If you haven’t been living in a barn or under a rock chances are you are social media. In fact even if you had been living in a barn or under a rock you would most likely still be sending tweets from your smart phone! It’s a part of life that is here to stay and it’s an incredibly powerful tool that you can use for your business, but before you start posting all your best cat videos it time to ask a simple question, “When you post are you just shouting into the void?”. Now you may be asking what I mean by that so let me clarify it a bit. What I am really asking is, “Are you posting things that provide value and/or entertainment to your followers? or are you just posting to post?”.
Most of the practice social media pages I see are shouting into the void and they don’t even know it. They aren’t doing it on purpose, but they are doing it none the less. They are full of what seem to be completely random post or they have a single post type they just repeat over and over. In fact, I have even seen pages that are ran by companies that claim to be experts in social media that do the same thing. The reason you see this is that there are more misunderstands and mis-conceptions about social media than there are facts. So lets talk about some of my favorite myths.
Myth: You have to post to social media everyday
Reality: If you don’t have something worth posting it is actually better to go a day without posting than posting for the sake of posting.
Myth: The only way to get traffic from social media is with ads…
Reality: If you setting up your blog and other content correctly you should be quickly and easily about to cross post between your website and social media. That means you will be able to get people interacting with your social media to go over to your website
Myth: Social media is place to be random and have fun
Reality: This is one of my favorites. The reason I like this myth so much is that there is actually a grain of truth hidden with in it. Your social media accounts are definitely a place to have fun, but you should always know why you are posting something.
This last myth actually leads into one of the most important and overlooked parts of social media. You should always have a goal in mind when you are posting. In general I tend to think about these in 2 ways. There are posts that entertain and there are posts that provide some kind of value. Sometimes the post that provide value will actually drive the person to either a website or capture form and that’s ok too. If your posting correctly your posts will fall into one of those 2 categories and if you are able to fine a correct balance you will be able to really increase your reach.
Now lets tackle what provide value actually means. I see doctors and practices all the time who through out facts or things could provide value, but don’t. The first key here is knowing your audience and what they find important. You also want to make sure that you are appealing to the correct group. If your social media followers are not either your patient base or your potential patient base you need to stop look at what your doing and figure out how to make a change. All in all there are a few things you want to keep in mind when posting.
When you post ask yourself does this provide value or does it provide entertainment?
- If your providing entertainment – Are you posting at least twice as much value as you are entertainment?
- If your providing value – Is what you are posting going to provide value to your audience and it is something they will find compelling?
The sea of social media can seem hard, but it doesn’t have to be. At filmMED we have years of experience with social media management, training and ads. We can help you turn a stale account into a great new way to get patients. To learn more visit our contact page or call us today.
