How FarmVille Teaches You To Be A Better Marketer

If you have a Facebook page, you’ve probably had a friend’s FarmVille update streamed across your newsfeed or maybe you play FarmVille yourself. This popular online game boasts 85 million active accounts and has been advertising in real life (IRL) through a partnership with 7-11.

Today, I just "hid” a friend on my Facebook newsfeed. I like the guy and all but he was sending FarmVille updates 20 times a day - super annoying.  I really don’t care how many virtual lettuce patches you just harvested or how many pigs you have. 

However, it did make me think about how many social media posts/tweets are enough to reach our target patients ... or when does it feel like too much? You certainly don’t want your practice to be “that annoying Farmville guy.”

You have to know where your audience is, and where you need to reach them in the locations they like to be reached. If you are able to engage regularly with patients on Facebook, that is a great place to be. If you feel all alone in the Twitterverse, you may want to ask your patients what social networks they like, and meet them (and others like them) there. 

As to how often you should reach your patients, that’s totally dependent on them – If I start to see people unfollowing, or not replying, I know to back off. The thing that makes social media different from all types of media before is the INTERACTION. Social media is not a platform for broadcast but of genuine interaction with others.  Treat your social networks like you would a cocktail party. If you only talk about yourself, eventually, you will be talking TO yourself. If people stop conversing with you or "hide" your posts and updates, they will miss all the good stuff you have to say.  I believe that in social media, you always want to UNDER-push than OVER-push.

How often do you interact with your patients? Let me know in the comments! 

- Sarah 

5 Easy Ways to Use the i-pad for Health Care Marketing

The i-pad has been on my mind a lot lately. Not just because I was just in the store playing with one, or in the first month they sold over 1 million units, but because I think they could be an excellent tool in health care marketing.  

Let’s take a look at five ways you can spark interaction with your patient that increases engagement by using an i-pad.

1. Load it with before and after pictures, articles, and testimonials.
2. Make your social media pages available so patients can "check in" at your practice on social location sites (Gowalla, Foursquare, etc). 
3. Create a referral program so patients can email an invitation from your practice to their friends while they are still in your office.
4. Show educational videos to your patients when explaining treatment or while they wait. 
5. Present treatment using the i-pad to show mock ups, design, or function. 

What am I missing? How would you use an i-pad in your practice? 

Does your practice's online reputation matter?

Absolutely!  It’s one of the first steps to earning trust and building a relationship with new patients. For most new patients, a google search of your practice is their first impression. In fact, a recent Pew Research Center Project study showed that 44% of online adults say they have searched online for information about someone whose care or services they seek in a professional provider, like a doctor, dentist, or chiropractor. 

If you haven’t recently done a search for your practice, yourself, or the names of your key staff or care givers, now might be a good time to do it.

Here's what to do:

* Start your search with Google, Bing, and Yahoo, yelp.com, and Angie's List.

* Document sentiment, practice brand mentions, and patient concerns

* Share feed back with your team 

* Decide follow up strategy as needed 

You can also use some of these free tools to search for your practice and find real time results in social networks, blogs, and forums. 

Remember, its often the patients who never give you feedback that can be the most vocal online. Take some to see what your current reputation is and identify areas for improvement.  

- Sarah