It’s time to clear up some major misconceptions about social media (SM). Too many optometrists let these myths keep them from enjoying the practice-building benefits of SM. Well, read on if you’re ready to get the real scoop. Read on if you’re ready to let these truths set you free. It’s time to stop being anti-social (media).
Myth 1: Social Media Costs Too Much
We paid Facebook a mere $20 to promote this post. More than 10,000 people saw it.
Social media is not free. Plain and simple, SM will cost you something. It may not require a financial outlay to use it on its most basic level, but SM does require a minimal investment of your time and a sizable investment of your creativity.
But, from a monetary standpoint, SM can be absolutely 100% free. In fact, to use all of the most popular SM platforms, you’re not required to shell out any money. For example, you can create and set up a Facebook (FB) page for your business for free.
However, some businesses choose to fund their SM presence to enhance their marketing. For example, you have the option to “Promote” a post on FB in order for that post to gain more exposure. (Right now, it only costs around $10.) This often generates more fans and more engagement.
You can also choose to do a more formal advertising campaign and create ads and offers that are displayed on FB, which can help build your fan base, sell products or generate appointments.
Myth 2: Social Media is Too Time Consuming
Done correctly, SM requires surprisingly little time commitment. After the initial setup—which should take most people around a half hour—there is a very small time requirement. In my office, it’s about five to 10 minutes a day.
My practice, Park Slope Eye, uploads at least one post per day. On even days, a member of the front desk team posts. On odd days, a member of the optical team posts. I post whenever I’m inspired. All of us take no more than five minutes to do it. If your staffer tells you it takes longer, he or she is doing something wrong. (Most likely browsing FB for fun.)
We also spend a couple of minutes engaging other local businesses with ours. Is the restaurant down the street displaying a local artist’s works? You might want to “Like” it or “Share” it with your fans. This is often an overlooked, but essential, part of building a successful FB page. You’ll develop actual community involvement by virtual means.
Social media doesn’t have
to require a lot of time. One post or tweet a day is enough—and it
should take no more than five or 10 minutes.
Monitoring user review platforms, such as Yelp or Google Places, takes even less time. The best part is that consumers largely create the content on your review page. This means that the public content is self generating and it only requires you to monitor and respond. You won’t get a review every day. (If you do, you should be writing this article, because you would be the biggest SM rock star around!) Most practices probably get a few reviews a month.
If the review is positive, a simple thank you is a fine response. If the review is negative, invest some time and make your public response a good one. I often write a draft and sleep on it, and then read it over the next day before I post it. This often means I spend at least a half hour of time on each negative response. (Fortunately, these don’t happen often.)
Myth 3: It Takes Years to Build a Fan Base
When you first opened your practice, was your appointment book filled? I’m betting it wasn’t. Think of starting with SM much like opening up a practice cold. Just because you have a Facebook page, don’t think you’ll have an explosion of growth from the first day. Most likely, just as it took time for your practice to grow, it will take time for your SM network to expand. With user review platforms, you can anticipate similar growth.
You can expect things to be slow at first and grow faster as time goes on. The reason is that as your fan base grows, so does your exposure to your fans’ friends; the growth becomes exponential. Keep in mind that this holds true for nearly every business, which is why it’s imperative that you do not waste any more time. It would be great if you could get out in front of your competition; but if you’re already behind, it’s OK. You just need to make sure that you focus your efforts and are consistent with your execution.
We asked a simple
question: How many days of your life have you spent cleaning your
contacts? (My answer: 15.63 days that I otherwise could have used for
vacation.) We promoted this post for only $25. Guess how many people saw
it? (See answer below.)
The response was huge: It reached nearly 40,000 people. This graph illustrates the large spike in our fanbase “reach.”
The key to SM growth is consistent posting. With steady use, you create awareness—which is the first step to gaining a fan, a review or customer engagement.
Myth 4: SM is Just for Kids
Facebook may have started in a Harvard dorm room, but guess who makes up one of its fastest-growing populations? Retirees!1 Nowadays, literally everybody and their mom is on Facebook. Mine included.
Social media is not just for kids any more. In fact, the 18 to 24 age group is often the demographic with the lowest utilization rate on FB, with similar trends on other popular platforms (with the exception of Twitter, because this generation both follows and tweets with many of its idols who use the platform).2
SM spans multiple generations and, at this point, there is no one dominating age group.
Myth 5: You Cannot Measure the Return on Investment
If I came to you 10 years ago and told you that I had a device that would allow you to stay in almost constant contact with a large number of your patients, attract new patients and generate new business, how much would you have invested in it? $1K? $5K? $10K?
So why should there be a concern about return on investment (ROI) for something that is so easy, effective, fun and free to use? This may be the lamest excuse that I hear from somebody who won’t use SM.
OK, but what if you are spending money on SM? Well, I agree that if you are investing in social media marketing, you should have an understanding of how your investment is paying off. You can absolutely measure ROI on your SM marketing.
