Social Media for Doctors How to do it right.

Do you still rely on referrals from friends and family to bring in new patients? Doctor, wake up and smell that antiseptic. Social media marketing is the new Yellow Pages for doctors.

We get it. You come from a world of strict rules and regulations. Social media advertising can feel like an extra burden or not be for you. Social media is not a new area in healthcare. By emulating the strategies of others, you can create your own.

This blog will guide you, my friend. We will cover the reasons why doctors use social media marketing. We’ll also show you how to create and implement a plan. Finally, we’ll give you some social media ideas and tips that are free to use.

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8 reasons why social media marketing is important for doctors

Social media is no longer just a platform for posting cat videos and status updates (although it’s great for that too).

For doctors, it’s also a powerful tool for building your brand, reaching new patients, and growing your practice. Social media marketing for doctors presents tons of opportunities. Just be sure to stay compliant with industry and legal regulations.

Here are 8 reasons why social media marketing makes sense for doctors.

Reach new audiences

Social media platforms allow doctors to increase their brand awareness and reach a wider audience. Why is this important? You get to shape and direct the public sentiment about your business and brand.

Ask yourself: What kind of story do you want to tell people? Is there a certain practice or health care philosophy you adhere to that would be helpful for patients to know? Do you want people to feel a particular way before coming to you?

You can use social media to establish yourself as a thought leader, build your reputation, and tell your audience what you stand for.

@tiktokbabydoc

Remember-you have a voice, you have rights, you can ask questions, you can have a support person, you can be involved in your care! #obgyn #mfm #birth #childbirth #laboranddelivery #pregnant #pregnanttiktok #pregnancytiktok #pregnancy #dontforget #empowerment

♬ original sound – lalilala

Educate your followers

Social media is a great education platform. It allows doctors to share health-related information and education on various medical conditions. This can help improve patient outcomes and promote a healthy lifestyle.

Social media marketing for medical practices can help spread the word about anything under the sun.

@tisharowemd

Reply to @mmtaylor23 Great question! #doctorsoftiktok #blackgirlmagic #tisharowemd

♬ original sound – Tisha Rowe

Is there a health tip you find yourself repeating often? Maybe there are some health-related myths you would love to see debunked. Or perhaps you notice a common misconception that hinders people’s health.

Just remember: It’s a good idea to keep these tips fairly general instead of offering specific medical advice over social media. Some questions are better answered in an appointment instead of over DMs.

Boost traffic and search visibility

Sharing high-quality content on social media is a great way to drive traffic to your website. Plus, creating and maintaining an active social media presence will improve your search engine rankings and increase your online visibility.

Increasing your search visibility can, in turn, net your practice more potential patients. But it also has the added benefit of putting you in front of other medical-industry adjacent opportunities, like speaking roles at conferences.

Make better use of your budget

Social media marketing can be much more cost-effective than traditional marketing methods. Doctors can use social media to reach a wider audience without breaking the bank.

Digital marketing allows for better targeting and audience segmentation. In plain English, that means it’s easier to make sure your marketing campaigns reach the right people. This targeting means you can spend money more efficiently and see a higher return on your investment.

Plus, social media and email marketing have significantly lower costs than traditional advertising methods such as TV or print advertising.

For example, the average cost per click (CPC) for Facebook ads is between $0.18 to $1.85. In comparison, the average cost for a 30-second TV ad during prime time is around $100,000.

Create networking opportunities

Social media allows you to network with other healthcare professionals and build relationships with colleagues in your field.

You never know who you’ll link up with on LinkedIn; it could be a long-time hero, someone with a new opportunity for you, or a potential new business partner. But if you want to show up on their feeds, you have to create content consistently.

@annaguanchemd

When a male dermatology resident shows up at our all female office #funny #dermatologist #humor #davidattenborough #nature @skinmdryan

♬ original sound – Ashley Noble

Build brand consistency

Social media allows doctors to shape their online presence and maintain a consistent brand across all platforms. This can help build trust and credibility with your patients and increase brand recognition.

