a wellness centre, that demographic matters. Facebook Groups build community well, and the events feature is useful for workshops, classes, and retreats. People still use it to find local businesses and check reviews, which makes a solid presence worth maintaining even if it is not your main focus.

 

LinkedIn: the underused option for B2B wellness

 

LinkedIn is not the obvious choice for wellness brands, but if you sell to businesses rather than consumers, it may be the most important platform you are currently ignoring.

Four out of five LinkedIn members drive business decisions at their companies. 89% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn for lead generation, and 62% say it produces leads effectively.

Health coaches working with executives, corporate wellbeing consultants, and employee assistance providers can build serious credibility here. B2B marketers ranked LinkedIn as their most-used platform in 2025, which means competition is growing. Brands that lead with genuine expertise, specific insight, and real-world results will stand out. Thought leadership consistently outperforms generic brand content on the platform.

 

YouTube: the slow burn that keeps paying off

 

YouTube takes genuine investment and proper, ongoing effort. But if you are willing to commit, the return can outlast almost any other platform. YouTube adoption stands at 84% among US adults, with usage among the 30 to 49 age group at 92%.

For wellness brands with something to teach, whether that is workout programming, nutrition education, meditation, or any kind of how-to content, YouTube functions more like a search engine than a social platform. Content posted today can still bring in new audiences years from now. This is a different kind of return compared to the short-cycle platforms.

 

Pinterest: worth more than most brands give it credit for

 

Pinterest’s monthly users increased from 553 million to 600 million recently, showing renewed growth. With 70% female users and the largest group now aged 25 to 34, Pinterest is particularly strong for wellness, food, fitness, and lifestyle content.

If your content includes nutrition, recipes, fitness routines, or wellness lifestyle content, Pinterest is a discovery platform that can drive real website traffic. Content here has a longer shelf life than almost any other platform, and the intent behind a Pinterest search is about as warm as it gets. Someone searching for meal plans or supplement guidance is already interested. They just need to find you.

 

So where should you actually be?

 

Pick one or two platforms where your audience genuinely spends time, and do them properly. Quality beats quantity, every time. The most common mistake wellness brands make is spreading their energy across five platforms and doing none of them well. We have seen it more times than we would care to admit.

Think about where you can create content that feels natural to produce, where you can engage authentically, and where your audience is already searching for what you offer.

 

Want help working it out?

Working out your social media strategy doesn’t have to feel like guesswork. We manage Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and TikTok for health and wellness businesses, and we are happy to talk through what makes sense for your goals.

Get in touch.

 

Sources

Sprout Social — Social Media Demographics to Inform Your 2026 Strategy (2026)

Piktochart — Social Media Demographics 2025 (2026)

SQ Magazine — TikTok vs. Instagram Statistics 2026 (2026)

Pew Research Center — Americans’ Social Media Use 2025 (2025)

HubSpot — 2026 Marketing Statistics, Trends & Data (2026)

LinkedIn + Ipsos — 2025 B2B Marketing Benchmark (2025)

Supergrow — 100+ LinkedIn Statistics 2026 (2026)

Marketing Charts — Social Media Platforms’ User Demographics: 2025 Edition (2025)

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Your hashtags are probably reaching fewer people than you think

slate
07 Feb 2026
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Most brands are still treating hashtags the way they did five years ago. Same 20 tags, copied and pasted to every post. It feels efficient, but it’s actually working against you.

The role of hashtags has changed significantly. They are no longer the reach multiplier they once were. Here is what they actually do now, and how to use them effectively.

 

01

Instagram now has a hard limit of five hashtags. Use them well.

 

In December 2025, Instagram introduced a platform-enforced cap of five hashtags per post and Reel. This is not a recommendation. If you try to publish more, Instagram will either block the post or remove the excess tags automatically.

This is actually a useful forcing function. It ends the era of hashtag stuffing and makes every slot count. The question is no longer how many hashtags to use, but which five are worth using.

Hashtags now function primarily as classification signals. They help Instagram’s algorithm understand what your content is about and recommend it to users who already engage with similar topics. Think of them as metadata, not megaphones. Accuracy matters more than volume, and relevance to your actual content matters more than search popularity.

