Social media marketing has become extremely important for businesses of all sizes across all industries. Social media for medical practices is no exception. However, depending on your business and the people you are communicating with will have a huge impact on how you approach social media marketing and the different networks you set up accounts on. After all, creating viral videos may be the aim for retailers, but it certainly shouldn’t be your target as a medical professional; that’s for sure.
Social media has become such a popular and important tool for doctors and medical practices, in general, it is because it enables you to demonstrate your commitment to your patients. Today, patients expect high levels of service from their medical providers, just like they do in any other industry. As service providers across many different sectors use social media to engage with people digitally, this type of communication has become the norm. If you are not active on social media, it can give the impression that your medical practice is behind the times.
You can use social media as a professional networking tool too. You can reach other professionals in the field with ease and you can make connections with others that can be mutually beneficial.
The first step when it comes to building a solid and effective social media strategy for your business is to determine what social media networks you are going to establish your business on. There are so many different social media networks available today, so establishing yourself on all of them is simply not possible. A lot of companies try to set-up accounts on as many social network websites as they can, but there is no need to do this. Instead, you should focus your efforts on a couple of social media websites only. This will enable you to build your presence effectively. You simply need to do a bit of research to find out where your target patient base is, and then you can establish yourself on these websites.
For healthcare providers, most tend to stick with Facebook and Twitter, as both have a considerable amount of medical engagement. Nevertheless, LinkedIn is also used for professional purposes. Instagram is becoming more and more involved in the medical field too, though, so that gives you food for thought as well. Choosing your networks will all depend on who you are trying to reach and what sort of messages you are trying to get across.
As you can see, social media is a critical marketing tool for medical practices today. However, in order to take advantage of this, you need to make sure you establish yourself on the right social media networks and put together a solid social media marketing strategy. Our team at UI Medical Marketing would be more than happy to help you with this. Contact us today to get started. We look forward to hearing from you!