Social Media For Healthcare | Tips

Social Media For HealthcareSocial Media For Healthcare: Tips For Your Practice

If you are a doctor, physician, clinician or healthcare practitioner of any kind and a small business owner, you likely are constantly thinking about ways to grow your practice while spending your marketing dollars wisely.

One of the best and most affordable ways to do this is through the use of social media. Using social media for healthcare practices or clinics is a smart use of your marketing dollars. Most, if not all, social media accounts are free to set-up and use. So tapping into this valuable resource can be an inexpensive way to grow your patient base.

In addition, patients visit online profiles for doctors and offices before calling to schedule an appointment. So if you are not maintaining an online presence, you and your office may not be in the running when it comes to a potential patient selecting a practice.

But being a doctor on social media can be a scary thing. Afterall, you may be asking yourself about liability and patient confidentiality. Does social media blur the lines for an ethical practice?

[Related article: I’m A Doctor. Should I Be On Instagram?]

The good news is that there are several tips that you can implement to help you grow your social media following and patient base if you just know what potential patients might be looking for from healthcare practitioners on social media.

SOCIAL MEDIA FOR HEALTHCARE: TIPS FOR YOUR CLINIC OR PRACTICE

Here are a few ways to grow your healthcare practice’s following on social media.

BE SELECTIVE IN BUILDING PROFILES

If you are starting from scratch and do not have a presence on any social media channel, don’t feel that you have to start them all at once. A good place to start is to determine who your ideal patient is and then determine where to find him or her. You want to be on the social media channels that your ideal patient is on.

Nearly every business has a presence or should have a presence on Facebook. With over a billion users, Facebook is the go-to place for every patient doing their homework on your practice.

In addition, you’ll want to consider adding these other social media profiles for your online presence if you find your target demographic is a top user on these channels.

  •    Instagram: Most users are women and most users are in the age range of 18 – 29
  •    Twitter: The percentages of men and women on this channel are nearly the same, still with the largest age range of users being 18-29.
  •    LinkedIn: While the majority of the users on this channel also fall in the same age range as the others show above, this skews slightly in favor of men being the majority user of this channel.

QUALITY AND CONSISTENCY ARE KEY

Quality and consistency are the most important things when it comes to building the social media following for your healthcare practice. Posting quality content to your followers, users and potential patients will help them embrace the idea of a helpful practice.

Patients will look to pages on social media for healthcare offices for the following:

  •    Health and wellness tips
  •    Behind the scenes photos showing staff or the personal side of your practice
  •    Building a community for those with chronic conditions that your office might specialize in

Also posting consistently is just as important. For most accounts, consistent posting means posting daily to keep your users engaged with your page or profile.

USE SOCIAL MEDIA FOR FEEDBACK AND BRANDING

In addition to being selective about what social channels you set up and then catering to your target demographic on those channels, social media can also serve other very important purposes for your clinic or practice.

Social media can help develop your branding for your healthcare practice. It can also help you gather valuable feedback from patients in the form of comments or reviews, which can then help you improve operations and the patient experience.

[Related article: 9 Things Your Patients Wish You Knew About Them]

If you are looking for guidance or assistance in setting up or managing your social media profiles, Connections Healthcare Strategies can help. Schedule a free strategy session to begin your planning your social media strategy for your small business or health or wellness practice today.

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