Maintaining a social media presence is an important (and not always easy) element of your practice’s overall digital strategy. Aside from your website, your social profiles are how you are represented to the world. Shaping the perfect online image for your practice takes time and effort – with a seemingly endless list of ways to improve. Social media plays an integral role in the consumer-driven health care space, but how do marketers keep up?
Let’s look at five strategies:
Incentivize
Whether to bring in new patients or increase audience engagement, incentives are a great way to get some buzz going for your practice. For example, everyone who refers a friend or family member during a certain period of time will be entered to win a gift certificate to a local restaurant. Or a dental practice could pose a question of the week, ask for responses and then one lucky respondent win on free cleaning or whitening. Contests and giveaways do not need to be a frequent occurrence. Once every two or three months is enough to put your practice on people’s radar and set yourself as an interesting community member.
Stay Current
Make your social media about more than just trying to get new patients (people will see right through this). Bring a bit more heart and soul into it and try to tie your content into what’s happening in the world. Create discussions that resonate and are relevant with your audience. Post about health care news, provide tips on timely topics and community events. Keep a daily tab of news stories happening in your field and use those opportunities to show your audience how your practice can be of service.
Be Visible
Make it easy for people to find you online. You can’t have an engaged audience if they don’t even know that you are on social media. Have an active profile on every social media channel that makes sense for your practice (Facebook is a must, Snapchat not so much). Include links to your profiles on your website, newsletters, emails, and email signatures. Crosspost your content and let people know if something cool is happening on another channel .Be sure to also keep a “Follow Us” sign at the front desk so that patients can see it both coming and leaving!
Get Personal
Your audience wants to see the human side of your practice! Give the doctors, assistants and administrative staff some screen time! To be clear, this should not be an opportunity for anyone to overshare or be inappropriate. This is a way for people to see the faces behind the business. Here are some ways to highlight the people behind the practice:
- Have an “Employee Spotlight” interview every few months
- Pose for holiday photos and share photos from company outings
- Have the office manager record a “First Visit Checklist” video
- Have a doctor or assistant record live videos to address trending health news
Engage
One of the most important aspects of being a business on social media is providing customer service. If you provide poor customer support (or no support at all) that all comes to light on a very public stage. When someone uses Facebook or Twitter to lodge a complaint, you need to acknowledge the issue, apologize on behalf of the practice, and provide an offline channel of communication through which to find resolution. On the flip side, be sure to thank those who leave positive words and let them know that you appreciate them!
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