Whether you are an active Tweeter, blogger or a social media savvy healthcare professional, your online presence is a powerful tool that can help you connect with new patients. Having an impactful online presence and taking control of what your prospective patients are perceiving about you, helps in building a strong online reputation. Social networking sites for doctors like you are a great way to stay connected with your existing patients and engage with your audience.

4 Social networking sites for doctors and healthcare practitioners:

  • Doximity
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • Facebook

You can capitalize on these 4 social networking sites for doctors to get new patients and build a powerful online reputation:

Doximity- developed for the healthcare professionals

Doximity is a professional network that caters only to healthcare professionals in the United States. It is popularly known as LinkedIn for doctors and is one of the most popular social networking sites for doctors. It connects more than 8,00,000 doctors from all around the US, out of which, 5,00,000 are physicians.

Creating your profile on Doximity is very simple. Your CV is automatically uploaded on the platform as Doximity keeps your CV on the portal by scanning the web for updates about your latest information and achievements. Also, you get notified when someone is talking about your healthcare practice on Doximity.

You can communicate with your patients using free digital fax and message services that are HIPAA compliant and secure. Another useful tool displays your clinic’s number when you call patients from your personal phone.

In addition to connecting with peers from your industry, Doximity provides a peek into job offers, a residency navigator, and an annual salary survey. Between its widespread network and plethora of resources, Doximity is one of the most important social networking sites for doctors which expands your online presence while boosting the visibility of your healthcare practice.

LinkedIn- connecting you to the world

LinkedIn is the world’s most extensive professional network with over 600 million registered professionals across different industries. It is a low-threat, low-investment, high-yield action plan for doctors. Unlike different reviews and rating sites, catering only to healthcare professionals, LinkedIn profiles provide more control over how you or your practice appears in the public domain.

To build your online reputation, create a profile on LinkedIn. The more complete and accurate your profile is, the higher you’ll rank. Share your basic information such as your areas of interest, your medical expertise, your qualifications, your professional journey, name, address, and phone numbers.

Here are some useful tips to create an eye-catching profile and make the most of your presence on LinkedIn:

  •         Use a professional picture of yourself
  •         Create a personalized headline
  •         Add relevant keywords
  •         Include the name and location of your practice
  •         List some of your strongest skills as a healthcare provider
  •         Connect with your peers
  •         Join LinkedIn groups that are in sync with your interests
  •         Share relevant articles and comment on them
  •         Customize your profile URL and add it to your email signature

With LinkedIn, you can build a strong network of professionals matching your area of interest, post stories, share insightful content, and keep a check on connections who are viewing your profile.

Twitter-creating a big impact with small tweets

With more than 350 million active users across the globe, Twitter is the best bet for doctors like you, who want to connect with new patients, create a network of followers, learn from the trends and engage with your audience.

This social media site, allows you to create an impression, with 280-character posts called “tweets”. While everyone can read your tweets, only registered users can retweet or comment.

Tweets also include images, links, hashtags (such as #weightloss) and quotes. Twitter handles or names of the users are preceded by the symbol (@).

Healthcare professionals usually follow peers from their industry. You can follow your patients if they are following you, or thought leaders in the areas of health and medicine.

Using Twitter, you can:

  •         Stay updated with the latest information for top medical journals
  •         Solicit patient feedback, as most of your patients, maybe regular tweeters
  •         Virtually attend medical conferences
  •         Share research results
  •         Take part in important health campaigns

All you must do is sign up for a free Twitter account and create a profile that includes your name, picture, and credentials. Search topics that are relevant to you using hashtags.

Start by following influential leaders in the healthcare industry and retweeting their posts. Once you are ready to share your own thoughts in the form of tweets and important links, you’ll soon start building your own following.

Facebook- communicating with patients in a social environment

Facebook continues to be a channel for connecting people with one another across the globe, while also allowing professionals to interact with their existing and prospective customers. As a healthcare professional, it’s important to use Facebook as a channel to communicate with your patients but with the appropriate conduct in mind.

As a medical professional, you should use a mixture of marketing channels to build a community around your practice. Social media is an influential channel for creating this relationship with your customers by organically grasping them online where they are most active.

As of today, over 1.2 billion people are a part of Facebook, making it the social media network with the most extensive audience. There are multiple social networking sites for doctors where they should be active, but since Facebook is the only social channel with such a massive following; it’s prudent to be present here.

On Facebook, your goal as a medical professional should be to provide relevant and valuable content and spur thought-provoking discussions about your area of expertise. This will remind your community of your in-depth understanding of the subject for the next time they may require your medical advice.

Create a profile on Facebook or a Facebook page for your medical practice. Complete your profile by including your basic information and the name and location of your clinic or hospital.

How can Birdeye help you?

When using multiple social media sites, a comprehensive tool can make your social media presence more effective and efficient. Birdeye, an Experience Marketing solution, lets you schedule posts, days, months and weeks in advance. Using Birdeye’s social media tools like social listening, social engagement, and social publishing, you can listen to what your patients are saying about you on social media, organize your content, share your patients’ reviews on your social media pages and do a lot more.

 


        
This blog post is part of our Social Media Management Guide