Ideas to Enhance Your Medical Practice with Social Media

By Dr. Alan Glazier

Social Media is now pervasive in society and growing at a tremendous clip, taking over other forms of electronic communication. The popular book on social media “Groundswell; Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies” states “Media isn’t neatly boxed into little rectangles called newspapers, magazines, and TV sets anymore.  The Internet is not some sandbox that can be walled off anymore – it is fully integrated into all elements of business and society”. People connect with other people and draw power from other people, especially in crowds.  Using social media, you can take advantage of this new “groundswell”; your message can reach thousands of eyes and ears with news and information regularly at the touch of a button!

A significant reason to get involved in content creation and social media is that as your online presence grows, your website or blog will start to rank higher when people in your area search for the services or products you offer (search optimization).

Here are a few ideas that might benefit your practice.

Create a patient support network

Create a forum and discussion board for your patients to discuss relevant topics. Advertise it in the examination room and the waiting area.  This will not only serve the sharing and disseminating of information you author, but it helps you to keep your ear to the ground, learning what your patients needs and concerns are and sometimes giving you clues as to what you are doing right and what you are doing wrong as a small medical business. Encourage your patients to create topics; to start you may want to incentivize patients to contribute by offering them a small perk, like a $5 Starbucks card, just to get things going.  Get your staff involved by contributing topics as well.

Blogs

Blogs are an incredibly useful tool to disseminate information, as the information on blogs is incredibly quick and easy to change, add to or update.  By putting information on your blog, you can make changes yourself, or delegate to staffers to ensure your materials are the most up-to-date.   Blogs serve a double marketing purpose – the information you post for patient education and compliance on your blog becomes another blog post that you can use as content to enhance your online presence, creating links (for information on linking and the value it adds to your online presence “Like” the facebook page “OnToptics”) that add marketing value to your practice.  Your patient education efforts in your practice on your blog are simultaneously marketing efforts for your practice online.

Videos and Web-based patient education

Creating video and incorporating video links on your blogs and websites helps you web efforts by increasing your relevance within search simultaneously enhancing your professional reputation.  The social web is at the point where you need to use video or you are penalized; competitors who use video might rank higher than you in search-engine searches for the products and services you are offering.  Just like with blogs, creating videos has two immediate benefits (1) enhancing your ability to educate your patients while (2) increasing your marketing efforts both by enhancing your reputation  as your patients recognize and appreciate your video efforts and posting video improves your position in search engines.

Use Social Networks to Share, Network and Gain Support from Other Health Care Professionals

Social networks are a great way to learn, and more health care professionals are using health-care  social networks as a source of information sharing.   Fill your Twitter “following” list with influential physicians, clinicians and allied health professionals that you find post interesting and informative content.  That way, every time you open your feed some type of useful information is bound to jump out at you.  Medical journals are increasingly moving online and coupled with CME they are making staying current easier for physicians.  Be sure to find the journals you like to read, subscribe and check out the profiles of your colleagues on LinkedIn to see who they are connected to and what journals they read.

ADVICE

There are many tools you can use to dip your toes in the water.  I recommend creating a business Facebook page and encouraging your facebook network to join.  The posts you create for your blog can be “fed” to your page to keep it up-to-date and you can join twitter to send “tweets”, or messages out to your twitter connections to let them know about your content and drive them to your blog.  If this all sounds foreign to you, check out my past sightnation blogs “The Conversation” which walks you through the basics step-by-step.

Use social media mostly to create content to help your patients, enhance your professional reputation and benefit the growth of your practice by increasing your importance in search engine rankings.   It can take 3-6 months to reap the benefits of a social media campaign, so stick with it and please contact me with any questions - I’m always happy to guide you along your way.

Dr. Alan Glazier is founder of Shady Grove Eye and Vision Care, a 4 doctor private optometric practice in the Rockville, MD suburbs of Washington, DC.  Dr. Glazier has been involved in social media since early 2007 when he abruptly cancelled all print and standard media advertising at his practice and began using social media instead, dramatically decreasing his marketing budget.  He has been interviewed by Entrepreneur Magazine, Network Solutions and several other media outlets on his use of social media in the medical field.  Dr. Glazier authored and presented the first optometric CE approved course on Social Media and search optimization.  In 2010 Dr. Glazier was awarded “Best Use of Twitter” by the Northern Virginia Technology Council.  He is a professional blogger at SightNation.com and runs his practice blog https://eyeinfo.wordpress.com/ He also discusses social media and search engine optimization on his facebook page “OnToptics”, which readers are welcome to “like” and participate within.  You can learn more about Dr. Glazier at his practice website https://www.youreyesite.com/ Connect with him on twitter @EyeInfo.

Local Eye Site’s thanks Dr. Alan Glazier for sharing his tips and tricks to running a successful social media campaign.