Using the Internet in your practice. Part 1: Why social media are important and how to get started

Let’s rewind to the year 2000, the dawning of a new millennium. It was then that many physicians decided the time was ripe to establish a Web presence. It wasn’t that difficult, after all: Just take the practice’s three-color, trifold brochure and convert it into a Web-site template. A teenager could do it—and many did, sometimes guided by a college student in computer sciences.

These early implementers were confident that they could cruise into the 21st Century with this new technology. They had no idea how much the Internet would change…or how fast…but their basic impulse was a wise one, to harness the power of the Internet for the good of their patients and their practices.

In this four-part series, we focus on the rapidly expanding utilization of the Internet for health-related purposes. In Part 1, we focus on why it’s important to address the Web, particularly social media, and we zoom in on creating a blog for your practice. In Part 2, our focus will be the “big three”: Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. We will take up search engine optimization and online reputation management in Parts 3 and 4, respectively.

WHY IS THE INTERNET IMPORTANT?
It isn’t uncommon for patients to arrive in their doctor’s office with a stack of pages downloaded from the Internet that describe their disease state or tests they are about to undergo. Many patients also are beginning to expect to interact with their physicians through Web sites, blogs, and Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Related Article: Why (and how) you should encourage your patients' search for health information on the Web Jennifer Gunter, MD (December 2011)

In fact, so much of health care is moving online that many physicians assume that everybody uses the Internet. The most recent data from the Pew Internet & American Life Project indicate that, in the United States, one in three adults have gone online to find out more about a medical condition, and 59% of all adults use the Internet to search for health information (TABLE 1).^1,2 Eight in 10 people who regularly use the Internet look online for health information, making it the third most popular online pursuit tracked by the Pew project, after reading and sending email and using a search engine.

What types of health information do US adults look for online? Most people (66%) who use the Web to search for health information look for information on a specific disease or medical problem (see TABLE 2 for a list of other common health topics).³ 

The Pew Research Center also found that some demographic groups are more likely than others to seek health information online. They include:

• adults who have provided unpaid care to a parent, child, friend, or other loved one in the past 12 months
• women
• white adults
• adults aged 18 to 49 years
• adults with at least some college education
• adults in higher-income households.¹

Check out the QUICK POLL on the OBG Management home page. To give your answer and see how other physicians have responded, Click Here.

WHAT ARE SOCIAL MEDIA AND WHY DO WE NEED THEM?
Social media encompass Web sites and other online communication applications used for social networking. Three of the most widely used media are Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

When someone once asked hockey great Wayne Gretzky about his sport strategy, he replied: “I don’t skate to where the puck is or where the puck has been; I skate to where the puck is going to be.” Social media are where the puck (ie, our patients) are going to be today and tomorrow.

If we review other media launches, we discover that it took nearly 40 years for radio to attract 50 million listeners, and 13 years for television to reach 50 million viewers. But it took only 4 years for the Internet to achieve 50 million users. Facebook alone reached 100 million users in just 9 months!

Just a decade ago, the Mayo Clinic relied on standard marketing techniques using radio, TV, and print media to attract new patients. Today, the Mayo Clinic makes use of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, podcasts, and blogging. The Mayo Clinic even has developed a Center for Social Media to focus on the use of social media for its centers in Rochester, Minnesota; Jacksonville, Florida; and Phoenix, Arizona. If something is good for the Mayo Clinic, it has to be OK for the rest of us.

Social media also make it possible for smaller practices to compete with much larger practices that have huge marketing budgets. With very little expense, small practices—even solo practices—can develop a social media presence that can rival those of larger competitors.

HOW TO GET STARTED
There are four major social media programs to consider: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and blogging. We suggest that ObGyns who are ready to develop a social media presence begin with blogging, the focus of this article. We will cover Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube in Part 2 of this series.

Blogging is the easiest way to enter the world of social media. It’s free, can be accomplished reasonably quickly, and allows you to communicate with existing patients and attract new patients to your practice.

What is a blog? A blog is a Web site that is maintained with regular entries (posts) that invite comments from readers. Blogging allows feedback from people who visit your site and offers you the opportunity to respond to their comments. This creates a dialogue between you, your existing patients, and potential patients that is hard to achieve on an ordinary Web site.

