C. Noel Henley, MD

Are you suspicious of all the social media hype? You should be. There's a ton of it out there - most of it shouted at physicians by marketers and social media consultants. A healthy skepticism will guard your marketing budget, but sticking your head in the sand is a colossal mistake.

I got my first patient from Facebook three years ago. She was living in Panama, had ties to my area, and found the Facebook page I set up for my practice. She saw me for a second opinion in the office and had a good experience.

Would she have found me otherwise? Probably. But she was on Facebook, and my presence there made things easier for her.

. Patients have been talking to their friends about their doctors since the beginning. Online social media is just a technology-driven extension of that phenomenon.

The most important question to ask before using social media in your practice is: "What benefits will I get from this 

?" Carefully consider the answers you get: more patients, more revenue, better exposure, more media coverage, etc., are all potential and real answers.

Many of my subscribers ask me, "What's the easiest way to get started?" Sign up for accounts with all the major social media outlets: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc.

to what others are saying, what videos they are making. Look for physicians and other healthcare providers online who are doing what you want to do. Follow doctors on Twitter. Find YouTube channels with videos relevant to your practice. Find similar colleagues on LinkedIn. Start bookmarking, following, and "liking."

There's no pressure. Just begin to be aware of how physicians are connecting, sharing, and improving their practices using social media. To stay current, you need to be where patients are online. You want to be easy to find and easy to connect with. Both current and potential patients are on social media - baby boomers are looking at pictures of their grandchildren on Facebook and teenagers are essentially being raised on Twitter. It's becoming easier for physicians to be right there with them, at low cost, low energy, and low risk.

Don't believe the dire warnings that you've missed the social media boat. Very few doctors have a professional presence on social media. That means if you beat your competitors to it, you'll be miles ahead of them before they realize it.

Even if you just put some social media sharing buttons on your existing website, you are connecting your practice to the "social Web." For instance, my most popular page on my practice website has been shared or "liked" on Facebook by 27 readers as of this writing.

The bottom line? Don't dismiss social media, but start exploring for yourself how other physicians are using social media judiciously to connect with and educate patients.

 is an Arkansas-based orthopedic surgeon and founder of ReachPatients.com, providing marketing and practice promotion guidance for physicians. Do you think social media is a boon or burden for private practices? Tell us at editor@physicianspractice.com. Unless you say otherwise, we'll assume that we're free to publish your comments in upcoming issues of 

, in print and online. Have a "Bigger Picture" opinion of your own? Send it along via e-mail and we'll consider it for a future issue.

This article originally appeared in the April 2013 issue of 

Articles

Tech savvy physician C. Noel Henley tells readers why they shouldn't dismiss social media; instead they should explore how others are using it to connect with patients.

Can Physicians Truly Profit From Social Media?

In 2008, I learned HTML and taught myself how to build my own website after being frustrated with my large group practice website’s inflexibility.

There’s no greater level of power and control over your message and presentation than if you create your own website. However, not all of us have the time or patience to learn the necessary skills, and getting outside help is the most cost-effective use of our resources.

Perhaps your site is worn out and stagnant, and just needs a facelift - you might be looking for a change.

Lots of people design websites, from individuals to large, full-service marketing firms. They go by names like:

• Online branding agency

You may find a variety of these businesses locally or online who can deliver an online product you’ll use for years to come. With so many companies out there producing quality websites, there’s no excuse for accepting mediocrity.

Here are four warning signs you are about to hire the wrong person to get this very important job done:



1. They don’t discuss how much control you’ll have over the site from the beginning.



Be upfront with them about what you want.

Do you want them to control everything from writing content to automatic updates?

You can specify if you want them to set up the site initially and show you how to add to it and update it over time.

Find out if you own the site and its use even if you fire them in a year or two.
Make sure you’re comfortable with the degree of freedom you have once the initial design and setup process is over.

For example, today you may not be interested in doing any of the blog posts or updates but may change your mind once you hire an assistant to help you in six months. Will you have the flexibility to take over the reins of the site at that time?

Find out in advance.



