How can our social media marketers help your healthcare practice, clinic or hospital?

You don’t buy social media results – you earn social media results. It’s hard work.

This is great news, because any marketing practice that is really hard means that there is a competitive advantage to doing it well. This is especially true in an industry that abhors the new.

Social media are web or mobile-based technologies used for social interaction. Social media marketing is the use of social media as a platform to market products and services.

According to wikipedia (a social networking website itself) “a social network service focuses on the building and verifying of online social networks for communities of people who share interests and activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others, and which necessitates the use of software“.

Healthcare and social media

Social media is a relatively new marketing channel and its use in mainstream healthcare, while limited, is growing faster than almost any other media channel.

[pullquote_right]Social media is not silver bullet, but it is an extremely important and relatively low cost touch point that has a direct impact on sales and word of mouth[/pullquote_right]We believe that social media is an extremely important and relatively low cost touch point that has a direct impact on sales and word of mouth. However, whilst social media has a very low barrier to entry, we usually advise our clients to establish and optimise other marketing channels (like developing a website that converts, search engine optimisation, paid search, email marketing, telephone sales training, consultation skills training, and customer service training) before investing significantly in social media.

Examples of social media marketing platforms

The biggest names social networks at the moment are

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube

Blogging, can also be considered social media.

Why healthcare marketers need to start considering social media as an important marketing channel

Here are a few statistics that would interest any healthcare marketer:

  • Internet users spend 3x more minutes on blogs & social networks than on email (1)
  • Nearly 2/3 of internet users regularly use a social network (2)
  • Social networking is practiced by 82% of 25-34 year olds, 72% of 35-44 year olds, 60% of 45-54 year olds, 52% of 44-64 year olds and 31% of those 65 and older (3)
  • 39% of people are most influenced by online friends and 26% are most influenced by bloggers (4)
  • 63% of companies using social media say it has increased marketing effectiveness – among other benefits (5)
  • 70% of US local small to medium businesses are actively using Facebook to promote their business, 58% are using LinkedIn, 40% are using Twitter, and 27% are using YouTube (6)
  • 61% of US marketers use social media to increase lead generation (7)

When is the right time for your healthcare business to get involved in social media?

When the world wide web was emerged as a serious marketing channel, it became imperative for businesses to claim their domain names – even if they had no short-term plans for developing a website. Social media is similar today. You do not need to commit to social media to acquire brand name accounts for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

If you’re ready to commit to social media engagement, we can help you

  1. Determine your purpose. It can be used to increase your marketing effectiveness, increase customer satisfaction, reduce marketing costs, reduce support costs, and more. The best social media strategies have a clear purpose before they are initiated.
  2. Speak with your target audience. This is not the place for perfected, committee approved marketing messages. Rather, it’s a place for open and honest, common-sense communication with your community, not at your community.
  3. Generate consistently valuable content. People want access to your articles, images, videos, charts, tools, and polls. You can either create this content to be shared exclusively in social media, or you can repurpose existing online or offline content.
  4. Engage your community. This is not a one-to-many medium, it’s a many-to-many medium. The most successful social media channels are the most open. You should feel comfortable with your community commenting on your posts, sharing their own views, uploading photos or videos, connecting with other members in discussion boards.
  5. Keep your accounts active. Steady updates will keep your accounts fresh and free of out-of-date content. Remember that your community will not engage on your schedule, but theirs. So you’ll need to stay on top of things, especially when people ask questions or make comments you’d like to address.
  6. Measure your outcomes. This relates back to your purpose. You’ll lose interest in social media quickly if you cannot justify the time and resources spent on it. Evaluating your social media outcomes are as important as any other marketing evaluation. Measure your outcomes and track your results.
  1. The Neilsen Company, November 2010
  2. Emarketer, February 2011
  3. Emarketer, February 2o11
  4. Emarketer, May 2010
  5. Mckinsey Global Institute, December 2010
  6. Merchant Circle, February 2011
  7. R2Integrated, April 2010

 

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What our clients say…

“In a matter of weeks, we already saw results with LiveseySolar. Far before we were even finished with our project.”

Erik Chotiner, MD, FACS, Ophthalmologist

“The whole group has been very, very professional. We’re quite early in the stages, but we can see the benefits.”

Dr Nick Mantell , MBChB FRANZCO

“They’re very professional. They know what they’re doing, but they also put us at ease. This helped us to cut through what’s needed to get what we want.”

Mr Praveen Patel, MA (Cantab), MB BChir (Cantab), FRCOphth, MD (Res)

“It’s wonderful to work with an agency that engages on our level and understands our market.”

Dr Anton Van Heerden, MBChB; FRANZCO, Ophthalmologist

Get your Practice Marketing Score

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Meet our Co-Founders

We’re passionate about helping leaders of high-quality, growth-minded practice owners double their practice revenue

Rod Solar

Founder & Scalable Business Advisor

For over 20 years, I’ve helped ophthalmology entrepreneurs scale their private practices. I specialise in doubling revenue within three years by offering a proven framework, hands-on experience, and a team of experts who implement what works. We take the guesswork out of growth and scale, so you can focus on delivering exceptional patient care while maximising the value of your business.

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LiveseySolar completely transformed the way we were approaching this… We’ve gone from having just the dream of having a practice to having a practice up and running with people making inquiries and booking for procedures… It’s extremely pleasing. We feel lucky we connected with LiveseySolar.

— Dr Matthew Russell, MBChB, FRANZCO, specialist ophthalmic surgeon and founder of VSON and OKKO

Laura Livesey

Founder & CEO

I’m the co-founder & CEO of LiveseySolar. I’ve developed powerful eye surgery marketing systems that increase patient volumes and profits for doctors, clinics, and hospitals, since 1997.

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Rod and Laura know as much about marketing surgery to patients as I know about performing it. They are an expert in the field of laser eye surgery marketing. They know this industry inside out. I believe that they could help many companies in a variety of areas including marketing materials, sales training and marketing support for doctors.

— Prof. Dan Reinstein, MD MA FRSC DABO, founder of the London Vision Clinic, UK