The only expense for a blog is the cost of your time. There are several sites that will host your blog:

• WordPress.com offers free traffic stats, anti-spam features, search engine optimization, and more. Its platform is used by many popular blogs, including Forbes, Flickr, and CNN.
• Blogger.com (powered by Google) offers a user-friendly interface and smooth integration with the blogger’s Google account
• Blog.com provides the same basic features as other blog-hosting platforms, including free templates, but it charges a fee to keep ads off your site
• MovableType.com is a high-end hosting platform that charges a fee for its use
• LiveJournal.com provides its basic service at no charge but, like Blog.com, charges a fee to keep ads off your site.

We prefer WordPress.com because it was recommended in The Social Media ­Bible. WordPress.com offers tutorials that help you create a blog, enter content, and publish your material. You can access them at http://learn.wordpress.com.

We suggest that you develop your blog by incorporating a “hook” or other enticement to capture readers’ attention, keep your message relevant to their lives, and link the blog to your Web site so readers can find ­solutions to their medical problems.

Social media experts agree that regular posting is the key to success, particularly in regard to blogging. Commit to posting at least weekly. Visitors are more likely to return to your blog when they can count on regular updates.

Related Article: To blog or not to blog? What's the answer for you and your practice? Jennifer Gunter, MD (August 2011)

How to tell your story
One way to start your post is by offering a startling statistic or analogy. For example, if you are writing about breast cancer, you might begin by observing that more than 1,000 women under age 40 died of the disease in 2013—or that only lung cancer causes more cancer deaths in women.

Humor is another way to engage readers. We have found that people are attracted to funny anecdotes and stories. For example, when Dr. Baum is writing about erectile dysfunction, he might tell a story about arriving at a hotel and finding only 32 cents in his pocket to tip the bellman. When he offered the young bellman a copy of his new book, Impotence: It’s Reversible, the bellman replied, “Dr. Baum, if it’s all right with you, I’d just like to have the 32 cents.” In a blog post about this exchange, Dr. Baum might explain that the article is intended to give readers a little more than 32 cents’ worth of information about erectile dysfunction. The post would carry on from there.

Another option is to relate a compelling story about a recent patient (without using her name) that describes how you identified a problem, made a diagnosis, and resolved the patient’s complaint.

At the end of each blog post, we recommend that you invite readers to submit open-ended questions and comments. This motivates them to respond and starts a dialogue between your practice and potential new patients. Also include a call to action, preferably with a link from your blog to your Web site, inviting readers to visit your site or contact your practice to become a patient.

Most comments on your blog are likely to be positive, or to consist of requests for clarification or specific information. And most blog-hosting platforms allow you to review comments before they are published to your blog site. Any unnecessarily harsh or abusive comments can simply be rejected.

Once you have created a blog and begun to post regularly, we recommend that you check traffic to the site using the built-in analytics available through most hosting platforms. The traffic stats give you information on the number of visitors you have, how long they are spending at your blog, and how many are connecting to your main Web site. You can use this valuable information to identify what is working and tweak your blog posts accordingly.

Catchy titles make a difference
Strive to create titles that will capture the attention of your readers. People often decide whether or not to read a blog post on the basis of its title alone. Think of an effective title as a billboard. Drivers are speeding down the highway and have only 3 or 4 seconds to read the billboard and decide whether they will visit the restaurant, buy the product, or call for more information. The same holds true for titles on your blogs.

For example, Dr. Baum once titled a blog post “Urinary incontinence: Diagnosis and treatment.” It drew few readers. When he changed the title to “Urinary incontinence: You don’t have to depend on Depends,” nearly 1,000 readers commented on the post. Same article, different title.

Four pillars of a successful practice: 2. Attract new patients Neil H. Baum, MD (Four-part series, May 2013)

Pay attention to your practice Web site
We mentioned getting visitors from your blog site to your practice’s Web site. Once they arrive, two strategies are vital:

• visitor navigation
• patient-conversion systems.

Visitor navigation. The visitor comes to your Web site to get information that provides a solution to her problem. Once she lands on your site, you have less than 10 seconds to engage her; otherwise, she’ll leave instantly with the click of the mouse. Make it easy for her to find what she is looking for. For example, are the procedures and treatments you offer listed prominently so that the visitor can see them immediately and click on the link she wants? How about adding an icon, at the top right on every page, that says: “Schedule an appointment” or “Schedule a consultation.” The words you use (and their placement) are critically important if you want the visitor to become a patient!

