Awkward Facebook Situations

With more users than the population on the US (550 million users) Facebook is an amazing tool, but its ease of information sharing can cause some really awkward situations for its users. This morning, I woke up to a gentle reminder of Facebook’s power over my relationships.

My boyfriend and I have decided to spend Christmas together, apart from our families, and are planning a holiday trip to Panama. We’ll be meeting up with several friends and today, my mom found out about the trip through a friend’s Facebook post. Normally, this wouldn’t be a big deal except I hadn’t had the chance to tell her about the trip. Now, I feel terribly guilty that I didn’t get to tell my mom properly that I’d be missing a family event. 

If you have a personal or brand Facebook page, make sure you stay engaged with it. Monitor your connections and remember that they are tighter than ever.  Anything you, or anyone else posts about you or your brand on Facebook is in the public domain. 

Have you had any awkward situations thanks to Facebook? Share your stories in the comments; I’d love to hear from you.

-Sarah

Looking for a great digital marketing strategy? The Practice Marketing Revolution can help! Email sarah@npressnewsletter.com today. 

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 

11 Tools to Discover What Your Patients Really Want

Listening to your patients and learning to meet their needs are keys to growing your practice and creating an effective marketing plan. In fact, not doing so handicaps the overall reach and effectiveness of your marketing, communications, and service strategies.

Luckily, there are a variety of interactive media tools that provide platforms for listening to an ever growing sample of patients. These monitoring tools offer doctors opportunities to identify critical conversations and for strategic engagement.

 Here are some of my favorite and FREE social media "listening"tools:

Google Alerts - Email updates of relevant search results
Monitter - Search for keywords in real time on Twitter
Social Mention - Real time keyword search across the web
Twitrratr - Sentiment ratings for Twitter
Backtype - Monitor blogs, blog comments, and conversations
Blogsearch - Find key words in the blogosphere
Evri - Aggregates user generated content
CoTweet - Conversation threading and trend monitoring for Twitter
Collecta - Monitor update streams of news sites, blogs, and social media sites
Klout - Find influencers based on topic
TweetDeck - Organize Twitter seaches by hashtag, brand, etc.

Since these tools are free, I advise searching for your practice or specialty on multiple sites so you don't miss potentially valuable information or feeds. Your practice's needs will be unique so select the tools and services that best fit your processes.

Do you have favorite tools for monitoring your practice or brand? Share them here in the comments :)

Chiropractors who use Social Network tools

Here's our list of Chiropractors currently using social media.

As of May 3rd, 2010 there are: 22 Blogs, 15 active Twitter accounts, and 14 active Facebook pages. 

Know someone we are missing? Please let us know via email or the comments below.

Back to Action Chiropractic
Barton Chiropractic
Carla Cuido
Charlottesville Family Chiropractic
Dr. Eben Davis
Dr. Eric Murphy
Dr. Harris Meyer
Dr. Joel Fugleberg
Dr. Kevin Harrington
Dr. Kip Rod
Dr. Lynn Kerew
Dr. Matt Finke
Dr. RobertBoydston
Dr. Todd Narson
Dr. Tyler Johnson
Dr. Weisgerber
Elledge Chiropractic
Fink Chiropractic
French City Chiropractic
Linn City Chiropractic
Nick Campos
North Dallas Chiropractic
Pitts Family and Sport
Portland Chiropractic Neurology
Queen Anne Chiropractic
Roseville Family Chiropractic
Russell Brokstein
Silverman Chiropractic
Simi Valley Chiropractor
Steven Coniglio
West Coast Chiropractor

Dentists Who Blog

A blog are a great tool for creating a bridge between your practice's story and your patients.

Here's our current list of U.S Dentists who blog:

Brookside Dental

Castle Rock Dental

Cottonwood Dental Group

Dr. Mark Sweeney

Dr. Franklyn Alexander

Dr. Hugh Flax

Dr. Leonard Tau

Dr. Mark Levy

Dr. Robert Nelson

Dr. Tom Farley

Dr. Nguyen

Gentle Dental

Maple Grove Dental Clinics

McKinneyDentist.com

P. Vernon Erwin

United Dental Care

Last Updated April 28th, 2010

Who have we missed? Leave a comment here or email sarah@npressnewsletter.com

How to make good use of your social media time

As interactive media and online communities are getting an increasing amount of use in doctor – patient relationships, many doctors wonder when the best time to connect is. In a recent survey of 474 social media users, conducted by Npress, 54% of users said they are engaged in social media throughout the day.

Twenty one percent of the survey participants reported using social tools during the evening and weekends, 14% on their lunch breaks, and 8% in the morning or before work. All users in the study reported using interactive media tools at least 5 hours per week. 

 

Social Media Usage Trends by Time of Day 

 Users 

 

This means, if you are using interactive media in your practice, you should make time during your day to build relationships with your patients online. Properly communicating with and listening to patients online can take time to do it right, and you'll see your efforts will go much further if you meet your patients where they are. Pre blocked scheduling can help ensure that you have time for conversation and you can let your patients know ahead of time when they can expect to reach you. 

 

I've seen doctors helping 4-10 patients a day through interactive networks. Imagine what it could mean for your patients' experience, their online health literacy, and prevention knowledge if you took a 1/2 hour each day to converse with patients online. (Not to mention what it could do for your marketing and practice growth!)  

About the data: This Npress study is based on telephone interviews, interactive media surveys, and live questioning with a nationally representative sample of 474 social media users who use interactive tools at least 5 hours per week.