For health and wellness brands, this means choosing hashtags that are genuinely specific to the post. Your audience is searching with intent. They are looking for #magnesium or #coldtherapy or #adaptogenicherbs, not broad lifestyle tags that every brand in every category uses.

 

02

Hashtags are now part of your SEO strategy, not separate from it

 

Instagram has shifted from hashtag-based discovery to keyword-based search. The platform reads captions, alt text, and even spoken audio in videos to understand and rank content. Hashtags are one signal among several, not the main event.

In July 2025, Instagram also made public posts eligible to appear in Google Search results. That means your content is no longer limited to people already on the platform. Hashtags, captions, and alt text all contribute to how discoverable your posts are, both inside Instagram and on the wider web. 

Write your caption for a person first, and for search second. Use the words your audience actually types into a search bar. A caption that says “cold water therapy for recovery after strength training” will work harder for you than one that relies on hashtags alone to communicate the topic.

On LinkedIn, one or two relevant hashtags help categorise your content for the algorithm. More than that tends to look like overcrowding.

On TikTok, hashtags still carry more discovery weight than on Instagram and function closely to search keywords. If your wellness audience is there, treat your TikTok hashtags as search terms first.

 

03

Rotate your hashtags and make at least one of them yours

 

Using the same hashtag set on every post is flagged as spam behaviour. Instagram’s algorithm deprioritises accounts that do it, which means your posts reach fewer people over time.

Build two or three different hashtag sets and rotate them. Each should combine a broad tag, a few niche-specific ones that match the individual post, and at least one branded hashtag.

That branded hashtag is more valuable than most brands realise. It builds a searchable archive of your content over time. Anyone who finds one post and taps the tag finds everything else you have published under it. For health and wellness brands with a consistent content strategy, this compounds meaningfully over six to twelve months. It also makes user-generated content far easier to track if your audience starts using it.

 

Want help with this?

If you want a social media partner who understands the health and wellness category and manages this kind of detail daily, we should talk.

🔗 dotdashdigital.com

 

 

Original post: 2020

All too often we see brands and companies packing their captions full of hashtags – regardless of the platform, and with little consideration for what is actually considered the optimum hashtag activity.

Well, spoiler alert, hashtag stuffing can actually be bad for the visibility and success of your posts.

There is in fact a correct way to use hashtags on social media, and it all starts with the platform you are using.

The Discover tool on Instagram is super useful for getting your content in the discovery feed of those who regularly search for content around your industry or area – and this is determined using the hashtags you share. Here are our top tips to using #Hashtags effectively on Instagram…

1. We have already encouraged you to sign up for a business profile if you are a company or brand operating on Instagram. And now it’s time to use those analytics and insights that having a business profile give you access to. Select one of your posts, go to Insights, and see how many impressions you got from each hashtag to rate its success.

2. Look at what your competitors are using for their hashtags. (Then make yours more targeted, as branded as possible, and better!)

3. Don’t post the same hashtags on every post. It can be super appealing to just copy and paste, but remember that if you stuff every post with the same content, Instagram’s algorithm will penalise you for spam content and your posts won’t show up in as many discovery feeds.

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Optimising your social media content for mobile

slate
30 Jan 2026
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Your content might look great on your laptop. But your audience is almost certainly not on their laptop.

According to Priori Data and BroadbandSearch, around 98% of social media users access platforms via mobile devices. That is not a stat to note and move on from. It should shape every creative decision you make.

Here are four ways to make your content work for the device your audience is holding.

 

01

Think vertically, not horizontally

 

Most people scroll with one thumb. The content that performs best in 2026 is built for that reality.

Instagram updated its grid format in 2025, shifting away from the classic square crop toward a taller 3:4 rectangle. The platform now favours portrait orientation across the feed, and its own data reflects that. Portrait posts at 4:5 (1080 x 1350 px) consistently outperform square images because they take up more screen space and stay in view longer as someone scrolls.

For feed posts, 4:5 portrait (1080 x 1350 px) is now the default to design for. For Stories and Reels, 9:16 vertical (1080 x 1920 px) fills the full screen. 

If you are designing content in landscape, you are designing for desktop. Most of your audience will never see it the way you intended. 

 

02

Keep visuals simple and focused

 

Small screens punish complexity. An image that reads well at full size on a monitor can become unreadable on a phone, particularly if there is too much going on in the frame.

