Are you still trying to decide if there is a return-on-investment available through the use of social media? While you’re waiting you’re losing. Losing future dollars. Losing relevance. The value of your voice in the community is depreciating as patient-driven physicians are amassing new wealth in the form of clout. Clout with future patients and clout eventually becomes dollars.
Those doctors or healthcare organizations aren’t necessarily better at medicine than you. They’re simply better at culture. Your value proposition in the marketplace is what you know about achieving positive health outcomes. You’re pretty good at connecting that to a patient’s experience in the exam room, through a prescription or in surgery. But how’re you doing out there? You know, online via social media.
Still looking for something to prove it’s the right thing for you? Well, how about letting me debunk some healthcare social media myths for you. You know, tell you what it is (and what it’s not).
It’s not a road to nowhere. It is a path to connectivity with patients, their families, future patients and others who influence health choices.
It is a way for you to maintain a general conversation with the community that demonstrates a willingness to share information that might make a difference in their wellbeing. By the way, people who share make more friends. Friends refer friends. Friends are patients, too.
It’s not date night. Your patients are not asking you to out to dinner. They’re simply looking to connect through their preferred channel. And this one has emerged to be that.
It is, by all evidence, an affordable conduit to the future as those with options choose providers, and those within plans sort one doctor or organization from another based on word of mouth, ratings, and social media manner—like bedside manner but on your smartphone.
It’s not a drive-through window. Patients are not likely to ask for a diagnosis of some ailment. They’re too private for that. They’re just looking for something that might help them sift through clues about what ails them and you’re their most trusted source for that kind of information.
Look, I don’t profess to know much about making money but I have learned this, people connect with those who care. And caring starts with sharing. Social media is that.
Tim C. Nicholson is the President of Bigfish, LLC. His Memphis-based firm connects physicians, clinics and hospitals to patients and one another through healthcare social media solutions, branding initiatives and websites. His column, “Hey Doc”, appears here monthly. Find him on twitter @timbigfish or email tim@gobigfishgo.com