Related Article: My #1 strategy for retaining patients Neil H. Baum, MD (Audiocast, March 2013)

Patient-conversion systems. Many Web sites are designed by people other than marketers. Even many Web-design companies focus on the look of the site rather than its main purpose: to convert visitors to patients.

If you want to get a Web-site visitor to schedule an appointment, your phone number should be clearly visible (along with the “Schedule an appointment” icon) on every page above the fold. “Above the fold” simply means that the visitor does not have to scroll down the page to see it. Believe it or not, many fancy Web sites fail to put these items in plain view!

And because you want to position yourself as a trusted authority in your field, patient testimonials are an important feature to include on your home page. And keep the information simple—stay away from technical jargon that the visitor will not understand.

Capture the visitor’s email address and use an auto-responder to follow up. You can get the visi­tor’s email address by offering something of value, such as a complimentary medical guide to a common condition. Once you have her email address, you have a way to stay in touch with the prospective patient and build a relationship of trust and confidence in your ability to solve her problem. 

BOTTOM LINE: SOCIAL MEDIA ARE WORTH THE EFFORT
Social media marketing is a tool that most medical practices will be considering in the near future. A blog is a social media tool that can educate and inform existing patients and attract new ones to your practice. It is inexpensive, effective, and well worth the time and effort required to create a presence.

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!
Drop us a line and let us know what you think about current articles, which topics you'd like to see covered in future issues, and what challenges you face in daily practice. Tell us what you think by emailing us at: [email protected]

Let’s rewind to the year 2000, the dawning of a new millennium. It was then that many physicians decided the time was ripe to establish a Web presence. It wasn’t that difficult, after all: Just take the practice’s three-color, trifold brochure and convert it into a Web-site template. A teenager could do it—and many did, sometimes guided by a college student in computer sciences.

These early implementers were confident that they could cruise into the 21st Century with this new technology. They had no idea how much the Internet would change…or how fast…but their basic impulse was a wise one, to harness the power of the Internet for the good of their patients and their practices.

In this four-part series, we focus on the rapidly expanding utilization of the Internet for health-related purposes. In Part 1, we focus on why it’s important to address the Web, particularly social media, and we zoom in on creating a blog for your practice. In Part 2, our focus will be the “big three”: Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. We will take up search engine optimization and online reputation management in Parts 3 and 4, respectively.

WHY IS THE INTERNET IMPORTANT?
It isn’t uncommon for patients to arrive in their doctor’s office with a stack of pages downloaded from the Internet that describe their disease state or tests they are about to undergo. Many patients also are beginning to expect to interact with their physicians through Web sites, blogs, and Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Related Article: Why (and how) you should encourage your patients' search for health information on the Web Jennifer Gunter, MD (December 2011)

In fact, so much of health care is moving online that many physicians assume that everybody uses the Internet. The most recent data from the Pew Internet & American Life Project indicate that, in the United States, one in three adults have gone online to find out more about a medical condition, and 59% of all adults use the Internet to search for health information (TABLE 1).^1,2 Eight in 10 people who regularly use the Internet look online for health information, making it the third most popular online pursuit tracked by the Pew project, after reading and sending email and using a search engine.

What types of health information do US adults look for online? Most people (66%) who use the Web to search for health information look for information on a specific disease or medical problem (see TABLE 2 for a list of other common health topics).³ 

The Pew Research Center also found that some demographic groups are more likely than others to seek health information online. They include:

• adults who have provided unpaid care to a parent, child, friend, or other loved one in the past 12 months
• women
• white adults
• adults aged 18 to 49 years
• adults with at least some college education
• adults in higher-income households.¹

Check out the QUICK POLL on the OBG Management home page. To give your answer and see how other physicians have responded, Click Here.

WHAT ARE SOCIAL MEDIA AND WHY DO WE NEED THEM?
Social media encompass Web sites and other online communication applications used for social networking. Three of the most widely used media are Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

When someone once asked hockey great Wayne Gretzky about his sport strategy, he replied: “I don’t skate to where the puck is or where the puck has been; I skate to where the puck is going to be.” Social media are where the puck (ie, our patients) are going to be today and tomorrow.

