Web Marketing - Making Sense of the Basics - Part III

Social Media - Facebook and Twitter...

Our previous two e-newsletters covered the basics of search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM). This issue will cover the basics of social media, most notably Facebook.

Power of Social Media

The power of social media lies in the possibility to get your patients and their friends to advocate for -or buy services from- you. A smoothly running social media campaign is like a pyramid on which you are at the top. Each time someone references you a pulse is sent to all their contacts. If one of those contacts were to also reference you, you would then gain exposure to all of his or her contacts, and if one of them... you get the picture.

Success on Facebook

Follow this basic recipe...

1. Post comments often: a stagnant page will be viewed as irrelevant.
2. Engage your audience: don't be afraid to pose controversial questions; asking questions could also help you conduct market research before investing in products and equipment.
3. Post multi-media: photos and videos can often be the first step in securing personal connections and lead to enquiries about your services.
4. Offer people who 'like' your page special status: you don't have to have crazy give-aways to get people to 'like' you. First dibs on new treatments and invitation to limited seating events can make your patients feel important.
5. Sell softly: social media cannot be used exclusively as a distribution channel for your services and products. Constantly hard-selling yourself will make people tune you out.
6. Be yourself: your services and prices can be duplicated by the competition. Your wonderful personality, it turns out, can't.

No time to keep up a Facebook page?
		Consider KCMC's Social Media service. Our social media team scours the web daily for exciting and newsworthy tidbits. Our copywriters can turn these news stories into thoughtful and relevant comments and post them on your page following your approval.
Don't forget to promote your social media presence to existing patients
		As a full service web marketing company, KCMC is able to increase your online exposure by creating and distributing email newsletters to your existing clientele inviting them to join your Facebook page. However, existing patients should only be invited if your Facebook page is current and offers some value. In some cases such email invitations have resulted in significant spikes on Facebook traffic and online website enquiries.

To Tweet or not...?

Twitter: the minute-by-minute account keeper

Twitter is a "micro-blogging" service allowing sending of snippets of text (up to 140 characters). Other twitters can then "follow" you as you go tweeting through your day. By its nature, twitter is meant to keep others up to date of your every move, going to the opera, having a burger, and so on. Despite the fact that some providers offer tweet services to cosmetic surgery clinics, we believe that useful tweets can only come from within a practice due to frequent, short, and minute-to-minute reporting nature of tweets required to keep your followers interested in following you.

There is also the question of demographics. Twitter does not release user demographics but third-party studies indicate that over 60% of twitters are age 35 and younger with the majority under age 25, leaving some physicians to question the viability of using twitter as a marketing tool for cosmetic surgery services. All in all, if you are hell-bent o tweeting, pouring resources into this avenue should probably be in the bottom half of your list - unless a majority of your clients are made up of young adults under 25. An orthodontics practice comes to mind as an example.

Next Step...

Contact us for a no-obligation consultation

If you are interested in KCMC's internet marketing services, or would like to learn more about internet marketing, please contact office@kcmc.ca or call 1-866-639-1112 for a no-obligation assessment.