Tools to build your social healthcare practice

Are you a doctor, dentist, physiotherapist, allied health professional, practice manager, health care peak industry association? Trying to ascertain how social media can be used effectively for your practice? In the area of health care the challenges to both effectively target and respond to online discussion is one that requires special consideration.

There’s a lot of buzz today about social media marketing in health care practices. When I speak at medical and health care related industry conferences I am usually asked by health care practitioners and their team members, “Can social media be effective in building our practice?" And, “Is it necessary for us to be engaging in this 24/7 space, it's so time consuming?”

Social media is word-of-mouth marketing online. It can be used effectively for patient education, to increase patient loyalty and is a powerful tool for acquiring new patients through word of mouth referral.

However to implement an effective social media prorgamme it begins with strategy -“why”  What are your goals, what are your trying to acheive and how will you measure your success. Executed well social media is a powerful tool for what I call 'out-practice service'.

In it's simplest form, social media in health care communication is all about the story you have to tell, be it for health promotion,  provision of valuable patient resources, fact sheets, and more.

1stAvailable have recently developed a number of tools exclusive to 1stAvailable subscribers to help you market the 1stAvailable service to your patients. They are available from our 1stAvailable Facebook page as free downloads. I hope you find them useful. As a 1stAvailable subscriber you should also check out our edition of 1stToday episode, we meet Executive Chairman Klaus Bartosch from 1stAvailable.