Ways to Nurture Your Medical Practice with Social Media

Kristen MozayeniDirector of Marketing

ProvidenceEye.com | @ProvidenceEye

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Running a social media campaign in a medical practice can

be an intimidating prospect, but here are five easy ways

to nurture and grow your practice with social

media.

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1. Join

It’s likely that you have at least one social media account

for personal use. Pick one you are comfortable with and

set up an account for your practice. I would recommend

Facebook and/or Twitter to start since they are currently

the most prominent.

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Facebook – Most popular with people between the ages of 35-55. Very useful venue for

your patients to “recommend” your practice and “talk” about

their experience. Think of this as word of mouth over the internet.

Twitter – Short but sweet is the trick here.

Great place to announce events,

specials or disseminate new

information.

LinkedIn – Great business

networking. This will be a great

place to look for job candidates.

Instagram – The newest member

to the social media game. If you are

trying to reach Millenials (those born

from early ‘80s – ’00) then you want to be here.

Great if your practice uses before and after pictures. 

1. Join

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2. Know your audience

It would certainly be easier to post all the same things to all social media

channels, but you will soon realize that your audience may be different.

For example, our Facebook “likes” are mostly patients while our Twitter

followers are mostly local organizations and not individuals. I try to tailor

my content to be appropriate for the audience.

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3. Like, Follow & Link Back

Like most things in life, social media is a

two-way street. If you want people to

engage with you then you need to engage

with them.

Find organizations, practices and people

that are in your field and like them on

Facebook, follow on Twitter or Instagram.

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4. Respond/Reply

Social media can be a scary place because there is little or no filter. People

can really go out there and say anything they want. This can be good and

bad. It’s necessary to always respond/reply to both the good and the bad.

When responding to negative feedback, the most

important thing is to stay objective. This can hard,

especially if you are an owner of a practice: it feels personal.

Craft your response keeping it short, simple & objective. Sometimes social

media will not always be the place to handle a situation and it may be

necessary to just pick up the phone and speak to the person directly.

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Social media success is going to take time. You

may be tempted to solicit new likes or followers

with giveaways or promotions, and perhaps that

will work for your audience.

We opted for pure organic growth so it has been

slow and steady. For us as a premium LASIK

practice it’s about the quality, not quantity, of the

interactions, and most social media

professionals will agree.

It’s a marathon, not a 5K.

5. Be Patient