What is SEO? SEO or search engine optimization is important to doctors, hospital, clinics, and medical practices for endless reasons. It means your ranking in the search engines when someone searches for doctors or clinics like you. By having a healthy SEO score, you increase your chances of getting new patients and keeping old ones. SEO helps with branding, marketing, and generating new business. Continue Reading Article >
5 Reasons Why Your Physicians Practice Needs Facebook
Social media is a great way for your doctor’s office to utilize healthcare marketing. Facebook is an extremely popular social media platform that many businesses use to connect with customers. By creating a simple Facebook page for your Physician’s office you open the door to offering healthcare education, posting news, office updates, and reaching new customers. These are just a few of the many reasons why you need to create a Facebook page now!
Connect With Patients and Get Feedback
Facebook enables your practice to connect with patients and hear their concerns, input, and feedback. If problems arise you can address it directly by using this platform. Unless your physician is a magical center, you might run into a negative review on Facebook at some point. In the case that a negative review arises it's better if you are able to read it and respond directly to resolve the issue. You can turn that unhappy patient into a happy patient with a thoughtful response! This platform also helps you find out what health concerns patients have so you can add valuable online content that addresses their concerns. Overall, it is a useful tool to get to know your patients better and meet their needs.
It Improves Patient Education
Creating a business Facebook pages allows your practice the chance to improve patient education. This can be done through sharing informative articles or blog content that is posted on your website. This content can be an impactful way to inform patients about new procedures or advice on how to care for themselves. When it is written by a physician that they know, they are more likely to read and respect the advice. It gives your staff the opportunity to share other medical articles or websites with patients to keep them aware of changes in the medical field. This is an excellent medical marketing tool.
Promotes Physician Education and Networking
Networking, networking, networking! Your practice can connect with other doctors and observe how similar types of specialties are marketing to enhance your overall knowledge. Inspiration is everywhere and this is key to making your marketing strategy a great one! Facebook offers your practice the chance to interact with other physicians online and join groups or organizations that address medical issues. Learning from others helps you keep on top of your practice's marketing and connect with other physicians. Networking can be a way for others to learn about your practice and gain new patients.
Social Media Supports Your Patient Community
A chronic physical illness can be very isolating for patients. Facebook has many online support groups for cancer and other chronic illness that patients suffer from. If you have a Facebook page, you can provide a list of support groups that address your specialty. This gives patients a chance to connect with others suffering from the same disease. On your Facebook page you can start your own support group where patients can ask questions and get support from you and other patients. This opportunity can greatly affect your practice's ability to connect with patients in a way that you might not have been able to do so before. Giving patients a sense of control over their illness is priceless.
Extend the Reach of Your Practice and Get New Patients
A Facebook page is a great way to promote medical marketing. Those patients that you already have will often tell their friends about your practice. If others see someone they know commenting on your Facebook page, you increase your chances of connecting with a wider range of patients. Many people like to go to a doctor that someone they know uses. Social media promotes your physician's office, and it's free! When you live in a large city you can extend your marketing range to cities and towns nearby. This will bring in more patients for your office in no time!
By creating a Facebook page for your physician’s practice you can post patient success stories, share videos and promote special events. If you a holding a fundraiser or special event this is the best place to post it. Often patients will tell others about your office which will increase the amount of new patients for your practice. Another point is you can control your reputation through Facebook by addressing patient concerns.
By Joan Russell
10 Tweets for Your Imaging Center’s Twitter Account
Getting your imaging center or medical practice involved with social media can be a challenge, so if you’re not sure where to get started you aren’t alone. Following health care social media best practices means providing value, being genuinely caring and being accessible.
With more patients turning to the Internet and social media platforms for medical advice and resources, your healthcare marketing strategy needs to go beyond just referring physician marketing. Healthcare social media and radiology marketing on platforms like Twitter, will help improve your online reputation and reach more actively searching patients.
Read More - Physician in Social Media: Twitter and How to Get Involved
Here are 10 tweet ideas for your imaging center to post on your Twitter account to get you started:
1. Sharing current or past Blog Posts
2. Engage with local media personalities or news casters discussing health in your town. Most people in the media are also active on Twitter!
3. Spreading the word about health care news that affects your patient
4. Share photos of your staff doing something unique, like celebrating Halloween by dressing up. Then be sure to use holiday hashtags that are trending!
5. Funny industry meme
6. #TBT Tweets – Share a funny picture of your staff or your radiologist from back in the day. Twitter users want to see that you can have a personality.
7. Links to other interesting or valuable articles, even if they aren’t on your websit
8. Comment on something trending in your area. For instance, if you have a parade or event or local holiday coming up, engage in that conversation. Everything you tweet doesn’t have to be about your services, it can be about your involvement in the community too.
9. Sharing your contact information with an image attached, side note tweets with image content are much more likely to be engaged with
10. Use geo-tag searches to find people tweeting about your kinds of services in your area. For instance, you can use this formula “MRI geocode:27.9959851,-82.7343884,60km” to find people who are tweeting with the term “MRI” within 60 km of your Google Earth coordinates. See who is close by using your terms and reach out to them to see if you can help!
Radiology marketing will never be the same, so it is time for you to jump on board!
Read More: How to Get Followers on Twitter with Health Care Marketing
What If My Imaging Center Gets a Bad Review Online?
It’s a healthcare practice’s nightmare; to learn that a disgruntled or disappointed patient has left a bad review online. As an imaging center, you attempt to provide top notch patient care to everyone that comes through your door, but no matter what, you might still meet a patient who is just hard to please.