2. There’s no discussion of what it costs to add to the website later.



This includes design tweaks and changes once the initial work is finished.
For instance, if you don’t like the first, second, or tenth redesign of the logo or image at the top of the website, is it free to keep changing this a hundred times until you’re happy?

Most Web design companies tell you explicitly what it costs to change some component of the original design. This could be an extra hourly rate cost to your practice. Make sure it doesn’t sneak up on you after you’ve hired the designer.

Find out exactly what’s included and exactly why you need that additional service. This could be search engine optimization (SEO) service or social media management. Can you add it on later? Do you really need it? Make sure you know what you’re paying for.

In a previous blog post I outlined 

 about the cost of having a website for your practice. Find out what these costs are as early as you can in the process.



3. Existing websites they’ve already developed seem very trendy, modern, and "artistic."



Unless you’re catering solely to 20-something Silicon Valley technology startup company employees in your practice, this should be a red flag.

Most patients who see physicians today couldn’t care less about how trendy or updated the design of the website is. Never forget what patients are thinking about when they’re trying to find you online: Who and where is this doctor, and can they solve my problem?

If the website answers those questions quickly and accurately, you’ve won.

Most Web design companies have online portfolios of sites they’ve already built for other clients. Take a close look at those and look for comparable clients like other doctors, counselors, attorneys, and other professionals.

Are the sites simple, with clear language and easy-to-read text? Is it easy to navigate the website? Easy to find the phone number and address?

Some Web design firms are proud of the fact that they customize every design; that using a template to put a site together is somehow evil.

This is nonsense. A good template that is a clear and simple design will get the job done and re-inventing the wheel just costs you extra money. A custom-designed site will cost anywhere from $3,000 to $10,000. This is rarely worth it for a basic physician practice website.



4. They offer add-on services very early in the discussion.



Extra services like social media management and blog post writing cost a lot but may not be worth it to you, especially in the beginning. Just start with the basics and add extras if you’re convinced later of their benefits and return on investment.

This is where an online marketing plan is important.

What do you hope to accomplish with the site?

A conscientious design firm will ask this on the front end.

In conclusion, paying someone to build a website for you can be a long-term and lucrative investment that pays off financially very quickly.

It’s similar to getting estimates for any other non-urgent service you need at your office. Many companies are available. If you don’t like the sound of one proposal, go to the next one.

If you’ve been burned by a Web design firm in the past, what happened? Leave your story in the comments below!

Thinking about hiring someone to design or redesign your practice website? You may be shocked by this, but there are some scoundrels out there. Here’s how to avoid them.

Hire the Right Web Design Team for Your Medical Practice Website

Any physician can create a list of video topics by looking in the table of contents of a medical textbook or even the latest subspecialty journal. This would give you a big to-do list, but wouldn’t benefit your patients much.

In this article, I’ll show you how to create a high-value, relevant set of video topic ideas that will make promoting your practice easier and more effective.

Whether you’re writing, brainstorming, or speaking into a microphone, the worst place to be is staring at a blank page; starting from scratch. The key to success is to spend time and energy on the front end to create a large list of topics so you’ll be able to draw from them any time.

If you don’t get this figured out, you’ll not only be eternally frustrated when you sit down to promote your business with video, but you’ll tire of the process easily. You’ll quickly give up on the process and declare to everyone around you that, "marketing and promotion don’t work."

Here are three ways of creating long lists of video topics that will supply you with ideas far into the next decade.



Method 1: Create a list of common clinical topics you deal with



Here you want to analyze a typical week in the office. What types of patients come in? Statistically, what pathology do you treat most commonly? What disease is most prevalent in your patient population?

Don’t get this list from some textbook or online article about what "average" physicians see in their practices.

These videos will be consumed by your patients and potential patients in your local geographic area. Therefore the topics should reflect the problems your local population is facing. This won’t always be a perfect match with what walks into your clinic, but it’ll be close.

Write down or type out the top 20 diagnoses you deal with. It may help to just get a print out of the top 20 ICD-9 codes generated by your office. Once you have the list, come up with 10 frequently asked questions you get from patients on each topic.

Each one of those can be a single one-minute to two-minute video.





