A Social Media Guide for Your Medical Practice Helping your practice get started in social media marketing.
Intro: Why is social media important to your medical practice? A social media presence is important for any type of business, including a medical practice. In today s world, an online presence and social media outlets are crucial to establishing yourself as a reliable expert. The number of medical professionals embracing social media as a means of sharing helpful medical information and providing patient care is steadily increasing. Social media helps your target audience become aware of your practice and also helps you engage with them on a personal level. Posting the right content is important on all social media channels, but it is important to optimize your posts for each platform. Build Relationships Social media is a great source for physicians to stay up to date and share up to date health-related content. A study from 2012 concluded that about 60% of medical professionals stated that social media enabled them to care for their patients more effectively, and that it improved the quality of patient care they delivered. 1 Medical professionals who contribute to posting and sharing content on social media will establish greater relationships with their patients than those who do not. Social media can aid your medical practice in attracting new patients and helping you to retain your current patients by keeping them engaged and informed. Establish Goals Before jumping into the world of social media, it is important to establish goals to determine where you want to go with social media and what to do with it. You need to determine whether you want to keep up with industry-related news, engage with your patients and target audience, attract new patients, or just use it to post useful information. You could use social media to do all of these things or only a select few of them. Keep Your Patients Informed Social media channels are a useful way to interact with your patients and keep them up to date on general healthrelated news in addition to updates concerning your medical practice. These updates could include changes in policies or office hours, news updates relating to your practice, or any other relevant information for your patients. The more attempts you make to interact with your patients on social media, the more likely they are to respond to your interactions. These responses could simply be a reply, a question, a review, or a complaint. Social media gives you a direct channel to answer questions and find solutions to any complaints to maintain a healthy relationship with your patients. Should I Start My Own Practice or Join a Group 2
Facebook 1 How to Get Started Facebook has 829 million active users every day, 2 so it is ideal for your medical practice to be connected through this social media channel. Facebook allows you to create a business page that people can Like without having to share their own private information. This allows your medical practice to connect and engage with its audience on a personal level while promoting your practice and building your online presence. Another advantage of a business page is the ability to allow access to multiple administrators. This way, multiple people can keep track of what is going on and engage with users depending on their needs and the specialties of each administrator. Conversations are encouraged through Facebook which encourages you to really build a relationship with users who have liked your page. Your Facebook business page is easy to create. You can either sign up for Facebook to create a business page, or create one through an existing Facebook profile. If you are creating a page by signing up for Facebook, you must go to www.facebook.com, click on Create a Page under the green Sign Up button, then click Sign up for Facebook and fill out the form. If you are creating your page through an existing profile, you must first log into your account and click on the dropdown arrow on the top right of your navigation bar. The first dropdown option is to Create Should I Start My Own Practice or Join a Group 3
Facebook Page, select this option. Once you have completed one of the two previously mentioned steps, your next step will be to choose what type of page you are creating from one of the following options: For your medical practice, you are going to select the second option, Company, Organization or Institution and then select your category as Health/Medical/Pharmaceuticals and enter the name of your practice. Once you have completed this step, you will be asked to complete some basic information for the fundamentals of your page. When you are asked to complete the About section, make sure to include a link to your website in addition to a few sentences describing your medical practice. From there, you can upload a profile picture and cover photo. Once the basic information for your practice is completed, you should allow a couple other colleagues to have access to your page. In the top navigation bar for Facebook, click the arrow all the way to the right and select Settings. Choose Page Roles on the left-hand side and then invite whomever you would like to have access to edit and upload content onto your page. Should I Start My Own Practice or Join a Group 4
Facebook Last but not least, you must invite people to like your page to start bringing traffic onto it. Before doing so, you need to add content to your page. We will discuss content more, but uploading relevant photos and posting useful articles is a good place to begin. Once you have some content on your page, you should start by inviting colleagues to Like the page, followed by supporters in the Health/Medical/Pharmaceuticals category, and then invite current patients and your target audience to create a fan base for your Facebook business page. 2 How to Amplify Your Presence According to Facebook, an average of 1,500 posts are filtered through an average user s News Feed every day, but only 300 of those posts will actually be shown on the user s News Feed. 3 A business page helps you share relevant information with your target audience. You can let your Facebook fans know about new office hours, updates regarding your practice, and events your practice may be sponsoring, all of which provide can attract users to Like your page. When you share your updates, your fans can share it with their Facebook friends which will help direct traffic to your page. You should post a variety of content including images your target audience would like to see, articles they might be interested in reading, and links or videos that may be informative to them. Remember to optimize the content of your post for your audience. For Facebook, your posts need Should I Start My Own Practice or Join a Group 5
