Which Social Media Channels Should You Set Up and Why

A PRECURSOR FOR THE FLEDGLING: you need not be intimidated by social media. Social media is just another tool for communication. Conceptually you could compare it to sending postcards or placing yellow page ads or networking at an event. And once you understand the basics and “get in the groove” you’ll realize how much it can help you.

Let’s dive right in:

Rule #1: Where are your patients? You want to go to there.

Obviously there are variations between practices. Are you patients older, younger, male, female? Regardless, the number one rule is: Go to where your patients are.

Let’s take it back to the basics: imagine all your patients are at a party. Probably hard to imagine, but stick with me! Everyone is enjoying themselves. Now let’s say you want to send them a message or you want to answer a question. Are you going to head into the other room and try to communicate from there? Clearly that would be a mistake. Even if the other room is better for communication, it’s wiser to be in the same location as your patients.

The 2 Social Media Gorillas

99% of the the time, Facebook is numero uno in this department for medical practices. It is unmistakably the most popular and perhaps provides the easiest platform to make announcements, send out interesting information, and start conversations.

A close second with a very similar purpose is Google+. While Google+ isn’t as popular as Facebook, it is REALLY good for helping you come up higher in searches on Google. It also has a growing importance as a source for patient reviews. So as outlined in this post, even if you’re not interested in using Google+ for social media purposes, stake your claim and your name. This is imperative. Google+ is already important and with Google at the helm, it promises to be even more important in the future.

Review sites

Which brings us to the review sites. Review sites seem to vary in importance by region and specialty, but in most cities, Yelp is the big one. Many medical practices make or break it because of Yelp.

A distant 4th: Twitter

Why you ask? We see a lot of practices using Twitter, but we see very few using it well. The typical use is sending out links to articles and that’s fine (and arguably good for SEO) but the effectiveness of it typically pales in comparison to Facebook. Following suit, Twitter also has less reach and requires more attention.

When in question, our advice is stick with the other channels until you get a good sign it’s time to get on the Twitter train. A good litmus test: search Twitter for any mention of your business. If your patients are there, it’s time!

When all else fails, remember Rule No. 1, go to where your patients are.

Curious about how to actually get on these social media channels? Take a gander at this post and stay tuned—we’re making video tutorials for each one.

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