Health and wellness brands tend to do well here because the category lends itself to clean, considered imagery. A single hero product, a close crop of an ingredient, a still life with one strong focal point. These are the kinds of visuals that translate well across every screen size.

 

03

Short video outperforms long video, but captions matter more than length

 

Short-form video now accounts for 58% of total time spent on social media, according to Digital Applied. Reels, Shorts, and TikTok content dominate. Instagram’s own algorithm gives Reels significantly more reach than static posts, and TikTok maintains a 72% completion rate on videos under 30 seconds. The appetite for short video is not slowing down.

But the length is only part of the picture. Research consistently shows that a large proportion of social video is watched without sound, particularly on mobile when people are in public or shared spaces. Captions mean your video works for people watching on mute, which, on mobile, is most of them. 

Most platforms now offer automatic captioning tools. Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn all support auto-captions on video content. Use them, and then check them. Auto-generated captions are often imperfect, and a captioning error on a health or wellness brand could be embarrassing.

Adding captions also improves accessibility for those who are hard of hearing or watching in a noisy environment, and it gives platforms more text to index, which supports discovery.

 

04

Test on your phone before you post

 

This one is straightforward and consistently skipped. Before a post goes live, look at it on your phone. Not in a preview window on your laptop. On your actual phone, in the actual app.

Check whether text is legible at that size. Check whether the key visual is centred and not at risk of being cropped by the grid thumbnail. Check whether a new follower arriving at your profile would see a coherent set of visuals, or something that looks designed for a different device entirely.

The brands with the most consistent social presence treat the phone screen as the final checkpoint, not an afterthought.

 

Want help with this?

If you want a social media partner who understands the health and wellness category and gets the detail right, get in touch.

 

 

Original post: 2020

When we think about social media, we often hear that the most important thing to focus on is making content appropriate for the audience and the specific platform. But what about the device that we and our audience are browsing on?

Phones, tablets, laptops, computers… even televisions and smart watches. All of these are perfectly viable ways that your target audience might be accessing your content – and so understanding how to keep your visuals optimised for those different devices is key to social success.

Here are our four tips to creating social content which is as great for mobile as it is for a laptop screen.

1. Focus on how each platform posts images. On Instagram, keep your feed content square, and your Stories content vertical, for optimised viewing on a smartphone.

2. Choose simple images that focus on one thing. This could be a spotlight product, a service, or even your logo or a single word defining your brand.

3. If you choose to post videos, keep them short and sweet. Remember that those browsing their social media on a mobile device are likely on the move or about to move onto a new activity, and so are far more likely to engage with something they can watch in seconds rather than minutes. If you do have a longer video to post, use the IGTV added to the platform in 2020.

4. Add text and subtitles to videos so that they can be watched and understood without sound. Not only does this make your videos great for social situations, but it also makes them more accessible for those who may not be able to hear or understand the video completely.

Some of the most effective social campaigns which work across multiple devices and platforms are those with the simplest visuals and the most obvious messages. Remember not to lose your overall goal in a complex campaign – keep it simple!

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Instagram Shopping in 2026: What has changed and what still works

slate
08 Jan 2026
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Instagram Shopping has been through a significant overhaul in the last year. If you set up your shop a while ago and have not revisited it recently, some of what you knew no longer applies.

The good news is that product tagging still works well, and for health and wellness brands with physical products, Instagram remains one of the strongest discovery tools available. You just need to understand how the platform has changed before you invest time in it.

 

FIRST, THE BIG UPDATE

Purchases no longer happen inside Instagram

 

Until mid-2025, Instagram offered native in-app checkout, meaning customers could discover and buy a product without ever leaving the app. Meta removed that feature in August 2025 for most businesses, and it is not coming back.

What this means is that when someone taps a product tag on your post, they are taken to a product detail page inside Instagram, and then redirected to your website to complete the purchase. Instagram is the discovery engine. Your website handles the transaction.

This is worth understanding before you set anything up. A well-configured Instagram Shop with strong product tags will drive traffic to your site. But if your website checkout is slow, unclear, or not optimised for mobile, that traffic will not convert.

