Wading into the Social Media Pool

Follow these smart steps early on to avoid getting in over your head.

Greg Raeman: Social Media is at the forefront of everyone's minds these days. Whether you're an independent professional promoting your skills or a representative of a large professional organization defining your brand and creating opportunities, this complex form of marketing and relationship development can present significant challenges.

Social media is like the arms of an octopus, with tentacles reaching into channels that share photos, highlight local events, make professional connections, share customer reviews and keep you abreast of what your closest associates, friends and family are doing.

If you're the owner, administrator or marketing director of a practice, you need to make important decisions about which social media outlets are most appropriate for your practice. As a practice management consultant, I'm frequently confronted by clients who are concerned that they're missing out on practice-building opportunities (such as Facebook, YouTube, blogging, Twitter and other services). For other practices, social media is already central to their marketing strategies.

No matter what your experience level may be at this point, keep in mind that we're all trying to confirm which of these new channels work best for each type of practice. To explore this important issue further, we have assembled a panel of ophthalmologists, administrators and consultants who have accumulated groundbreaking experience in this exciting new field of patient communication.

Getting Practical

Mr. Raeman: Let's be honest. The real goal is to increase your presence in cyberspace and provide alternate channels of communication and education for your patients. From a practical standpoint, the first step might be to claim and optimize the many “free” search engine, business and medical directory listing pages that have already been created for you. I've personally and professionally found this to be a low- or no-cost way to enhance a brand, and it requires little effort.

The bottom line: Social media is not a fad. Practices must identify and implement the best strategies to use this resource to attract new patients, expand eyecare services to existing patients and allow patients to share their perceptions of what practices have to offer. By focusing on these areas, you will unlock the power of social media.

As I mentioned, we have several options to consider. Let me start this discussion by asking which primary channels our panelists prefer. Making these initial choices is one of the biggest challenges for people who have not taken their first steps. Which do you recommend for practices just getting started?

Rohit Krishna, MD: As a glaucoma specialist, I've been involved with social media and app development for 2 to 3 years. Based on this experience, I would say Facebook should be the first channel to address. In the prospectus Facebook filed with the United States Security and Exchange Commission as part of its highly publicized initial stock offering on May 21, the company had 845 million monthly active users. This number, as of Dec. 31, 2011, represented a 39% increase over a 1-year period.¹

After Facebook, I suggest YouTube as a second choice. It allows you to easily put a video on the Web. This video can be educational, informative and useful. I wouldn't create a video that's promotional. Generally, I would say to follow the 80/20 rule — 80% of what you put on social media should be informational and no more than 20% should be promotional.

Motivating Patients

Mr. Raeman: How do you motivate people to visit social media sites?

Dr. Krishna: You need a unified marketing approach. From the moment the patient walks into your practice, he or she should see printed materials that describe your website or patient portal, including simple information on how to access them. Present your Facebook page and link or your hashtag on Twitter in places that the patient will see it. Remember that patients are going to have dead time before they see the doctor. Try to capitalize on that time by giving them something to do in the waiting room.

Once a patient visits your site, it's important to measure how well you're connecting with them. Facebook has a feature called Insights, providing every conceivable metric, including demographics. You can also use a service called Flurry (flurry.com), which can be embedded into the code of your Doctor App. Search Google for “social media applications” or peruse online publications, such as SocialMedia Examiner (social mediaexa-miner.com), for more ideas on apps that can help you manage your social media sites. We use Hoot-Suite (hootsuite.com), which offers a 30-day free trial. This service provides an administrative panel that functions as a social media mission control center.

How many times have you searched for a doctor on Google and come up with Health Grades as the number one or two hit? It tells you right away that the doctor isn't on the Internet — that he or she is not engaging. If you have a website, at least you'll be above these physicians. — Randy Wong, MD

Starting with Small Steps

Mark Prussian: Our practice uses e-newsletters, Facebook and other Internet activities to promote our services. One factor to keep in mind is that very few ophthalmology practices have more than 2,000 followers on social media — an elite dozen or less have more than 10,000. Most ophthalmology practices, even those that have been working at social media for a while, have 50 to a few hundred.

Mr. Raeman: People shouldn't get discouraged. Often, when people in practices are setting up Facebook pages, they look at other practices' Facebook pages and say to me, “They have 62 people following their page.” Well, keep in mind that 30 of those people are probably employees, friends and family members.

Mr. Prussian: If I had no social media presence and didn't know where to begin, I would want to optimize my Google+ Local (formerly Google Places) account. Simply go to Google, type in Google+ Local, click on the “Get Started” button (Claim your business listing — for free) and follow the instructions. Google, with at least 81% of the search engine traffic, has far outpaced the Yellow Pages in reach, providing virtually every business address.² You might have more than one listing if your practice is associated with a practice name and a doctor's name.