Facebook be friendly and inviting to read, yet informative. A great feature of Facebook is an option on all of your posts to Pin to Top. This will move your post to the top of your page for seven days. To do this, click on the grey arrow in the top-right corner of your post and then click Pin to Top. This feature is ideal for posting a change in office hours, new information for patients, or an event your practice may be sponsoring. You should use your page to connect with influencers in the medical industry because it will help you stay up-to-date with health-related news, explore new ideas and trends, and stay relevant with your posts for your fans. It is important to review your page on a daily basis to provide customer service for your fans. Facebook gives you a fast and direct path for answering questions and creating a personal connection with fans.. The Activity and Insights tabs on your page s top navigation bar are useful tools that can monitor how people are engaging with your page and content so you can make the necessary changes and adjustments to enhance your page. Should I Start My Own Practice or Join a Group 6
Twitter 1 How to Get Started Twitter has 284 million monthly active users sending out 500 million tweets per day. 4 With that being said, similar to Facebook, Twitter is a great platform to engage with your followers and learn about health-related news and updates in real time. Creating a Twitter account for your medical practice is the same process as creating an account for personal use. To sign up, go to www.twitter.com to fill out the form and click Sign up for Twitter. You will create a username for your account that will always begin with the @ symbol. Using this symbol is how you will communicate with other Twitter users. Once you begin typing the @ symbol followed by the name of the follower you want to mention, a list of who you follow will pop up and you can select who you want to mention. After choosing your username, complete your profile by filling out the bio, location, and website sections for your practice and add a profile photo and header photo. Once this is completed, you can start following other users. These could include other medical practices, influential people in your community, medical journals and websites. As you begin to follow Twitter users, they will begin to follow you back. 2 How to Amplify Your Presence Twitter allows you to stay on top of the latest health-related news and updates while engaging with your followers by retweeting and replying to updates, news, interesting articles and more. It is important for your practice to tweet blog articles, news, opinions, and tips on their own as well. This will give your followers a chance to retweet what you have posted to help share your profile with their followers. Should I Start My Own Practice or Join a Group 7
Twitter Twitter only allows 140 characters or less for a post, so remember to keep your tweets short and to the point by being focused on a single topic. Use your tweets to promote anything that is going on or any changes at your medical practice. If your medical practice has a blog, you should tweet out a link to your newly published blog article with a brief description and a photo. You should also use your tweets to provide your followers with updates and news articles in the medical industry. It s important to use hashtags (the # symbol) in your tweets. Hashtags are used for keywords or topics in a tweet and can be clicked on to show other tweets using the same hashtag. These keywords or topics can often become trending topics. Twitter, like Facebook, is a source of providing customer service in a quick and personal way. It is important to keep track of tweets your practice has been mentioned in so that you can respond to any comments, questions, and concerns as quickly as possible. You can respond by tweeting back using the @ symbol followed by the user name or through a private direct message. Should I Start My Own Practice or Join a Group 8
LinkedIn 1 How to Get Started LinkedIn is a different type of social media channel compared to Facebook and Twitter because it is professionally focused. It connects individuals based on their industry, job title, and company and is a great way to keep in touch with your patients and colleagues. LinkedIn gives you an opportunity to connect with industry leaders while generating new leads and referrals for your medical practice. There are three different aspects of LinkedIn that can be used for your medical practice, but you need to create a company page to get started. To create a company page, you must first have a personal LinkedIn profile. From there, choose Interests from your top navigation bar and select Companies, then on the right hand side there is a yellow button titled Create where you can create a company page. You can then enter your company name and company email to verify the page. Your company page will establish your practice and share your specialties, location, and other basic information. Your business page should be used to connect with industry leaders in the medical field, doctors, patients, and other medical practices. 2 How to Amplify Your Presence LinkedIn puts an emphasis on knowledge and leadership which allows your practice the chance to stand out from competitors. A couple ways to do this once you have created your company page is to create a group and a showcase page if you have not already. Should I Start My Own Practice or Join a Group 9
LinkedIn LinkedIn groups are an easy way for people to network and share ideas with one another. By setting up a group specifically for your medical practice, you will be able to connect and communicate directly with members of the group which could include other doctors in your field or in your practice if you are part of a group practice, patients, and influential professionals in the medical industry. A showcase page is an extension of your company page to help you target a larger audience. It has it s own news feed and allows you to highlight specific services your practice may offer or specialities you may serve. This gives people the opportunity to follow your company page and your showcase page to gain more followers. There is an Answers section on Linkedin where you are able to ask and answer relevant questions in your industry. All of your connections will be informed in their news feed whenever you answer a question that has been asked. When answering questions, you can add links to relevant articles, blogs, or directly to your website to direct people to useful content that will help answer their question. Should I Start My Own Practice or Join a Group 10