Be sure to put some thought into who your brand is and the parameters you need to operate in to achieve a recognizable brand.

Improve patient loyalty

Doctors can improve patient loyalty and encourage repeat visits by engaging with patients through social media. Social media gives you another point of contact with your community.

With the right content, you can give your existing patients a peek behind the curtain, so to speak. Social media for doctor’s offices can let them know what goes on behind the scenes, who your staff is, and any fun anecdotes from your practice.

Increase your competitive advantage

Social media can give doctors like yourself a competitive advantage in your local market. Social media marketing can help you differentiate yourself from your competitors and attract new patients. Being the most-sought-out doctor in your area may come with other opportunities, too.

How to build a social media marketing strategy for doctors

Creating a social media marketing plan for your medical practice or simply for yourself as a doctor doesn’t have to be difficult.

You can think of it like a treatment plan: By following a few simple steps, you can gain a healthy social strategy. Once you’ve perfected the basics, you can refine your marketing plan to meet bigger, more audacious goals.

Step 1: Set your goals

A successful social media marketing plan for doctors starts with SMART goals. That stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound.

Ask yourself, what do I want to get out of social media? Write those goals down, checking them against the SMART format.

Goals give you something to work toward, and you can measure your progress against them later.

If you’re coming up short, try some of these smart social media goals.

Step 2. Define your ideal audience

Audience or buyer personas are fictional representations of your desired audience. They help you get clear on your ideal target audience. Understanding who your audience is allows you to create content with them in mind.

When building out your personas, think through details like:

Age,Location,Language,Interests,Challenges,Stage of life, andPreferred social networks.

Once your accounts are established, you can use data and analytics to see who follows and engages with your posts.

If your actual audience does not align with your ideal target audience, you have two options. You can either shift your social media strategy or change who you think you should target.

Step 3. Research your competition

Other doctors are already using social media to their advantage. They’re out there, using social platforms successfully, and you can learn from them.

Social media listening and competitive analysis are two popular ways to research what your competitors are up to and figure out how it works for them. These tools can help you uncover untapped markets and opportunities, too.

For example, perhaps many doctors in your field are on Facebook and Instagram, but the healthcare specialty you have has yet to get to TikTok. Or there could be an opportunity for better communication with patients via an app like WhatsApp.

Step 4. Conduct a social media audit

This step only applies if you already have active social media accounts. If not, skip to step 5.

Take stock of your current social marketing efforts and ask yourself:

What’s working and what’s not?Who is engaging with you?What are your most valuable partnerships? What are your ideal partnerships?Which platform is your ideal audience on?How do you stack up against other doctors in your field online?

The answers to these questions should give you an idea of where you can improve. Follow Hootsuite’s social media audit guide and template for an easy walk-through audit.

Step 5. Set up your accounts

If your accounts are already set up, use this time to make sure they’re set up properly.

In Step 2, you figured out where your ideal audience is likely to spend the most time. Use that info to decide where you want to show up and choose the platforms you think will benefit most from your efforts.

These can be platforms other doctors in your field or with your particular brand aren’t occupying. They may also be the places where you’re most excited to produce content.

Once you’ve decided where you want to be active, fill out your accounts according to the following best practices:

Fill out all profile fields, including contact informationInclude keywords in your profile bios that people would use to search for your practice or skillsUse consistent branding (logos, images, etc.) across networks

Step 6. Create your content

You’ll want to start with some inspiration. Skip down to the great social media marketing ideas for doctors below, or do your research by perusing accounts you enjoy. Hootsuite users can also browse through the Content Ideas library to get ideas.

Pro tip: You can use these as templates for creating your content.

Next, come up with some content ideas. Start by brainstorming a few marketing pillars like education, medical histories, myth-busting or behind-the scenes of your practice. Note down ideas for each.