If we review other media launches, we discover that it took nearly 40 years for radio to attract 50 million listeners, and 13 years for television to reach 50 million viewers. But it took only 4 years for the Internet to achieve 50 million users. Facebook alone reached 100 million users in just 9 months!

Just a decade ago, the Mayo Clinic relied on standard marketing techniques using radio, TV, and print media to attract new patients. Today, the Mayo Clinic makes use of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, podcasts, and blogging. The Mayo Clinic even has developed a Center for Social Media to focus on the use of social media for its centers in Rochester, Minnesota; Jacksonville, Florida; and Phoenix, Arizona. If something is good for the Mayo Clinic, it has to be OK for the rest of us.

Social media also make it possible for smaller practices to compete with much larger practices that have huge marketing budgets. With very little expense, small practices—even solo practices—can develop a social media presence that can rival those of larger competitors.

HOW TO GET STARTED
There are four major social media programs to consider: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and blogging. We suggest that ObGyns who are ready to develop a social media presence begin with blogging, the focus of this article. We will cover Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube in Part 2 of this series.

Blogging is the easiest way to enter the world of social media. It’s free, can be accomplished reasonably quickly, and allows you to communicate with existing patients and attract new patients to your practice.

What is a blog? A blog is a Web site that is maintained with regular entries (posts) that invite comments from readers. Blogging allows feedback from people who visit your site and offers you the opportunity to respond to their comments. This creates a dialogue between you, your existing patients, and potential patients that is hard to achieve on an ordinary Web site.

The only expense for a blog is the cost of your time. There are several sites that will host your blog:

• WordPress.com offers free traffic stats, anti-spam features, search engine optimization, and more. Its platform is used by many popular blogs, including Forbes, Flickr, and CNN.
• Blogger.com (powered by Google) offers a user-friendly interface and smooth integration with the blogger’s Google account
• Blog.com provides the same basic features as other blog-hosting platforms, including free templates, but it charges a fee to keep ads off your site
• MovableType.com is a high-end hosting platform that charges a fee for its use
• LiveJournal.com provides its basic service at no charge but, like Blog.com, charges a fee to keep ads off your site.

We prefer WordPress.com because it was recommended in The Social Media ­Bible. WordPress.com offers tutorials that help you create a blog, enter content, and publish your material. You can access them at http://learn.wordpress.com.

We suggest that you develop your blog by incorporating a “hook” or other enticement to capture readers’ attention, keep your message relevant to their lives, and link the blog to your Web site so readers can find ­solutions to their medical problems.

Social media experts agree that regular posting is the key to success, particularly in regard to blogging. Commit to posting at least weekly. Visitors are more likely to return to your blog when they can count on regular updates.

Related Article: To blog or not to blog? What's the answer for you and your practice? Jennifer Gunter, MD (August 2011)

How to tell your story
One way to start your post is by offering a startling statistic or analogy. For example, if you are writing about breast cancer, you might begin by observing that more than 1,000 women under age 40 died of the disease in 2013—or that only lung cancer causes more cancer deaths in women.

Humor is another way to engage readers. We have found that people are attracted to funny anecdotes and stories. For example, when Dr. Baum is writing about erectile dysfunction, he might tell a story about arriving at a hotel and finding only 32 cents in his pocket to tip the bellman. When he offered the young bellman a copy of his new book, Impotence: It’s Reversible, the bellman replied, “Dr. Baum, if it’s all right with you, I’d just like to have the 32 cents.” In a blog post about this exchange, Dr. Baum might explain that the article is intended to give readers a little more than 32 cents’ worth of information about erectile dysfunction. The post would carry on from there.

Another option is to relate a compelling story about a recent patient (without using her name) that describes how you identified a problem, made a diagnosis, and resolved the patient’s complaint.

At the end of each blog post, we recommend that you invite readers to submit open-ended questions and comments. This motivates them to respond and starts a dialogue between your practice and potential new patients. Also include a call to action, preferably with a link from your blog to your Web site, inviting readers to visit your site or contact your practice to become a patient.

Most comments on your blog are likely to be positive, or to consist of requests for clarification or specific information. And most blog-hosting platforms allow you to review comments before they are published to your blog site. Any unnecessarily harsh or abusive comments can simply be rejected.

