Medical professionals today are harnessing the full power of Facebook and the social media universe to not only develop an online presence, but also for marketing their services and attracting clients.
One such story I was told by a client was of a pediatrician and child obesity specialist.
He had a child weight loss program and had been featured on numerous television news programs and other traditional media platforms.
He also had published a book about his program which assisted in cranking up his marketing efforts.
Eventually, the good Doctor wanting to reach his target audience realized he would have the best luck on Twitter and Facebook.
In short order, he had 5,221 followers on Twitter, 773 Facebook Friends, and 553 Facebook followers.
he used Twitter and Facebook extensively to grow his business and has obtained a significant number of new patients using these methods.
He runs a Twitter party every week.
There is a different topic each week, related to child weight loss and nutrition.
He has made many useful contacts and added a lot of new patients.
Through Twitter, he has connected with a national sub sandwich chain and met with them concerning possible sponsorship opportunities and guest blog posts on their company blog.
This led to the doctor being invited to participate in an National Institute for Health roundtable discussion concerning their new National Child Obesity initiative.
To increase activity on his Facebook fan page, he sponsored a contest where he gave away a Wii Fit to a fan who posted the most on his page.
This contest increased fan participation and helped grow his fan base by over 300 fans.
For this Doctor and any other medical professional who uses these tried and true new media marketing techniques, new fans will translate into new patients! Medical professionals today who wish to attract a new client base are finding Facebook and other social media platforms as viable options to their former more traditional marketing methods.
But, it all started with knowledge; that is, learning all they could about using social media as a marketing tool to develop greater online presence.
If you are out to attract prospective customers and develop your online presence and exposure, you owe it to yourself and the financial future of your business to learn everything you can about social media.
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