Effective Social Media

Strategy Key to Aesthetic Practice Success

Social media marketing should be an essential part of your overall marketing strategy. With the majority of your audience currently active across various social media sites – 72% of all internet users are now active on social media and 47% of Americans say that Facebook is their number one influencer in making purchases – it is vital that your practice is using this medium to increase patient retention as well as new patient conversion. As you know, there are hundreds of social media sites that exist, and the list grows daily. It is important that your business keeps up with current trends and takes advantage of this huge market accessible through multiple channels.

There are numerous reasons that social media is critical to the success of your cosmetic practice. Patients having the ability to share information instantly with their friends or family will naturally improve your word-of-mouth marketing. Furthermore, promoting your services through social media and providing links from your profiles directly to your website will increase your search engine rankings. A reported 91% of marketers have seen improved web traffic from using of various social media platforms.

Social media marketing is a team sport – it requires your vendor to know your brand, special discounts and other notable events happening within your practice so they can keep all of your social platforms up to date. When you are posting online, ask yourself: “If I was a potential customer, would this engage me?” Many practices make the mistake of posting industry articles that do not mean anything to the average patient or that have nothing to do with their business. In the end these do not engage your target audience and can hurt you more than help.

When you jump into the realm of social media marketing, it is vital that you focus on being consistent and engaging your users. It is very useful to create a weekly or bi-weekly action plan so you stay the course and are constantly promoting your brand, and giving your end user the content they are looking for. This includes special offers – don’t have specials all the time, make them truly special – information about new services, before and after photos, videos and staff updates. Use your social platforms as a way to personalize your practice. Patients love seeing updates ranging from staff work anniversaries to the physician learning about new advancements at an annual meeting. Avoid using your social media to only promote specials. Use it to enhance your audience and brand; then the results of your less frequent special offers will garner a much higher return for you.

With so many social sites available, you must concentrate on what will generate the most revenue for your practice. Focus your efforts on the social platforms that make the most sense for your practice, such as Facebook, Google+, Instagram and YouTube. Most importantly, you need to stay consistent – do not post sporadically. If you have a plan and implement it, you will be very pleased with the positive results you will receive.