You can spend 30 minutes uploading a few photographs to this service. Use a headshot and a photograph of your building, for example, so patients will know what you and your building look like before they visit. Add a few words on your biography, set it and forget it. Unless Google changes the rules, this listing doesn't need to be attended, unlike Facebook, which requires frequent posts.

Mr. Raeman: That's the best advice for the majority of practices.

Many doctors, even those eager to participate, don't know what social media really means. I define social media as a means of developing a relationship, then engaging patients through that relationship by delivering a very specific message. That message should brand your practice, across all of your mediums. — Rohit Krishna, MD

Deliver a Very Specific Message

Dr. Krishna: Many doctors, even those eager to participate, don't know what social media really means. I define social media as a means of developing a relationship, then engaging patients through that relationship by delivering a very specific message. That message should brand your practice, across all of your mediums.

Randy Wong, MD: There are so many facets of social media. I'm in retina practice in Fairfax, Va. We started a medical website/blog about 4 years ago and we have successfully integrated social media with our website. I have now become my own single largest referring source. I've also started Medical Marketing Enterprises, a company that helps doctors market their practices. I believe that a blog, offering audiences the ability to comment, is the purest form of social media. It opens the door for the user to ask a question and, more importantly, gives the doctor or the practice administrator a chance to respond.

I believe that a blog, offering audiences the ability to comment, is the purest form of social media. It opens the door for the user to ask a question and, more importantly, gives the doctor or the practice administrator a chance to respond. — Randy Wong, MD

Who Am I Reaching and What Are They Saying?

Mr. Prussian: To comply with the meaningful use standards of electronic health records (EHR) Stage 1, we added a Web portal. We had a 101-year-old patient register with us, which was surprising. It turned out that her 75-year-old daughter had completed the registration. Social media isn't just for people in their 20s, 30s and 40s. Older patients with cataract, macular degeneration and other eye disease are also participating.

Mr. Casper: You may target the older patient, but you can also reach the daughter who is making decisions about their parents and grandparents, as the case you just mentioned demonstrates. I believe younger people in these roles make up the fastest growing demographic.

Dr. Krishna: Sure, you can deliver messages through videos in the waiting room, but people get bored quickly. Try to reach them through a smartphone application or your mobile website. Creatively leverage the time of the family member in your waiting room.

Developing a Target

Mr. Casper: To get started in social media, a practice should develop a target. While working as a consultant, I've found that the best way to get started in social media is to determine where you want your practice to go. Do you want to bring in every possible new patient or only specific types? Without an end point, you can't develop a cohesive strategy. Effective sites are setting up opportunities to interact with patients within their strategic themes, whether it is through one-minute surveys or other types of interactive tools.

In my experience, there are three types of practices: those that are only now thinking of launching a website, those that have a website that they haven't touched for years and those that have websites but aren't getting the most out of them, even though they're regularly updated. — Randy Wong, MD

Lessons on YouTube: For You and Your Patients Mr. Casper: A great tool for boosting your social media presence is YouTube. It offers effective videos that help you get started in social medical marketing. Google and Facebook also contain some outstanding videos. Mr. Prussian: I'm a big proponent of YouTube, which seems to cover just about every topic.You can also plant yourself in front of a camera and address your audience on common topics and get someone on your staff to create a YouTube channel. You can gradually add to your library of videos. Mr. Raeman: I see some practices that have done a phenomenal job with YouTube channel pages. If you think about it, many people use the video side of the Web, because they want to see procedures.YouTube channel pages provide a great way to pull people from the video side of the Web and link to your Web page. Mr. Casper: Minnesota Eye, which does a fantastic job of posting videos, has generated nearly 17,000 views of videos on its YouTube channel. Think of the amount of information being pushed out based on that activity alone. Mr. Prussian: I don't think that you benefit from extra credibility by paying a professional video company to create these videos for you.You can use something as simple as an iPhone. Mr. Dawes: We perform free cataract surgeries for indigent patients in our community two times each year, including 80 during this past year. Instead of bringing in a professional film crew, our marketing person recorded the procedures with an iPhone. She also digitally recorded the patients' testimonials with her iPhone. We just popped those videos on YouTube. It was so much more real and legitimate than bringing in a professional film crew. We're all used to seeing these types of homemade videos now.

Also, by interacting immediately with visitors when they arrive at your site, you improve search engine optimization as the foundation that will move your practice deeper into relevant social media.

Dr. Wong: I think practices starting out should get down to basics. As I mentioned, I believe in starting with a website and a blog. By the way, I believe every website in 2012 should be a blog. Blogging “software” allows you to easily create a website that has the same appearance as an old fashioned website, but also allows readers to comment.

I suggest the following: If you have no website, start one soon. The site should offer basic information about your practice such as hours of operation, directions, contact information and accepted types of insurance. Beyond that, if you're really brave, create an “about” page. I'd recommend writing, “who you are” vs. “what you are.” Write in the first person and about things you do, not about your resume. This type of site will serve as a resource page for patients. It will provide you with a Web presence, which is better than being found only on Health Grades.

