Social Media Marketing—Why Bother?

2024 • Social Media

As some big-box retailers campaign to consumers with flashy advertisements and bargains, utilizing a personal touch can make the ultimate difference in your bottom line. Enter social media—a passive yet direct connection to patients as they scroll on their digital devices.

Tip: While not necessarily geared toward patients and clientele, LinkedIn provides a space for interacting with other industry professionals, which offers its own set of benefits beyond patient engagement.

According to Synup.com, the average user spends more than 150 minutes on social media per day, watches more than 17 hours of video content each week, and regularly visits seven different platforms. The first step in utilizing this marketing method at your eyecare practice is choosing the optimal platform, or platforms, for sharing different kinds of content:

• Although engagement is an inherent thread throughout all social media, Facebook offers a myriad of ways to engage with followers, through messages and shares from other pages, and is ideal for detailed posts, infographics, livestreams, text-driven content, and more.
• Instagram and TikTok are great for visual content that showcases brand identity via quick posts that efficiently convey messages in a short timespan as users briefly pause their scrolling.
• Twitter and Threads are also designed for quick communication but with less of an emphasis on visual content. They can be utilized for quick announcements like new product offerings or upcoming events.
• YouTube is an ideal host for longer videos like educational content, patient testimonials, in-depth explanations of procedures, product tours, and more.
• While not necessarily geared toward patients and clientele, LinkedIn provides a space for interacting with other industry professionals, which offers its own set of benefits beyond patient engagement.

Investing time into developing a social media presence increases practice visibility, showcases your expertise, raises awareness of vision and eye health information, and provides a direct line of communication to your patient base and beyond.

Once you choose the optimal platforms for your eyecare practice, there are endless opportunities for engaging with your community:

• Offer behind-the-scenes content, introduce your staff, or present a tour of the practice to initiate a personal connection before patients ever enter the office.
• Create accessible and shareable infographics on eye and vision health topics. Go a step further and leverage the information into why patients should visit for a routine eye exam.
• Encourage satisfied patients to share their experiences with practice staff and/or products and highlight these testimonials as content on your social media channels.
• Finally, investing time to connect with industry professionals opens a path for exchanging new innovations, research, retail strategies, information about conferences and events, and more.

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