It is also worth knowing that Instagram removed the dedicated Shop tab from the main navigation bar back in February 2023. Products are still discoverable through the Explore tab, tagged posts, Reels, and Stories, but there has not been a dedicated shopping destination in the app for some time. Discovery happens through your content, not a separate storefront.

 

GETTING SET UP

What you need before you start

 

To use Instagram Shopping, you need a business account, a connected Facebook Page, and a product catalogue linked via Commerce Manager. Most brands connect their catalogue through Shopify, WooCommerce, or BigCommerce. You also need a verified domain and a working website checkout.

Once your catalogue is approved, you can tag products in feed posts, Reels, Stories, and carousels. The approval process can take a few days, so factor that in if you are planning a launch around a specific date.

 

HOW TO USE PRODUCT TAGS WELL

What to do
  • Tag the most prominent products in the image. If a product is clearly visible, tag it. Customers should not have to guess what is shoppable.
  • Keep the number of tags manageable. Up to five product tags per single image works well. Too many tags overlap and make the image harder to navigate. Carousel posts allow you to tag products across multiple slides, which gives you more flexibility to showcase a range without overcrowding any one frame.
  • Use high-quality, specific visuals. For health and wellness brands, close-up product shots, lifestyle imagery, and clean still life perform well. The image should make someone want to know more about the product. 
  • Mix product formats. Combine single-product close-ups with wider lifestyle shots that show products in context. Both serve different purposes at different stages of the buying decision. 
  • Tag products in Reels and Stories too. Reels get significantly more reach than static posts. If you are already creating short-form video, make your products shoppable there as well. In Stories, use the product sticker to link directly to a product page.
  • Make sure your website is ready. Since all purchases now happen on your site, your product pages need to be clear, mobile-optimised, and fast to load. This is where the sale is won or lost.

 

What to avoid
  • Overlapping tags. If tags sit on top of each other, the image becomes difficult to use. Space them out, or reduce the number of products tagged.
  • Tagging products that are not clearly visible. Customers find it confusing when a tag appears on something they cannot clearly identify in the image.
  • Ignoring your website experience. A great Instagram Shopping setup will not rescue a slow or confusing checkout. If you are investing in product tags, invest equally in the page they land on.
  • Relying on hashtags to drive shoppable content. Instagram now caps hashtags at five per post, and their role in discovery has shifted. Strong captions, relevant keywords in your product titles and descriptions, and good creative will work harder for you than a block of hashtags.
  • Using imagery that does not show the product clearly. This is especially important for wellness products, where the customer cannot physically handle the item. The image needs to do that work for them.

 

Need help with this?

If you want a social media partner who understands the health and wellness category and can help you set this up properly, get in touch.

 

 

Original post: 2020

If you’re a product-selling brand and you’re new to the business profile Instagram set-up, congratulations for making it this far.

Instagram has enhanced its business offering and business platform hugely over the last year or so, delivering innovative concepts which enable us to view analytics, link websites and other profiles, and set up Instagram Shopping – the latest tool to support the marketing and selling of various products to a social media audience.

This short guide to shopping tags is designed to introduce you to the Do’s and Don’ts of Instagram Shopping…

  • DO tag the most prominent products in your photo.
  • DO tag between 3 and 5 products in each wide-scale image. For example, if you are a wellness retreat looking to sell your experience and a series of products, consider the setting as well as the products on show, and tag between 3 and 5 of them.
  • DO use striking and high-quality visuals, particularly on close-ups.
  • DO combine wide-scale photos with single product showcases, for a varied feed. Sometimes customers will want to see and learn more about specific products – sometimes it helps to see different products in situ.
  • DO use hashtags to draw the right audience to your shoppable posts.
  • DO use Instagram stories as a way of introducing products through images and videos.

  • DON’T tag too many products in any one image. Consider how the image will look when the customer clicks to see the shopping tags – if any of the tags overlap, your image becomes confusing and difficult to shop.
  • DON’T clutter your caption with hashtags. Instagram allows for 30 hashtags but this is often far too many and ends up cluttering the post.
  • DON’T use images which don’t do the product justice. If it doesn’t make your products look great, don’t use it.
  • DON’T alienate your audience by only using a very specific type of model or setting.

Still unsure on how Instagram shopping can enhance your social presence? To discuss the benefits and find out how Instagram shopping can help you reach new audiences, get in touch with the Dot Dash Digital team.

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