Once you have created a blog and begun to post regularly, we recommend that you check traffic to the site using the built-in analytics available through most hosting platforms. The traffic stats give you information on the number of visitors you have, how long they are spending at your blog, and how many are connecting to your main Web site. You can use this valuable information to identify what is working and tweak your blog posts accordingly.

Catchy titles make a difference
Strive to create titles that will capture the attention of your readers. People often decide whether or not to read a blog post on the basis of its title alone. Think of an effective title as a billboard. Drivers are speeding down the highway and have only 3 or 4 seconds to read the billboard and decide whether they will visit the restaurant, buy the product, or call for more information. The same holds true for titles on your blogs.

For example, Dr. Baum once titled a blog post “Urinary incontinence: Diagnosis and treatment.” It drew few readers. When he changed the title to “Urinary incontinence: You don’t have to depend on Depends,” nearly 1,000 readers commented on the post. Same article, different title.

Four pillars of a successful practice: 2. Attract new patients Neil H. Baum, MD (Four-part series, May 2013)

Pay attention to your practice Web site
We mentioned getting visitors from your blog site to your practice’s Web site. Once they arrive, two strategies are vital:

• visitor navigation
• patient-conversion systems.

Visitor navigation. The visitor comes to your Web site to get information that provides a solution to her problem. Once she lands on your site, you have less than 10 seconds to engage her; otherwise, she’ll leave instantly with the click of the mouse. Make it easy for her to find what she is looking for. For example, are the procedures and treatments you offer listed prominently so that the visitor can see them immediately and click on the link she wants? How about adding an icon, at the top right on every page, that says: “Schedule an appointment” or “Schedule a consultation.” The words you use (and their placement) are critically important if you want the visitor to become a patient!

Related Article: My #1 strategy for retaining patients Neil H. Baum, MD (Audiocast, March 2013)

Patient-conversion systems. Many Web sites are designed by people other than marketers. Even many Web-design companies focus on the look of the site rather than its main purpose: to convert visitors to patients.

If you want to get a Web-site visitor to schedule an appointment, your phone number should be clearly visible (along with the “Schedule an appointment” icon) on every page above the fold. “Above the fold” simply means that the visitor does not have to scroll down the page to see it. Believe it or not, many fancy Web sites fail to put these items in plain view!

And because you want to position yourself as a trusted authority in your field, patient testimonials are an important feature to include on your home page. And keep the information simple—stay away from technical jargon that the visitor will not understand.

Capture the visitor’s email address and use an auto-responder to follow up. You can get the visi­tor’s email address by offering something of value, such as a complimentary medical guide to a common condition. Once you have her email address, you have a way to stay in touch with the prospective patient and build a relationship of trust and confidence in your ability to solve her problem. 

BOTTOM LINE: SOCIAL MEDIA ARE WORTH THE EFFORT
Social media marketing is a tool that most medical practices will be considering in the near future. A blog is a social media tool that can educate and inform existing patients and attract new ones to your practice. It is inexpensive, effective, and well worth the time and effort required to create a presence.

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!
Drop us a line and let us know what you think about current articles, which topics you'd like to see covered in future issues, and what challenges you face in daily practice. Tell us what you think by emailing us at: [email protected]

Let’s rewind to the year 2000, the dawning of a new millennium. It was then that many physicians decided the time was ripe to establish a Web presence. It wasn’t that difficult, after all: Just take the practice’s three-color, trifold brochure and convert it into a Web-site template. A teenager could do it—and many did, sometimes guided by a college student in computer sciences.

These early implementers were confident that they could cruise into the 21st Century with this new technology. They had no idea how much the Internet would change…or how fast…but their basic impulse was a wise one, to harness the power of the Internet for the good of their patients and their practices.

In this four-part series, we focus on the rapidly expanding utilization of the Internet for health-related purposes. In Part 1, we focus on why it’s important to address the Web, particularly social media, and we zoom in on creating a blog for your practice. In Part 2, our focus will be the “big three”: Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. We will take up search engine optimization and online reputation management in Parts 3 and 4, respectively.

