Why should you use social media to promote your practice?

According to a recent survey by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, forty-eight percent of U.S. adults trust Web sites sponsored by physicians or medical practices for information about health care providers.  Thirty percent reported comparing physicians online in the last 12 months, up from 23% in 2008.  About 35% of U.S. adults used social media for health and medical purposes in 2009, up from 27% in 2008, according to a new Manhattan Research survey.  According to the survey, 80 million U.S. adults in 2009 created or consumed health care content on blogs, online social networks and patient testimonials.  The Internet is growing in popularity as a tool affecting the way patients choose their physicians and healthcare services.

There are many advantages for utilizing social media as a low-cost method of managing public relations and marketing for your practice, according to the MGMA.  Creating a Twitter account for your practice can help establish you as an authority among peers and patients.  Social media can provide a platform for communication, as well as providing a venue for recruiting new staff or posting job offers for free.  It can also be used as a vehicle for monitoring your practice reputation. 

As the market determines how social media will ultimately impact healthcare, you should be positioning your practice to take advantage of this new wave of marketing.  First, you should insure that you have an Internet presence through a professional website.  Then, depending upon your marketing strategy, you may decide to just test the waters or jump in with both feet.  Either way, develop a marketing plan for your social media endeavors.  Be sure that you have a policy for anyone (even the physicians) that participates in online conversation.  Remember, you want to promote a positive practice image and attract patients and employees.

At our recent Lunch & Learn - Making Social Media Work for Your Business, we presented an overview of how to get started in social media.  We concentrated on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube as these are popular, fast-growth platforms that look like they are here to stay.

As with any initiative before you start, make sure you can devote the time and energy needed to have a consistent presence.  Starting small with steady growth is preferable to a big splash then fizzling out. 

LAN Systems would be pleased to assist you with your web-site and your initiation into social media.  We have a group on LinkedIn - Social Media Strategies for Business.  Click here to join.   We welcome your questions and would like to hear from you if you are interested in participating in one of our free Social Media seminars.  We will also highlight specific social media platforms in upcoming newsletters.