What types of patients do you wish you could see more of?

Is there a procedure you’d rather do more of than you currently do?

Do you want a practice filled with tennis players or executives?

Target those patients with your video topics.

For each of your target procedures or patient types, create a list of topics you know would appeal to patients who need the procedure or patients who fit into the categories you’ve selected.

Create informative videos that either educate patients on the procedure in question or attract and inform a specific category of patient.

To take this to the next level of practice promotion, you can begin coming up with ways of getting publicity for that particular procedure or treatment. Plan an advertising campaign specifically designed to attract that type of patient you want in your office.



Method 3: Address generic patient questions



Make a list of questions patients ask repeatedly in the office, regardless of their specific diagnosis.

How do I find your office?

Can I get a second opinion?

When will I get my test results?

What are the risks of the procedure?

It won’t take you long to realize you or your staff answer these same questions dozens -if not hundreds - of times per week.

This list is harder to create; you have to picture a typical day of answering questions you don’t think about too much.

But the answers are valuable to patients and will save you hours of cumulative time each month if they’re easily found on your website or YouTube channel.





Once you get lists of topics for videos, you’ll see some patterns and crossover between them. This may help you avoid duplicate videos.

I recommend starting with topics you can: first, talk about easily and that will, second, benefit the most patients as fast as possible. This makes the videos easier to create and more valuable for more of your patients.

These types of brainstorming exercises will help you create an almost never-ending smorgasbord of ideas from which to choose in creating your next practice video.
 

Are you marketing your medical practice with video? Don’t start with a blank screen or picking topics at random. Here’s a better way.

Determining What Kinds of Videos Best Market Your Medical Practice

In a previous article, I told you how to 

optimize the paper real estate on your business card

 to promote your practice effectively.

Does your business card describe what you do in some boring and predictable way? Do your potential patients look at your business card or hear what you do and say, "Wow - you can help me!"or "Tell me more about how you do that?"

In this blog post, I’ll summarize how you can create a succinct statement about what you do that will get that reaction from your potential patients (and even colleagues).





In the sales and business world, an elevator speech is a short summary of what you do to help customers.

Imagine being in an elevator with your ideal patient or some colleague you’ve dreamed of working with. The elevator door closes, and you have about five seconds to tell this person what you do and make a dramatic first impression.

To do that, you need to plan your "elevator speech" ahead of time.





Use your elevator speech when meeting people socially who ask you what you do.

Use it when networking with colleagues or referring physicians.

Use it in print and other media, both off and online to communicate to patients what your practice is all about.

Just saying you’re an endocrinologist may or may not resonate with people. Even other physicians may not know exactly what you do after you simply name your specialty.

For example, as a hand surgeon, I’m almost forced to come up with something more complex than "orthopedic surgeon" to describe what I do. I don’t want patients and colleagues concluding that I do ACL surgery on knees or total hip replacements.





I’ll use my current business card job description as an example here:

“An orthopedic surgeon dedicated to solving hand and arm problems using the latest surgical and non-surgical strategies”

For this statement, I’ve expanded "orthopedic surgeon" to accomplish several objectives:

• Tell patients specifically what area I focus on

• Communicate that I’m not just a scalpel-happy surgeon - I treat things non-surgically as well

• I use up-to-date techniques to fix problems

• I’m a problem solver and a strategist

• I’m dedicated to my patients - passionate about making them better

Determine what key ideas you want to communicate about what you do and incorporate those into your elevator speech. It’s a kind of mission statement, but delivered in easy-to-understand language, not vague corporate-speak.

You may come up with different versions of your elevator speech, for use in several situations (with potential patients, colleagues, in social environments).

You can get very specific or very broad. For example, an allergist might say, "I help allergy sufferers eliminate their symptoms permanently." To arouse curiosity, a general surgeon might say, "I stop bellyaches for a living."

Most of us have a crystal clear picture of how we want to be perceived by patients and colleagues. Working and implementing a solid elevator speech will go a long way towards making that picture clear to others as well.

Do you have a concise answer to someone asking you what it is you do as a physician? If not, you may be confusing patients and colleagues. Here are a few tips.