Social media is a great opportunity for patient engagement and spreading the word about your medical practice online. Whether you’re starting a new practice or just looking to expand your patient base, social media should be part of your practice marketing strategy. Remember, social media can be a huge, cheap marketing asset.
Here are 6 tips that you should always keep in mind while posting content:
1. Advertise your availability
Posting your accurate office hours in your profile is important but social media offers other opportunities for promoting your practice’s availability for appointments. You can post information about special hours around the holidays or let patients know in real-time that your services are currently available for last-minute call-in appointments.
2. Be a trusted expert in your field
If you’re a family physician, posting tips or sharing articles from medical websites about seasonal illnesses could interest patients enough to keep coming back to you for more information. This builds trust and keeps you at the top of readers’ minds when it comes time for them to find a new doctor or make an appointment.
3. Respond to questions, comments, and reviews, and provide thoughtful feedback
Always think of social media as a conversation. You can increase your visibility to the friends and family of your current patients and social media followers. Just as you build professional but friendly relationships with your patients in person, try to do that online as well.
Just as you build professional but friendly relationships with your patients in person, try to do that with social media as well. Click To Tweet4. Be Helpful
Let your patients know about any services or promotions you’re offering, such as flu shots during flu season or a video you’ve created to explain a new treatment option available at your practice.
5. Use smart keywords in your profiles and posted content.
People use search on social media so be sure to use searchable words and phrases in your profiles and content. Always imagine yourself as a person that is in that audience that you want to reach. Imagine yourself sitting in front of the computer, or on your smartphone and ask yourself what search terms would they be using to find this post?
6. Keep Your Data Current
This might seem like a no-brainer but you would be surprised to find out how many businesses do not keep their contact information, address, phone and even website links up to date.