Foursquare 1 Getting Started Foursquare is a location-based platform for businesses with over 50 million users. Users can find the best places around using searched keywords while providing customer reviews for each location. Foursquare is extremely easy to use and can get your medical practice on the map, literally. In order to become present, create your profile within the Business Foursquare. If your business has not already been added to Foursquare, start by stating the business name and location along with the category your business falls under. A Twitter account and phone number may also be added to improve interaction with users. Including your specialties will allow people to easily find what they need. From there, users can find you based on location as well as check-in and leave reviews for others to see. If you conduct a search and your business has previously been added to Foursquare, you may claim it. Claiming your business allows for the capability to attract customers with Foursquare ads, learn about who is walking through your door, and control the information on the business listing. Once verifying that you are indeed the owner of this business, you now have authority of the listing. 2 Amplify your Presence There are more than 2 million check-ins on Foursquare each day. 5 Foursquare has seen a huge increase in the amount of medical practices checked-in. Users can search for places such as physicians and hospitals to not only find the most convenient practices, but the best rated. Since Foursquare gives a sense of community, reviews are highly trusted. Good reviews can go a long way, especially in the medical field where people expect the utmost satisfaction. Should I Start My Own Practice or Join a Group 11
AMA s Social Media Policy (2010) The American Medical Association developed a new social media policy that was adopted on November 8, 2010. The new policy encourages physicians to: + + Use privacy settings to safeguard personal information and content to the fullest extent possible on social networking sites. + + Routinely monitor their own Internet presence to ensure that the personal and professional information on their own sites and content posted about them by others, is accurate and appropriate. + + Maintain appropriate boundaries of the patient-physician relationship when interacting with patients online and ensure patient privacy and confidentiality is maintained. + + Consider separating personal and professional content online. + + Recognize that actions online and content posted can negatively affect their reputations among patients and colleagues, and may even have consequences for their medical careers. 6 If your medical practice employs a social media manager, make sure to take the necessary steps to protect your medical practice. It is important to develop a social media policy and require all staff to comply with it. This could be one overall policy or various policies that cover anything from blogging and commenting to posting statues and links. The social media policy at your medical practice should include rules such as these: + + Do not share confidential or proprietary information about the medical practice + + Maintain patient privacy + + Write in the first person + + Only approved staff may engage on official social media channels + + Do not initiate or accept personal friend requests from patients + + Staff in management/supervisory roles should not initiate friend requests with employees they manage 7 Should I Start My Own Practice or Join a Group 12
Case Studies Piedmont Healthcare Piedmont Healthcare recently partnered with BrightWhistle to assist with early detection of breast cancer.piedmont Healthcare uses Facebook to provide actions people may take to assess their health status. Using the Custom Audiences tool within Facebook, Piedmont was able to identify patients in need much more effectively. Piedmont was very successful in reaching 2.5 times more high-risk patients than the control group used in the study. This concluded in a 40% increase in the identification of high-risk patients and an 83% increase in their business s clickthrough rate online. Piedmont used images and informative articles to reach their goal of driving people to take risk assessments through both mobile and desktop Newsfeeds. Boehringer Ingelheim Boehringer Ingelheim is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Boehringer Ingelheim uses Twitter to engage with medical professionals. Through Twitter, this company used specific targeting, promoted tweets, and the #hashtag to communicate with users. Boehringer s community engagement resulted in 1.7 million chat impressions and 489 Twitter mentions using @Boehringer at #ERS2013. Athena Healthcare Athena Healthcare is a practice management company that offers electronic health record and patient communication services. Athena Healthcare reaches out to medical groups through LinkedIn to increase their customer base. Athena chooses LinkedIn because it has the largest audience of professionals and it allows for precise targeting based on industry. Using LinkedIn, Athena Healthcare has seen a 61% increase in conversion rates. Having an account on LinkedIn also improved their Twitter presence by gaining more followers. Should I Start My Own Practice or Join a Group 13
Conclusion SOURCES: I. McGowan BS, Wasko M, Vartabedian BS, et al. Understanding the Factors That Influence the Adoption and Meaningful Use of Social Media by Physicians to Share Medical Information. J Med Internet Res. 2012 Sep 24;14(5):e117. http://www.jmir.org/2012/5/e117. Accessed November 21, 2014. II. Hussain, Anum. How to Create a Facebook Business Page in 5 Simple Steps [Tutorial]. Web log post. HubSpot. 2014 Oct 6. Web. http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/5492/how-to-create-a-facebook- Business-Page-in-5-Simple-Steps-With-Video.aspx. Accessed November 24, 2014. III. Boland, Brian. Organic Reach on Facebook: Your Questions Answered. Web log post. Facebook for Business. 2014 June 5. Web. https://www.facebook.com/business/news/organic-reach-on-facebook. Accessed November 24, 2014. IV. About Twitter. Twitter. Web. https://about.twitter.com/company. Accessed November 25, 2014. V. Merrill, Molly. 5 Reasons Medical Practices Should check In to Foursquare. Healthcare IT News. 2011 May 26. Web. http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/5-reasons-medical-practices-should-check-foursquare. Accessed December 5, 2014. VI. New AMA Policy Helps Guide Physicians Use of Social Media. AMA: American Medical Association. 2010 Nov 8. Web. http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/news/news/social-media-policy.page. Accessed November 25, 2014. VII. Social Media for Family Physicians: Guidelines and Resources for Success(2013). AAFP: American Academy of Family Physicians. June 2013. Web. http://www.aafp.org/dam/aafp/documents/about_site/ SocialMediaFamPhys.pdf. Accessed November 25, 2014. Request a consultation with PracticeForces today, and learn how we can help you grow your business in 2015. Practice Forces 866-634-6327 www.practiceforces.com Should I Start My Own Practice or Join a Group 14