5 Advantages of Social Media for Physicians in Practice

Using social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, blogging, and Four Square as a business tool offers practicing physicians multiple opportunities to connect with patients and grow their practice. Here is a roundup of some of the advantages of social media for your practice.

     1.) Low cost
          Using traditional advertising strategies such as radio, TV, newspapers, billboards, or internet banner ads can cost a small fortune and are out of reach for smaller hospitals or practices. One of the greatest benefits of social media networks is that they effectively reach a wide range of consumers free of cost. As a physician, you can dive into the social media culture by utilizing Facebook, Twitter, and Linked In. Increase your competitive advantage and market your skills, knowledge, and services to potential patients, all for free!

     2.) Builds Credibility
          Social media allows your current patients to express their satisfaction with your knowledge and clinical skill while also allowing potential patients to read these reviews and chose you over the doctor down the street. With the internet readily available, use it to be more accessible to your patients with advice and healthcare news thus proving you are a better resource than WebMD and therefore driving patients to you.

     3.) Increase Patient Pool
          The base of social networking is human connections. When you connect with your patients, it indirectly connects you to their friends and followers who in turn can become new patients. When someone visits your Facebook page and sees five of their friends are a fan of you, they are more likely to pick up the phone and make an appointment with you.

     4.) Up-to-Date Information
          Practices change daily and so can social media. It can easily and quickly inform and keep current and potential patients involved in your practice by informing them of business hour changes, flu shot specials, and anything else happening in your practice.

     5.) Fast and Reliable Feedback
          Social media allows you to gather and interpret patient feedback directly from the patients themselves much faster than any other means. You can see exactly what your patients are saying about you and your practice and obtain an improved understanding of what patients want. For instance, if multiple patients ask you similar questions about the flu shot each fall, you can proactively post/tweet an article that addresses their concerns.

It is important to remember to always maintain a professional persona on all social networking sites. People are looking for information online; let them look to you for answers.