Regardless of how well your staff treats your patients, they can develop a negative opinion of your imaging center. They can become disgruntled for a number of reasons that you can manage, but there are some ways patients can become frustrated that are out of your control.
Patient Experiences You Can Control
Feeling Welcomed – With a Smile
Clean, Comfortable Waiting Area
Easily Accessible Contact Information
Convenient Access to Patient Records
Patient Experiences You Can’t Control
Longer Wait Times – Due to External Delays
Frustration/Pain Based on Patient Ailment
Patients with Bad Attitudes
High Care/Procedure Costs
Read More: Why Your Healthcare Practice Needs Social Media
So, what do you do if a patient leaves a negative review of your imaging center on Facebook or Yelp? Or, what if a patient tweets something negative to you? How do you handle it?
How To Handle Bad Reviews on Social Media:
Step 1: Don’t delay. Be sure to respond quickly to reviews so you can take control of the situation before it has the chance to snowball into a bigger issue. Even if the bad review is in fact warranted, you can still salvage the situation with an appropriate response.
Step 2: Determine if the complaint is based on something you could control making it warranted, or if the complaint is something that doesn’t have to do with the quality of your service. Ex: “The front desk girl was very rude and was playing on her cell phone while I waited at the desk.” This is something you can fix as opposed to a review that reads, “I’ve been in pain for months so I tried to schedule an MRI at this imaging center but they wouldn’t give me an appointment unless I was referred by a doctor.” We know that in radiology, diagnostic testing requires a script, but some patients may not know that. So, while you can’t change this fact, you can do a better job of explaining this to patients and giving them advice on what to do next.
Step 3: Always be sympathetic, no matter what. An apology isn’t always warranted if the patient’s negative review is unwarranted. Sometimes people just complain to complain but even if they are wrong, you need to show empathy in your response.
Step 4: Offer some kind of solution or compromise. You can’t erase the past and you can’t refund patients for their care, but that doesn’t mean you can’t offer some kind of solution. Sometimes, the best thing you can do is provide the patient with the contact information of your marketing representative or office manager so they can speak directly with a person who might be able to help them. This is also an opportunity to do some further investigating to see if this can be a learning opportunity for your practice.
Some things to remember with regards to online patient reviews:
1. Just because you don’t think you have a Facebook page for your practice, doesn’t mean there isn’t a location listing on Facebook where patients can check in and write reviews. You must take ownership of your business’ page and merge the listing page to control it. You can’t control a Facebook listing but you can control a business page!
2. People are most likely to leave a review of their healthcare providers when they either have an extraordinarily positive or extraordinarily negative experience. You won’t often get people who say that their experience was just okay. Focus on branding your patient experience so it is something worth talking about in a positive light.
3. Sometimes a negative review with a strong, helpful response from the practice is more influential than a positive review. As a patient, seeing that someone from a practice would go out of their way to make amends for a negative experience shows that they are willing to go above and beyond for their patients.
Read More: Why You Need to Brand Your Practice’s Patient Experience
Need help managing bad reviews online for your practice? We can help, just fill out the form below!
Why Your Radiology Practice Needs a Social Media Strategy
Many radiology groups think social media in the medical field is a waste of time, but we're here to tell you why that just isn't the case. Your practice needs a social media strategy for a number of reasons, but to excel in radiology marketing you don't even have to do much. Healthcare providers are accepting that health care social media is a necessity, but your competition may not yet be on board.
Let's look at some reasons why your practice needs a social media strategy:
1. Because it's the best way to reach consumer-driven patients…
Your mother might say, “if Johnny and everyone else was jumping off a bridge, would you do it too?” In this case, your answer should be a resounding, “YES MOM, I’M JUMPING AND I LEFT MY PARACHUTE AT HOME.” Doctors, hospitals and specialists all over the country are using their Facebook business pages to reach patients, so radiology practices must get on board. Patients are turning to Twitter as well, thanks to the Health Care Hashtag project brought to you by Symplur, making weekly tweet chats and hashtags trend within the industry.
2. Because Search Engine Optimization is your key to success…
SEO practices help your website rank higher for patients searching certain keywords. Want to be the first website to show up when they search for “best doctor in Tampa?” Well, you’ll have to work for it. New SEO practices have shown that more weight is being put on your social sites. This means, if you have patients providing reviews and sharing your posts with their friends, you will be in a better position for patients looking online for practices like yours.
3. Because older people are really into “The Facebook”…
My most active Facebook friend is 100% my Grandma. She “Likes” and shares every post I make, no matter what it is about. She “Likes” every local business she is a patron for, including her doctors. Specialists like radiologists have a largely elderly patient population, but they assume they aren’t reliable for social engagement. That just couldn’t be further from the truth, especially when it comes to “The Facebook,” as my grandma calls it.
4. Because you can use Twitter to reach the unreachable…
PR pros don’t tell you this secret openly, but Twitter is the most affordable and easiest way to reach your local media. Industry leaders, community influencers and news reporters are all over Twitter. You can open lines of communication with them and then when they have the chance to highlight you or use you as a resource, you’ll be ready.
5. Because people like to complain…
People are much more inclined to share negative experiences than positive ones. Let’s face it, by nature, we like to whine and complain. Often, your disgruntled patients will turn to social sites like Facebook, Google Places or Yelp to air your dirty laundry. If you don’t manage your pages, you can’t defend your practice, correct the situation and improve the patient’s impression of you. Care doesn’t end when your patients walk out the door; you need to be accessible to them.
Read More: What If My Practice Gets a Bad Review on Facebook