Today's post is on why healthcare professionals should venture into the world of social media. When I started this private practice with Tiffany this year, I had no idea what it would entail. I just assumed that patients would find us by word of mouth, and line up at our door!
Little did I know, but I was about to learn a lot about marketing. No matter how good you are as a therapist, it is vital to know those in your community and also let them know what you are doing as well. Not only will you reach your target audience better, but they will reach you! The best and quickest way to do that is to get online. The Internet can be an intimidating place if you are not familiar with it. I suggest to start small and then work your way up- baby steps.
Tiffany and I started with a website, then chose to get a Facebook page as we already were both familiar with the site and had many friends with chronic illness we know on Facebook. Once we got comfortable with Facebook, we added Twitter, and now have this blog. It keeps us busy, but we are enjoying all the connections we are making and delighted by the number of people who have reached out. We just held our first IBD educational event yesterday and over 75% of the people there found out about us through social media! It was very encouraging for all the time we have put into social media and we know that our society is moving more and more towards connecting electronically.
What's next, you may ask? Googleplus? Instragram? Our own app? No thanks. This is it for a while. The upkeep of social media is time-consuming, and we want to provide a good quality as well as quantity of posts. So for now, keep following us on our social media journey to see where we go. We are so thankful to be building a network and online community devoted to helping those with chronic illness.
Little did I know, but I was about to learn a lot about marketing. No matter how good you are as a therapist, it is vital to know those in your community and also let them know what you are doing as well. Not only will you reach your target audience better, but they will reach you! The best and quickest way to do that is to get online. The Internet can be an intimidating place if you are not familiar with it. I suggest to start small and then work your way up- baby steps.
Tiffany and I started with a website, then chose to get a Facebook page as we already were both familiar with the site and had many friends with chronic illness we know on Facebook. Once we got comfortable with Facebook, we added Twitter, and now have this blog. It keeps us busy, but we are enjoying all the connections we are making and delighted by the number of people who have reached out. We just held our first IBD educational event yesterday and over 75% of the people there found out about us through social media! It was very encouraging for all the time we have put into social media and we know that our society is moving more and more towards connecting electronically.
What's next, you may ask? Googleplus? Instragram? Our own app? No thanks. This is it for a while. The upkeep of social media is time-consuming, and we want to provide a good quality as well as quantity of posts. So for now, keep following us on our social media journey to see where we go. We are so thankful to be building a network and online community devoted to helping those with chronic illness.