Social media has created an additional opportunity for doctors to provide helpful information to patients. When the content you share is relevant to the health conditions they have, it can drive website traffic and appointments.
This is why leveraging social media as a doctor is a no-brainer.
Here are five reasons you as a doctor should use social media to grow your personal brand:
1. Establish Local Authority
People do business with those that they know, like, and trust. The same goes for patients. Most of the time, patients don’t have a personal relationship with a doctor. This is the great opportunity for doctors who want to create their own personal brand online.
Doctors who are active on social media create opportunities for patients to become comfortable with them before ever setting foot in their office. Additionally, when patients continue to see a doctor putting out helpful content on social media, they instantly begin to see that doctor as credible.
2. Social Media Is a Great Way to Promote Content
Because you don’t want to build your house on a rented lot, the origin of all of your content should be your own personal website. Social media channels, however, are great avenues of promoting your content online.
It’s a little bit like fishing. If you want to catch fish, you need to fish in the areas that the fish are in. Social media, especially Facebook at this time, is where a lot of patients are at.
3. Increase Traffic to Your Website
As I mentioned above, all of the content you create should originate from your website. The majority of your social posts should intentionally drive patients back to your website.
This also becomes a helpful SEO ranking signal to Google.
4. Generate New Patient Appointments
At the end of the day, all of your online marketing efforts as a doctor should be focused on the objective of attracting new patients.
By having a solid content marketing strategy in place and then sharing that helpful contact via social media, you are creating terrific exposure that should result in a consistent flow of new patient appointments.
5. Reputation Management
Google reviews tend to be the reviews more patients look at, but reviews on social media platforms, especially Facebook, also matter.
Sharing and promoting content on social media also creates the exposure and opportunity for patients who have already experienced your care to review and comment on you in a positive way. Of course, this will increase your trust factor and attract more patients.
As you can see, there is a lot of upside to leveraging social media as a doctor. It is important for increasing online exposure and can be a great way to help your personal brand succeed.