subject: Social Media Can Help A Medical Practice [print this page] How many medical practice managers actually use the internet? That is a good question. You could try looking up your medical office manager friends or organizations on websites such as Facebook or Twitter to see if you can find them. You will most likely find some of them on LinkedIn.
How many businesses are using social media? That is the real question. More and more businesses are seeing the potential that social media can present through advertisement, marketing and visualization to their overall bottom line. In fact, most social media is free today and everyone knows that having free advertisement is a golden opportunity for any business.
Some medical practices fear using this type of marketing because of privacy issues for patients. However, the suggestion here is to utilize social media strictly to market your business. Facebook alone grew over 145% last year with over 250 million users. That means there are real people using this tool to talk to one another. Businesses are using it to find new customers and so can you.
Social media is here to stay; and it is important that medical practices see the value that it has to offer for their business. This type of marketing can actually:
Help you attract more patients to your practice
Help you market your services to more people
Help you reach beyond your community walls
Help you receive more referrals to your business
Help you provide organic growth and income
Here are few simple tips to keep in mind in order to begin the baby steps to your successful social media connection:
1. Learn to use one social media site at a time. Try just one and get used to using it before moving on to another one. You can concentrate on the biggest ones first which are Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
2. Adhere to a policy of keeping on business related topics and discussions on these sites for promoting your business.
3. Post information that is useful to your audience and relevant to your specialty.
4. Do not be afraid to give out information. Your patients can and will find anything on the internet now so why not be the one to provide that information for them on topics that favor your expertise.
5. Enjoy the process of learning something new. Be patient with yourself, practice manager.
6. Know that you can always hire someone such as a virtual assistant or social media marketer to do this for you if you wish.
Just like electronic medical records, it may be hard to accept that social media is not going away. Embrace this new way to enhance your business. It will be exciting to see the results of what a little effort can do.
