Social Media provides a great opportunity to reach your trusted groups, family, friends (and their family and friends).  Not only are you  subtly blasting out your message,  you are also building meaningful relationships with exposure and referrals to a mare greater audience than you could reach ordinarily.

The most common and effective channels include:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube

Perspective patients and clients now most commonly look up physicians referred to them or when looking to find a physician in their area.  Thus, having a Facebook page, website with URL and username is crucial.  If you don’t have at least a website, you don’t exist.  Having the Facebook page, takes it one notch higher.  Place a banner, mission statement and tag line on the site with prominent positioning for the telephone number and address for the office as well as a call to action is imperative.

Your site needs to be easily navigable for your new viewers as well as educational.  Most of your competitors aren’t doing this yet, due to time constraints, so you will be way ahead of the game and stand out above your competitors!

Link your published articles and blog posts to your site.  And remember- we strive for engagement!  Not only are interactions important, but also reading the comments received will give you a good perspective on things that you could improve upon in your practice.  Respond to each comment that you get which will encourage others to comment as well.  (Don’t forget to ask for comments).  By linking the blog posts to your page, the time spent in social media is more efficient.  Place a note on the site that comments are not to treat anyone personally but merely to educate about a condition, issue or problem.

Place photos of staff members and office on the site and remember to fill out the profile page with contact information and office hours as well as affiliations to hospitals.

The profile section and photos hold true for twitter and LinkedIn as well.

Implement a free plug in which allows all your blogs to appear on twitter and LinkedIn.  Respond to feedback as soon as possible.

YouTube offers a great way to promote your office and your services through video.  Make a series of short 2-3 minute videos on various procedures that you perform, what to expect, and postoperative instructions.  Patients will be impressed and it will cut down on questions about the procedures by phone.  (all while increasing exposure and augmenting your search engine ranking)

LinkedIn– Start a company page and join groups that reflect the type of patient that you want to attract (based on conditions for instance).

Helpful Tips

  • Remember to educate and also answer questions without naming anyone or any problem that can be linked to a specific individual (remember you are HIPPA bound!)
  • Stay Upbeat.  Readers want to have hope.  They don’t come to be depressed
  • Give them the latest medical news, breakthroughs and options
  • Intersperse some humor or human interest stories
  • Really crucial- don’t forget to include a call to action.  Don’t assume that people will know what you want them to do.

Connect with the viewers and They will want to connect with you!

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See you at the next post!