Healthcare Facilities

How to Promote Your Practice Through Facebook

Facebook likes

Facebook likesYou’ve probably paid to promote your practice through postcards, local magazines and newspapers, or even radio ads.

You may have a great website that allows patients to schedule appointments and a blog with resources. And you might even sponsor a booth at a local wellness fair each year to promote your brand.

What’s missing? The social interaction and personal touch a Facebook page can offer your facility.

Whether you currently post to Facebook or have yet to even create a page, these tips can help you craft a search-friendly channel that can drive traffic to your website and impress both new and existing clients.

Here’s how to promote your practice through Facebook.

Make sure your profile is complete

When patients visit your Facebook page, one of the first things they’ll look for is your contact information, including your address, phone number and website.

If any of these details are missing, it’ll make it harder for a potential client to get in touch with you — and it looks unprofessional.

Business hours, an email address, and a description of your business are also important details to include. Be sure to select “local businesses” and “medical and health” as categories so page followers can leave a review and read other reviews as well.

Editing Facebook page info

Reward patients for liking your Facebook page

While your goal shouldn’t be a race to gain as many Facebook fans as possible, clients who visit your page and notice you have only 37 likes will assume (usually correctly) that you haven’t put much thought into promoting it.

Start increasing your likes (100 is a good place to begin) by having staff members and their families and friends like the page. Then let your patients know you have a page and host a few monthly giveaways as an incentive for them to join you on Facebook.

A stack of business cards at the front desk with a link to your Facebook page and details about the giveaway is an easy and subtle way to promote this social media channel — especially since patients will be on their phones while they wait for their appointments anyway.

Post consistently on your page

Facebook frequently changes its algorithm to give its users the content they want most in their timelines. This means that the most effective way to make sure your fans see your page updates is to post often and consistently.

If you’re only posting one or two times a month currently, commit to publishing updates once a day Monday through Friday. Not sure what to post? Here are a few ideas:

  • Spotlight a staff member once a month and include a photo of him or her with some fun personal facts
  • Share industry news from associations you follow (e.g., The American Medical Association or American Academy of Family Physicians)
  • Link to health-related news articles in local and national newspapers and magazines
  • Post photos of your team having fun at work or at a company party
  • Promote your practice’s blog posts to drive more traffic to your company website and blog

Facebook timeline photos

Use scheduling tools to reach your audience

Once you’ve established a schedule and decided on the content to share, you can go a bit deeper and schedule posts — sometimes weeks in advance, if you want to. Next time you publish an update on Facebook, click the arrow next to the blue “publish” button and click “schedule.” Then select a date and a time of day for your post.

Scheduling what you publish on Facebook allows you to push your content live at an optimal time so your audience will see it, eliminates the need for you to log in and post daily, and gives you the chance to make edits later if necessary. It also gives you the flexibility to go on vacation or be away from your desk, knowing that your updates went live as planned.

Scheduling means you can post on the weekends or at 10 p.m. to better reach your patients and clients — without having to log in or stay in the office.

Facebook scheduling

Promote your posts and page to increase visibility

No matter how many times you post a week, you won’t reach everyone you’d like to. That’s why it’s important to devote a chunk of advertising money to promoting your Facebook page and boosting specific posts to a targeted audience. Here’s how to promote a status update:

  • Visit one of your posts on the company Facebook page and click the blue “boost post” button beneath it
  • Select an audience (people who like your page or people who like your page and their friends) or create a custom audience
  • Enter your budget and duration (how long you’d like the ad to run)
  • Include payment information
  • Review your post to make sure you have no typos and have included a clear image and click “boost”

Boosting a Facebook post

If you’d like to promote your page instead, click the arrow next to the blue “promote” button in the top right corner of your page, select “promote your page” and follow the same steps as above.

Selecting a targeted audience based on age, interests and location can help you ensure the right people see your posts and your page. It can also help you increase your client base and make those in the community more aware of your brand.

Once you’ve promoted your page or page update, click the “insights” tab at the top of your page to see how many impressions, likes and clicks you’ve received.

Facebook advertising takes some time to get used to, but it’s an effective and inexpensive way to connect with patients on a more personal level and increase your practice’s visibility. Check out our post on recruiting physicians through Facebook for more tips on using this social media channel.

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About the author

Lindsay Wilcox

Lindsay Wilcox is a communication professional with experience writing for the healthcare and entertainment industries as well as local government. When she's not circling typos, she's enjoying fish tacos and hanging out with her family.

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