Dental Relationship Marketing

Archive for the ‘Social Media Marketing for Healthcare Providers’ Category

Is your Facebook community flourishing or flailing?  Before you begin to judge the value of your social media efforts, be sure you are taking full advantage of all opportunities.  Below is a list of social marketing do’s and don’ts (part one).

Don’t #1 – Use a stock photo for your profile picture. A stock photo is even less effective than using a logo for your profile image.  Why?  Your profile image is the main image that people see with every post or tweet.  As consumers we’ve learned to ignore advertising.  What screams advertising more than stock imagery? It’s as if we have a subtle radar in our eyes and minds that alerts us to someone trying to sell us something in social media.  By using stock photos as a profile image, you loose the opportunity to genuinely connect with your fans.

Instead Do This - This is a very simple fix.  Use a photo of a real person or people from within your practice.  A team photo or solo picture of the doctor is best.  Authentic images will allow you to better connect with the people who like you—and that’s what social media is all about … making human connections. A next best option to using a photo of you or your team is a logo that is designed to show up well in a thumbnail.

Don’t #2 - You have a Personal Facebook Profile, but you don’t “run it” yourself, rather your staff does. I’m seeing more situations where doctors are letting their team open a Facebook profile on their behalf.  The team member or members will “friend” others on behalf of the doctor, at times accept patients as friends, and even comment as the doctor.  This is wrong on so many levels, however my biggest concern is risk management. Misrepresenting yourself in social media is a great way to mislead people and break trust.

Instead Do This - Fix this problem by taking over your own personal profile. The only person who should be acting on your behalf is you. If you have no interest in interacting or participating on Facebook, you shouldn’t have a personal profile.  Rather close your account and assign your Facebook Page management to a trusted team member.  Just to be clear, it’s not uncommon for there to be multiple Page administrators for a Facebook Business Page, which is fine.  It’s with regard to Personal Facebook Profiles that this is a definite don’t.

One of the advantages of social marketing is the ability to easily change or revise your strategy and experiment.  What are you doing that is working—or not?

Part two of this article to follow next week.

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What is your primary objective for being on Facebook or Twitter? Are you interested primarily in link-building, solely for “SEO” purposes? Perhaps you are interested in acquiring as many friends and people who will “like” your Facebook Page as possible, because we’ve always been taught that more is better …

A traditional marketing mind-set was to acquire more.  Let the numbers show how effective our direct mail piece was.  How many patient phone calls we got from our phone book ad.  How many hits to our website.  However, without quality none of those numbers really matters.

It is our intentions that drive our actions.  If we intend to build up a certain number of fans, whether it be 500 or 2,000 fans, we are focused on the numbers. On the other hand, if we focus on winning the interest, praise, and appreciation of our followers, we are bound to win.

Remember that social media marketing is unlike any other marketing tool we’ve ever had access to.  Discard your old marketing mind-set.  Be thoughtful about your objectives.  Consider what is more important to you—a high quantity fan base or a high quality fan base.  I’m not saying you can’t have both, but in social media, typically numbers as a primary goal can sabotage quality.

Set your intention to first and foremost build trust and relationships with your followers.  Strive to make your social media platforms a place you can talk with your patients and followers. Imagine when patients come into your office.  What is the social conversation you have with them?  It is that type of exchange that can make your social marketing efforts a success.

It may take more time and energy to consider what your ideal social media community could look like.  The easy way out is to set a number as a goal and walk away.  A better objective—that will return more positive word of mouth and referrals—is to put interaction, authentic “liking”, and relationship building at the top of the list.

What are your social media goals and objectives?

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This week’s Featured 2 Minute Audio Snippet: Dentist Social Media Tool of Choice

Or listen to the entire interview:

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A new situation has arisen.  For anyone who owns a Facebook Business Page, this is a new problem many of us can relate too.  Just when we got comfortable asking people to become our “Fans”, Facebook changed the action to “Like”.

One female doctor recently stated that she, “Feels funny asking male patients if they’d like her”. LOL ;>)

And it’s not just the healthcare profession.  I recently ran across this Whole Foods Market thread on Facebook, who now address their fans as,  “People Who Like Us”.   Whole Foods went on to say they too feel a bit awkward calling fans their “Likers”.  They have since received a plethora of fun responses (at last check 471 comments) about what their “fans” would now like to be called.

So, what do you say when you invite patients to “Like” you on Facebook?

Most importantly, what do you think your patients–who like you–would like to be called?

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