A simple way is to ask your patients directly and then monitor the results. You should know how profitable an exam is. You can then get a baseline of a particular statistic; for example, how many people indicated that a user review influenced them to make an appointment? Then, you can spend some money on marketing and see what happens to this statistic. If you spend $500 a month, and you’re averaging $200 profit per appointment, you need to see an increase over baseline of 2.5 for that particular statistic.
Another way is to identify those who came in because of a specific marketing effort. For example, you may run a Facebook offer and require patients to indicate “FB Offer #123” when booking an appointment. You simply keep track of utilization.
Myth 6: SM is a Fad
Hula Hoops were a fad. Something like SM, which has fundamentally changed the way that marketing is thought about and conducted, is not. In a few years, SM will be woven into traditional marketing, such that all marketing will have a social media component built in.
At the minimum, SM enhances traditional marketing. The last time you saw a TV commercial, where did it send you? To a website or to a SM site. How about your TV watching experience? Did you notice the use of social media content? Maybe even incorporating live comments from the Twitterverse?
The point is that SM is easy to add and very effective in enhancing traditional marketing. SM platforms will come and go (yes, even FB will make an exit some day), but the fundamental principles of social media are here to stay.
Myth 7: People Only Use it to Complain
People can use it to complain, for sure. However, if you look at the stats for Yelp, more than 80% of all reviews are positive.3
Also realize that complaints aren’t necessarily a bad thing. If an abundance of reviewers are saying the doctor’s breath stinks, he probably could use a mint. These reviews give the doc a chance to learn about the issue and fix it. If a patient blasts you in a review for requiring an annual contact lens exam, you can use it as an opportunity to educate the world about why you do so.
In fact, it’s these opportunities that allow you to attract the ideal patients—ones who come to you because they know and are in agreement with how you do things. Your practice will grow with patients who are there for the experience they read about. As long as that holds true, you shouldn’t have to worry about too many complaints.
Myth 8: Anyone Can Do It
Everyone can and—in my opinion—should do it! Your office team is composed of unique people with a mixed bag of personalities. This variety is mirrored in your fan base. If everyone on your team gets a chance to post, you’ll help ensure the broadest reach into your audience and will most likely see higher levels of engagement.
Is there a learning curve? Absolutely. But as with most things, practice makes perfect. There are proven ways to get a post to garner more engagement. Begin by consciously studying the posts that you personally find engaging, and re-create that kind of interest on your FB page.
Myth 9: My Content Will Never Go Viral, So What’s the Point?
A new use for an old UV
tester: This post showed how a fake pair of Ray-Bans had zero UV
protection. It hit nearly 30,000 views.
I don’t have to look up the statistics to tell you that your chances of being the next Internet sensation are slim to none. But can you gain some great exposure and generate real business? Absolutely.
Park Slope Eye had a recent post that reached more than 40K views. Our YouTube channel has racked up more than 17K video views. Beiber-like proportions? Of course not. But are we gaining awareness and popularity in our community? Yes. Are we staying in front of our current and potential patients? Yes. Are people sharing, liking, commenting, reviewing and re-tweeting their way to a deeper relationship with us? Absolutely!
Myth 10: SM is Only About the Mundane and the Trivial
Dr. Bazan just checked into a bagel shop. Dr. Bazan just posted a pic of a bagel. Dr. Bazan commented on a pic, “This bagel is great.” Dr. Bazan shared a link about the history of bagels.
Dr. Bazan is about to be unfriended, unfollowed, blocked, banned or booted by a lot of his “friends” for going overboard on the mundane and the trivial.
The Internet is full of mundane and trivial posts. You need to learn how to take even the mundane and trivial stuff and spin it into marketing gold.
Here is a recent example. Park Slope Eye took an often forgotten piece of equipment—a UV tester—dusted it off, moved it from the lab and incorporated it into pretest. We could have put up a post about only that. Instead, we took this everyday task of UV testing lenses and created a hit post by incorporating some emotion. We made an example of a patient’s fake Ray-Bans and let people know we wanted him to bring in his shades and specs for a free UV test. The result? Almost 30K views.
Another example: One of our recent marketing campaigns targeted a popular local blog’s FB fan base. It generated an estimated 80 appointments, and the investment cost us just $64 and 15 minutes of time.
The bad news is that if you have not begun to use social media, you’re already behind. The good news is that now is still a great time to start. So test out these 10 social media myths for yourself, and let us know how you succeeded (or failed). Drop by
www.facebook.com/revoptom and leave a comment. We would like to see you share your thoughts!
Dr. Bazan’s practice, which he opened in Brooklyn in 2008, has integrated social media into its marketing plan from the start. Dr. Bazan lectures frequently on social media as well as refractive eye care.
1. Madden M, Zickuhr K. 65% of online adults use social networking sites. Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. August 26, 2011. Available at:
www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/Social-Networking-Sites.aspx. Accessed September 18, 2012.
2. Dougherty H. 10 things you need to know about Facebook right now. February 3, 2012. AllFacebook.com. Available at:
http://allfacebook.com/facebook-statistics_b76427. Accessed September 18, 2012.
3. Yelp.com. Frequently asked questions. Available at:
www.yelp.com/faq#rating_distribution. Accessed September 18, 2012.
