Social media’s stereotype as a massive time waster comes from millions of people actually wasting extraordinary amounts of time on it. Here are some legitimate business goals to keep your team focused on why you’re really doing this…

1. Add new patients

At some level, all marketing is a touch point. It’s a place to get your phone number in front of a potential patient. It’s a place to create a connection with the patient. It’s a place to show you care. Social media is a great way to get in front of more eyes. The number one goal of your social media campaign is adding new patients. Everything you write and all the pieces you put in there should be to grow your practice. Make sure your marketing people remember that, too. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the technology, FORGET why we’re doing social media, and waste a lot of time.

2. Support your existing patient base

People make decisions based on touch points. Once you get someone following your Facebook page you can send them an e-mail anytime you want – they’re subscribed to your news feed. It gives them a great, low cost way to stay in contact with the practice. Communicating with your patient base is stroking and maintaining your number one referral source. It keeps you in your market’s collective consciousness. Practices that do this get more business.

3. Promote specials and events

There are few successful practices in this economy that aren’t thinking about their practice in terms of events. Night of Beauty, Seminars, Summer Specials, Etc… Why is that important? It keeps you in the consciousness of the community. It gives you a time-sensitive thing to hinge your business on. It creates news. Most social media, when it comes down to it, is pictures, videos, and news of what’s happening. So if you think about your practice in terms of events, you’re thinking about your business in terms of newsworthy info. Make sure everything is an event, is a time-sensitive thing. It creates more buzz and that creates more patients.

4. Improve your search engine optimization

Search engines give websites significance based on how many things are linked to them. The more respectable the source, the more value that link has. So, if you’ve got a link on CNN that says “Amazing plastic surgeon, Click here” Google is going to think, “Okay, this guy is probably a significant plastic surgeon because of the strength of that link.” So, when you build a social media campaign, it’s got a big search engine benefit. You’re creating all sorts of in-bound links to your web page. At some level, you’re creating more web pages with your name and phone number on it. Right or wrong, that’s got a big search engine benefit. A Facebook page with all your information on it, is that so different than your website? Who cares if they saw you on your site or your Facebook page? We just want more patients. A true legitimate business goal of a social media campaign is the benefit on the search engines for you and your proprietary website.

5. Build targeted lists

People pay thousands of dollars for direct mail all the time. A good industry benchmark is three bucks per lead when you look at printing, postage, and design. That means a list of a thousand people costs $3,000 every time you send it out. By this reasoning, a list of a thousand emails or facebook “fans” is worth $3000.00 every single time you send them something. In fact, your list will me much more targeted and VALUEABLE than a list from a direct mail house. Social media is no different than a great rolodex. It’s your people in your market. It’s your referral base. Sadly, almost NO practices we work with make any effort to keep a list of patients and prospect emails. Lists of targeted emails are hugely valuable.

6. Protect your reputation

Soon, everything will be reviewed online. Google is already headed in that direction. It’s a pretty good way to pick a movie, so why not pick your doctor based on what other people think? Space that you can control on the web does a lot to protect your reputation. The more you can control the search for you the safer your reputation will be. A social media campaign catalogs really well and you want positive info out there. This is much better than a third party coming up well under searches or you. Putting good information about you helps to protect you from the opposite, bad information.

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This webinar really helped clarify the confusion, for non techies, a lot of the aspects of following up on leads using new technology. Anything to help improve understanding of the world of internet marketing, lead follow up, and social media for those of us who are technology dinosaurs. Einstein always has excellent events covering a wide range of online technology and aspects of the modern health practice.

Dr. Tom Armstrong
Bakersfield CA

I learned how to better deliver a positive image. Very helpful.

Dr. Marc Kayem
Los Angeles CA

I need to think more about smell in my lobby, even though I don’t like heavy scents from sprays and burning candles I probably need to find some common ground between what many of my patients have at home and the smell of a generic office. A great topic for the whole staff not just the doctor or the office manager… Regarding the cost objection: “Does a bride choose the cheapest gown she can find or does she look until she finds the gown that makes her look the best? Like a bride hopes to only have one perfect wedding, you only have one face.”

Dr. John Paul
Lakeland FL

I learned 25% of all practice calls go unanswered – it was very good.

Kathy Tiberi
California

I learned success be with a marketing campaign or direct communication with the client/patient begins with “YOU”. Express passion and knowledge in your delivery of information. Quick and easy to understand.

L Dawn Reeves
Dallas TX

Very valuable! Learned key components to having a successful medical practice that specializes in bariatric surgery. Not only my position as bariatric marketing specialist is important, but to capture leads appropriately even the receptionists have to acquire the skills that a marketing specialist has. Social media as marketing and ways to capture people with interest in what we do. How to use social marketing to capture leads. Very entertaining and educational. I would like to participate in your webinars on a frequent basis and am excited to share your information and future sessions with other business owners.

Carmen Justice
Greenville SC

More ways to connect with prospective patients, creating more successful selling environments, ways to better other staff, overcoming objections Good info!

Stephanie Georges
Evansville IN

I learned about building rapport, active listening, using peoples names frequently while conversing with them. – Webinar was extremely well done.

Denise Chase
Nashua NH

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1. Stay cool.

Think, “what would the Fonz do?” Then do that. It’s just not the end of the world. Nobody bats a thousand…people understand you can get bad reviews. You can improve. You can work on this. You can make it better. Don’t freak out. There’s not that much competition under your name. You can get good information out there under your name. Most reputation management issues start with a search for your name and you don’t like the result. Your whole practice is not going to crumble. You’re going to be able to take care of this.

2. Don’t get defensive and respond online.

Some people are just ragers; they’re just angry people. Don’t get sucked into communicating online with someone. It’s a dead end. You’re just giving the thing legs and fanning the flames for the search engines to pick up on a developing story. If a review that’s only three lines long is well cataloged, think how well a review with your 20 line long response will catalog. You’re just improving the search engine optimization of that thing by responding to it.

3. Get it offline ASAP.

Basically, don’t respond to anything online unless it’s positive. Take it offline as soon as you can; don’t let the conversation live in perpetuity on the web. Don’t even send an email. Call on the phone. Get a human-to-human interaction. Evaluate the problem and address it. If you screwed up you need to hit it head on. If the person is really crazy, you might need to let it go. The sooner you get them offline, the sooner you can diffuse it. Communication is the root of all reputation management issues. The sooner you can get it offline, the sooner you’re on your way to addressing it.

4. Have a plan.

The Air Force has a department that’s devoted to damage control. They want to have great information out there about the Air Force and they see negative information as a form of terrorism, just like you.

Isn’t it interesting that everyone is dealing with this issue? Look how the Air Force has planned to handle all types of comments: “Trolls and ragers” – Just monitor the situation. If they’re misguided, fix the problem. If they’re unhappy, look for reasonable resolution. if it’s a positive online post, agree with it. You can want to give that legs by saying, “Hey, thanks! We appreciate that!” When you find something positive, stroke it. This is a great example of planning your strategy BEFORE you have a situation. It’s a great idea.

5 Let it go.

There’s very little you can do with a bad post, really. There’s nothing that can be said or done short of calling that person up and getting it offline. Most any response is just going to allow the situation to get bigger and bigger. No one has perfect reviews. Don’t feed into the hype; you’re better off to just let it go. You’re better off setting good systems in place to deal with unhappy patients before it gets this far down the path. People are First Amendment protected; if someone wants to do it, they can do it. You need to have good systems in place to deal with the truly unhappy patient and if you find a bad review, don’t work on that. Let it go. Work on more positive info.

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