Understanding Your Social Media Customer Will Increase Patient Volume

People turn online first when looking for healthcare information. Understanding the social customer will allow you to engage with them to increase patient volumes.

Here is what you should know about the social customer:

• learns about new products and brands through social channels and trusts her social network to provide honest feedback about it, as opposed to a brand’s one-way advertising message.
• is savvy, doesn’t respond well to unsolicited SPAM in her social networks or overly promotional tweets, but is open to relevant information that meets her needs at that particular moment.
• expects brands to be present and active in the same social venues where she hangs out, listening to her feedback, whether it’s negative or positive.
• expects you to listen and engage with her, not only when it coincides with an e-mail blast or new feature release, but rather when she needs you. And you better respond fast, in real-time, or she will either move on to a competitor, or tell her friends about her bad experiences.
• Because the social customer can talk to a brand through many channels at the same time, she expects everyone she talks to from your company to have the same background on her issue. For example, if I complain about an airline on Twitter, I want the representative who engages me there to know my itinerary and the full history of our interaction through various channels.

Bottom line: The social customer owns the relationship, and you need to earn her trust.

Sign up for one of our free webinars and learn more about the benefits a social media program would bring to your marketing department.

Use Social Media to Create a Regional/National Reach AND Increase Patient Volume

Social media tools allow you to generate thought leadership on a local, regional and national level with a limited marketing budget and time expenditure.

Unlike traditional marketing tactics which take large budgets and time commitments to reach a national audience, social media allows you to achieve the same goal in a shorter time with a small financial commitment.

Sounds too good to be true. Social media allows you to engage with your specific target audience at the moment they are looking for information. Take yourself for example, where do you go when you are looking for information? I go to the web.

Being Found Online and Creating Thought Leadership

Follow these five easy steps and you are on your way to being found and famous online. If you do it right, you will convert the traffic into increased patient volume.

• Create a strategy:  This is the guidepost for your social media program
• Identify your tools:  Start with 4-5 basic tools
• Create a routine:  This is a behavioral change and you need to commit to making that change in behavior
• Content is king:  Start writing. Relevant content is the secret to success
• Inspect:  Set-up inspections not only of the metrics, but of the effort you and your team are putting into it. What’s measured grows.

Remember, it is not going to be easier tomorrow and you have lots of relevant information people are looking for. Take that information and turn it into patient volume.

Sign up for one of our free webinars and learn more about the benefits a social media program would bring to your marketing department.