WHY IS THE INTERNET IMPORTANT?
It isn’t uncommon for patients to arrive in their doctor’s office with a stack of pages downloaded from the Internet that describe their disease state or tests they are about to undergo. Many patients also are beginning to expect to interact with their physicians through Web sites, blogs, and Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Related Article: Why (and how) you should encourage your patients' search for health information on the Web Jennifer Gunter, MD (December 2011)

In fact, so much of health care is moving online that many physicians assume that everybody uses the Internet. The most recent data from the Pew Internet & American Life Project indicate that, in the United States, one in three adults have gone online to find out more about a medical condition, and 59% of all adults use the Internet to search for health information (TABLE 1).^1,2 Eight in 10 people who regularly use the Internet look online for health information, making it the third most popular online pursuit tracked by the Pew project, after reading and sending email and using a search engine.

What types of health information do US adults look for online? Most people (66%) who use the Web to search for health information look for information on a specific disease or medical problem (see TABLE 2 for a list of other common health topics).³ 

The Pew Research Center also found that some demographic groups are more likely than others to seek health information online. They include:

• adults who have provided unpaid care to a parent, child, friend, or other loved one in the past 12 months
• women
• white adults
• adults aged 18 to 49 years
• adults with at least some college education
• adults in higher-income households.¹

Check out the QUICK POLL on the OBG Management home page. To give your answer and see how other physicians have responded, Click Here.

WHAT ARE SOCIAL MEDIA AND WHY DO WE NEED THEM?
Social media encompass Web sites and other online communication applications used for social networking. Three of the most widely used media are Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

When someone once asked hockey great Wayne Gretzky about his sport strategy, he replied: “I don’t skate to where the puck is or where the puck has been; I skate to where the puck is going to be.” Social media are where the puck (ie, our patients) are going to be today and tomorrow.

If we review other media launches, we discover that it took nearly 40 years for radio to attract 50 million listeners, and 13 years for television to reach 50 million viewers. But it took only 4 years for the Internet to achieve 50 million users. Facebook alone reached 100 million users in just 9 months!

Just a decade ago, the Mayo Clinic relied on standard marketing techniques using radio, TV, and print media to attract new patients. Today, the Mayo Clinic makes use of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, podcasts, and blogging. The Mayo Clinic even has developed a Center for Social Media to focus on the use of social media for its centers in Rochester, Minnesota; Jacksonville, Florida; and Phoenix, Arizona. If something is good for the Mayo Clinic, it has to be OK for the rest of us.

Social media also make it possible for smaller practices to compete with much larger practices that have huge marketing budgets. With very little expense, small practices—even solo practices—can develop a social media presence that can rival those of larger competitors.

HOW TO GET STARTED
There are four major social media programs to consider: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and blogging. We suggest that ObGyns who are ready to develop a social media presence begin with blogging, the focus of this article. We will cover Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube in Part 2 of this series.

Blogging is the easiest way to enter the world of social media. It’s free, can be accomplished reasonably quickly, and allows you to communicate with existing patients and attract new patients to your practice.

What is a blog? A blog is a Web site that is maintained with regular entries (posts) that invite comments from readers. Blogging allows feedback from people who visit your site and offers you the opportunity to respond to their comments. This creates a dialogue between you, your existing patients, and potential patients that is hard to achieve on an ordinary Web site.

The only expense for a blog is the cost of your time. There are several sites that will host your blog:

• WordPress.com offers free traffic stats, anti-spam features, search engine optimization, and more. Its platform is used by many popular blogs, including Forbes, Flickr, and CNN.
• Blogger.com (powered by Google) offers a user-friendly interface and smooth integration with the blogger’s Google account
• Blog.com provides the same basic features as other blog-hosting platforms, including free templates, but it charges a fee to keep ads off your site
• MovableType.com is a high-end hosting platform that charges a fee for its use
• LiveJournal.com provides its basic service at no charge but, like Blog.com, charges a fee to keep ads off your site.

We prefer WordPress.com because it was recommended in The Social Media ­Bible. WordPress.com offers tutorials that help you create a blog, enter content, and publish your material. You can access them at http://learn.wordpress.com.

We suggest that you develop your blog by incorporating a “hook” or other enticement to capture readers’ attention, keep your message relevant to their lives, and link the blog to your Web site so readers can find ­solutions to their medical problems.

