What’s the best way to get new patients?You probably know that you should be using search engine marketing (SEM), email marketing, and PPC ads. However, did you know that social media marketing can also play a role?
Social media marketing has proven to be an incredibly effective way of growing a business. Healthcare is no exception to this rule. In fact, the benefits provided by social media marketing in the healthcare field appear to be unique – and very appealing.
Here’s why your healthcare practice should be using social media marketing and how it can benefit you.
Builds Rapport & Brand Awareness
Healthcare, like any other industry that serves consumers, needs to develop and maintain a relationship with its patients.
That means focusing on building rapport and awareness of your healthcare practice online.
Social media is a powerful tool for building rapport and awareness among potential clients. While many healthcare practitioners have the impulse to use social media as a way to broadcast their expertise and services, this approach will only take you so far. Remember that the goal of any business using social media is to build connections with people and gain their trust.
By posting consistently on social media, you will start to be seen as an expert in your field who has something valuable to say. Potential clients will also see this consistent presence as evidence that you are a stable and committed business owner who is serious about serving others.
And don’t forget about recommendations from other people! Encourage your happy patients to post about their experience on Facebook, or provide an online testimonial for your website. This will help spread the word about your exceptional services, as well as help build trust with potential patients before they ever set foot in your office.
Builds Trust & Credibility
Social media allows you to humanize your business. Social networks give you the opportunity to show photos and videos of the people behind your brand. They allow your healthcare practice to share stories, interact with fans and followers, and create compelling content that builds trust with patients and prospects.
Building a social presence adds credibility to your healthcare practice by giving it a voice and a face. This is especially important in the healthcare industry, where people are often hesitant to interact with brands and businesses they don’t know.
For example, you wouldn’t visit a doctor you didn’t trust. The same goes for interacting with brands on social media. To make it easier for people to trust your brand, share content about the people behind it: employees, doctors, nurses, etc. The more information you can provide about yourself, the more likely consumers will be able to relate to your brand and feel comfortable reaching out to schedule an appointment or ask a question.
Improves Brand Reputation
It’s no secret that reputation is critical in this industry. In fact, a 2015 survey from HealthGrades found that more than half of healthcare consumers chose their doctor based on online reviews. Social media can help you proactively improve your reputation by:
- Encouraging patients to post positive reviews
- Monitoring the posts and comments people share about you
- Responding quickly to complaints, issues, and questions
Connects You With New Patients.
If you run a healthcare practice, social media can be an effective way to reach potential patients and connect with existing ones. It’s also a valuable tool to keep current patients up-to-date on news about your practice and healthcare in general.
Social networks can help get the word out about your healthcare practice. If people in your community aren’t familiar with your office, that might mean they’re going somewhere else for care. But if people know about your services and the doctors who work there, they’ll be more likely to become patients. Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter help businesses connect with new customers. You can post updates about what’s going on at your practice or share information about health topics that might interest prospective patients in your area. These updates can include links to web pages where people can learn more or call to schedule an appointment.
Increases Your Search Rankings.
SEO is a critical component of any healthcare marketing strategy. While it can take months to see the results, there are two ways that social media can help improve your search rankings:
Regularly publish quality content. The more quality content you publish on your blog, the more opportunity you have to rank in search engines for specific keywords. Also, when you share your blog posts on social networks, the links back to your website will give search engines a better understanding of the relevance of your website and help boost ranking.
Increase referral traffic. Social media platforms are among the most-visited sites on the internet, meaning a high volume of users spend time browsing through content as they scroll through their feeds. Every time someone clicks a link to your website from one of these platforms — whether it’s a piece of content or a user profile that links back to your site — that’s considered referral traffic. This is a key factor in determining your site’s ranking in search engine results.
Establishes Thought Leadership Within Your Practice Area
One of the easiest and most effective ways to showcase your knowledge is by starting a blog. While it’s not a social media platform, your content can be shared on social media and help you build an audience.
A blog also offers the opportunity to establish yourself as a thought leader and an expert in your field. Blogging is a great way to answer patients’ questions, provide tips, share news, and discuss current events within the healthcare industry.
By writing regularly, you’ll start building trust with potential patients, help them solve problems, and eventually become a go-to source for information relating to medicine.
Improves Your Marketing Efficiency.
If you’re running newspaper ads or even direct mail campaigns, you know from experience that it’s difficult to track results. With social media, every click and share is tracked. You can see exactly how many people are visiting your website or Facebook page from your social media links. This makes it easy to track results and adjust your strategy as needed.
Improves Patient Satisfaction
The first way that you can use social media marketing to boost your healthcare practice is by improving patient satisfaction. Social media has become a place where people go to vent about bad customer service, and it’s no different when it comes to healthcare. Patients often use social media to share positive and negative feedback about their experiences with hospitals and doctors.
By monitoring these conversations on social media, you can identify any issues that need to be addressed. Not only does this help you resolve problems for individual patients, but it also helps you improve your overall customer service so that fewer people have negative experiences in the future.
Today’s patients want to be able to interact with your business online, both before and after their appointments. You can do this by actively engaging with potential and current patients through social media channels like Facebook and Twitter.
Social media marketing can be a powerful way to engage your patients and increase the success of your practice.
Social media marketing can be a powerful tool to engage your patients, boost loyalty with patients, reach new patient groups, drive traffic to your website, and create positive word-of-mouth in your community. Using social media wisely can help you build a brand that will attract new patients and expand your referral network. It seems obvious of course, social media marketing is good for businesses. The only question that remains is how to make it work for you.