How many times have you searched for a doctor on Google and come up with Health Grades as the number one or two hit? It tells you right away that the doctor isn't on the Internet — that he or she is not engaging. If you have a website, at least you'll be above the Health Grades physicians. It's a good message to send to your patients — that is, trying to engage.

At some point, you may feel that you need to have more than a resource page. You might want to develop your website into a marketing tool. Writing patient information articles, or blogging, and increasing your search engine optimization will become important at this point, allowing you to reach patients who are seeking the services that you provide.

The best type of site will serve as a resource, market your practice and engage new patients. This is a bit more sophisticated, but you can add social media to drive patients to your site, use the site to provide value in the form of educational articles and then engage by asking your readers to ask questions or leave comments after the articles. This is the most powerful aspect of a blog and is how I've succeeded so well with my own practice.

To me, you can progress at your own speed and comfort level. Start simple and small, slowly expand your site as your needs grow.

What Doctors Are Doing in Cyberspace

Mr. Raeman: In our role as consultants for Allergan's Eye Care Business Advisory Group, Mr. Casper and I assess websites frequently. When I go into a major metropolitan area, for example, I conduct a search engine optimization review to find out how our customers are doing. If websites in that community aren't well optimized, my search returns mostly directory listing pages, such as Vitals and Health Grades.

I can tell you from experience that these pages frequently include inaccurate information, which raises my biggest concern. I've seen ophthalmologists listed as optometrists. Recently, in Oklahoma, I saw one listed as an OB/GYN. That's not good for your business. Ensure that these medical directory listings present correct information about you, such as the right hospital affiliations. Often, you'll see room on the sites for a profile picture. You'll see tabs that invite you to update your profiles for free. In many cases, if you aren't engaged in social media and don't have a website — or perhaps even if you do have a website — these pages are what will show up in patients' searches. Like it or not, these are the pages that will represent you on the Web. It's worth the time to update them with good information.

James Dawes: My involvement in social media began about 3 or 4 years ago in my current position as chief administrative officer of our 26-doctor group. We asked our Web development company to create a Facebook page and then quickly realized that we were trying to go from first base to third base. We weren't making sure our local searches and doctor finder listings on Health Grades or Vitals were correct. Our various doctor profiles, locations and Linkedin information needed to be corrected and updated. So we took a step back and addressed all of the factors we could immediately control.

We started monitoring our reviews, our online reputation, making sure we understood what was being said about us online. I see many practices skipping these critical first steps and instead jumping ahead and developing a Facebook page that isn't valuable to users.

Managing Mobile Space

Mr. Dawes: Here's another issue that can be a challenge, one that you can easily take for granted. About 6 months ago, I was horribly embarrassed to learn that our website was not mobile friendly, which meant that it couldn't be viewed on tablets or smartphones. We have Wi-Fi in all of our nine locations, and we encourage patients and their families to access our website in our offices. These days, many of them will do that on a smartphone or tablet. So we're addressing this issue, which involves a fair amount of reinvention of our website.

Dr. Wong: Unless your site is a blog.

Dr. Wong: Most new blog themes are written to be automatically mobile-friendly. But if they aren't, you can just use a plug-in program.

Mr. Dawes: If you're starting from scratch, agreed, the best advice is to begin with a blog. It's the fastest, easiest and most mobile-friendly, way to connect with your patients.

Dr. Wong: The blog software today (CMS) makes the older HTML generators, such as Microsoft FrontPage and DreamWeaver, obsolete. Unlike FrontPage, DreamWeaver and other HTML generators, blogging software themes are turnkey and completely customizable.

Mr. Dawes: You can start a blog and make it operational in 3 days.

Where Will Patients Find You?

Dr. Wong: I think we can all agree that you need to have a Web presence, first and foremost, even if it's only providing location and contact information. Otherwise, patients aren't going to call you. I believe 90% of Americans go to the Internet first when they have health-related questions.³ When a patient or a person receives the name of a doctor — be it from a referring doctor, a parent, a family member or the person next door — the patient will go to Google to search for that doctor. And if the doctor isn't there, the patient will never go to that doctor's office. ■

Without an end point, you can't develop a cohesive strategy. Effective sites are setting up opportunities to interact with patients within their strategic themes, whether it's through 1-minute surveys or other types of interactive tools. — Joe Casper, Allergan Consultant

If you're starting from scratch, agreed, the best advice is to begin with a blog. It's the fastest, easiest and most mobile-friendly way to connect with your patients. — James Dawes, Practice Administrator

References

1. How many customers does Facebook have? www.digitopoly.org/2012/02/07/ how-many-customers-does-facebook-have; last accessed July 9, 2012.
2. Search engine market share. www.statowl.com/search _engine_market_share.php; last accessed July 9, 2012.
3. Pew/internet study finds most Americans get their answers from the internet. searchengineland.com/pewinternet-study-finds-most-americans-get-their-answers-from-the-internet-13028; last accessed July 9, 2012.