By Naomi Cooper, Chief Marketing Consultant, Pride Institute
Getting many "Likes" on Facebook is often described as the holy grail of social media. But when I coach my Pride clients, I encourage them to use another social media strategy that gets them even more mileage — Facebook Check-ins.
When patients or friends "Like" your practice on Facebook, it allows your future status updates to appear in their personal Facebook newsfeeds alongside messages from their friends and family. This is an excellent tool to keep in touch with existing patients and to communicate with them on an ongoing basis about what’s going on in the practice. However, what "Likes" do not do is connect you with prospective patients. That’s because "Likes" are essentially just a subscription to your business page — there’s nothing viral about it. Check-ins are an entirely different story. When patients "checks in" at your practice location on their smartphone via Facebook Places and post that check-in to their timeline, that news is spread to their entire Facebook friend list. It goes on their timeline and in their outgoing newsfeed — in other words, they’re shouting it from the virtual rooftops!
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So when it’s time to implement a Facebook strategy in your practice, I encourage Pride clients to do the following:
1. Set up a Facebook business page.
2. Ask patients, friends, employees, and family to "Like" your page via Facebook and traditional email with a link to your page.
a. “Like” Pride Institute on Facebook
3. Make sure your practice is listed in Facebook Places. For more info, visit https://www.facebook.com/help/343548832389235/
4. Put up a sign at your front desk asking patients to "Check-in on Facebook" and have them include a personal story, testimonial, or better yet, a photo.
5. Ask patients who have their smartphones glued to their hands during their visit to check in at your practice.
6. Make sure the whole team knows how to check-in on a smartphone, Blackberry, iPhone, etc. Some patients will ask what the sign means and how they can do this, and everyone should be able to explain what to do.