Remember the 80-20 Rule when determining your content mix:

Your posts should be 80% informative, educational, or entertaining, and 20% should promote your brand directly.

It’s time to start putting together some posts. With Composer, you can create and schedule your posts.

Composer offers templates for Business and Enterprise Plan members to create new posts.

Take advantage of Hootsuite’s other tools in the app, including:

OwlyWriter AI is a tool that will help you create content and captions. It also shows you the best time to publish your content.

Step 7. Step 7.

You’re almost done building your social media plan! Next, create a content calendar for social media to ensure you stay on target and on schedule.

It is a summary of your strategy for the next few weeks or months. Your content calendar should address your content’s what, how, and where.

Hootsuite allows you to plan out your entire social media schedule. Hootsuite can also schedule posts to be published automatically, saving you a lot of time.

See what our experts have to say if you are unsure of how much you should be posting.

Step 8. Step 8.

After you have published content, you will want to know how well your plan has performed. Watch your performance metrics. Use the native data analytics of the social platform or Hootsuite for custom analytics reports.

You can tell from your data whether or not the content you created is helping you reach the SMART objectives you set up in Step 1. If not, then you will need to make adjustments.

Three great social media marketing strategies for doctors

Are you ready for some inspiration? Three ideas that doctors have used to kill it on social media (but not literally)!

Social media is a great way to get your message out.

Do not be afraid to jump on social media trends. This is especially true if you are on TikTok. Dr. Phabinly Gabriel, for instance, used a popular audio to share his story, while using the hashtag #blackdoctors to advocate for the awareness of Black people in the medical field.

@doctorphabs

Being Black in Medicine is a constant feeling of being underestimated. You can excel in medicine if you come from a minority background. I am eternally grateful to the black doctors, the giants in medicine who have helped us achieve more than anyone else. We are Black History. #md #medschool #doctorsoftiktok #medicine #blackdoctor #blackdoctors #surgeon #ilooklikeasurgeon #blackinmedicine #melanintok #medtok #blackneurosurgeon #neurosurgery #neurosurgeon #neurosurgeons #medicine #healthcare #medschool #medicalschool #motivation #premedmotivation #inspiration #blackboyjoy #blackboymagic



#blackboymagic #blacktiktok #blackboy #blackmen #blackmenoftiktok #blackhistory

IVOXYGEN YOUNG KIDS Tiktok Version ex – Floyd045_

Dr. Gabriel’s feed is filled with fun TikTok trending topics, inspirational messages and tons of content from his day-to-day life that engages his audience.

Content that adds value to your audience

Doctor Muneeb is a dermatologist known as Doctorly on Instagram.

He shares some of the most fascinating videos about pimples and skin care on social media.

See this post on Instagram

Dr. Muneeb (@doctorly), shared a post.

To emulate Doctorly, you should keep in mind one important thing: Provide value to your audience.

If you want to really knock them off their feet, combine your posts that are based on value with a shocking visual (like those swollen lip videos or pimple removal videos we’ve mentioned but will not show for obvious reason).

See this post on Instagram

A post shared by Dr. Chris Tomassian.

Share your stories

People love stories. Your audience will be drawn to a narrative that has a human face, emotion and is driven by plot, character or theme.

Kevin Pho’s The Podcast By KevinMD provides physicians, advanced practitioners and nurses, as well as medical students and patients, with a platform for sharing their experiences and stories.

He can reach an enormous audience online, expose aspects of the health care industry, and send a message to a wide range of people.

Share stories about your experience, or those of your colleagues (with their permission). You should try to highlight humanity in your posts.

Give some context to a diagnosis. For example, if you are discussing how it might affect someone’s daily life, explain the background. You’ll be able to achieve success if you can get your audience put themselves, their grandmother or child at the heart of your story.

Hootsuite is used by doctors, healthcare providers and insurers around the world to improve customer service, unify social messages and ensure compliance with regulations. Discover why Hootsuite is the leading social media platform for healthcare.

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