Social media experts agree that regular posting is the key to success, particularly in regard to blogging. Commit to posting at least weekly. Visitors are more likely to return to your blog when they can count on regular updates.

Related Article: To blog or not to blog? What's the answer for you and your practice? Jennifer Gunter, MD (August 2011)

How to tell your story
One way to start your post is by offering a startling statistic or analogy. For example, if you are writing about breast cancer, you might begin by observing that more than 1,000 women under age 40 died of the disease in 2013—or that only lung cancer causes more cancer deaths in women.

Humor is another way to engage readers. We have found that people are attracted to funny anecdotes and stories. For example, when Dr. Baum is writing about erectile dysfunction, he might tell a story about arriving at a hotel and finding only 32 cents in his pocket to tip the bellman. When he offered the young bellman a copy of his new book, Impotence: It’s Reversible, the bellman replied, “Dr. Baum, if it’s all right with you, I’d just like to have the 32 cents.” In a blog post about this exchange, Dr. Baum might explain that the article is intended to give readers a little more than 32 cents’ worth of information about erectile dysfunction. The post would carry on from there.

Another option is to relate a compelling story about a recent patient (without using her name) that describes how you identified a problem, made a diagnosis, and resolved the patient’s complaint.

At the end of each blog post, we recommend that you invite readers to submit open-ended questions and comments. This motivates them to respond and starts a dialogue between your practice and potential new patients. Also include a call to action, preferably with a link from your blog to your Web site, inviting readers to visit your site or contact your practice to become a patient.

Most comments on your blog are likely to be positive, or to consist of requests for clarification or specific information. And most blog-hosting platforms allow you to review comments before they are published to your blog site. Any unnecessarily harsh or abusive comments can simply be rejected.

Once you have created a blog and begun to post regularly, we recommend that you check traffic to the site using the built-in analytics available through most hosting platforms. The traffic stats give you information on the number of visitors you have, how long they are spending at your blog, and how many are connecting to your main Web site. You can use this valuable information to identify what is working and tweak your blog posts accordingly.

Catchy titles make a difference
Strive to create titles that will capture the attention of your readers. People often decide whether or not to read a blog post on the basis of its title alone. Think of an effective title as a billboard. Drivers are speeding down the highway and have only 3 or 4 seconds to read the billboard and decide whether they will visit the restaurant, buy the product, or call for more information. The same holds true for titles on your blogs.

For example, Dr. Baum once titled a blog post “Urinary incontinence: Diagnosis and treatment.” It drew few readers. When he changed the title to “Urinary incontinence: You don’t have to depend on Depends,” nearly 1,000 readers commented on the post. Same article, different title.

Four pillars of a successful practice: 2. Attract new patients Neil H. Baum, MD (Four-part series, May 2013)

Pay attention to your practice Web site
We mentioned getting visitors from your blog site to your practice’s Web site. Once they arrive, two strategies are vital:

• visitor navigation
• patient-conversion systems.

Visitor navigation. The visitor comes to your Web site to get information that provides a solution to her problem. Once she lands on your site, you have less than 10 seconds to engage her; otherwise, she’ll leave instantly with the click of the mouse. Make it easy for her to find what she is looking for. For example, are the procedures and treatments you offer listed prominently so that the visitor can see them immediately and click on the link she wants? How about adding an icon, at the top right on every page, that says: “Schedule an appointment” or “Schedule a consultation.” The words you use (and their placement) are critically important if you want the visitor to become a patient!

Related Article: My #1 strategy for retaining patients Neil H. Baum, MD (Audiocast, March 2013)

Patient-conversion systems. Many Web sites are designed by people other than marketers. Even many Web-design companies focus on the look of the site rather than its main purpose: to convert visitors to patients.

If you want to get a Web-site visitor to schedule an appointment, your phone number should be clearly visible (along with the “Schedule an appointment” icon) on every page above the fold. “Above the fold” simply means that the visitor does not have to scroll down the page to see it. Believe it or not, many fancy Web sites fail to put these items in plain view!

And because you want to position yourself as a trusted authority in your field, patient testimonials are an important feature to include on your home page. And keep the information simple—stay away from technical jargon that the visitor will not understand.

Capture the visitor’s email address and use an auto-responder to follow up. You can get the visi­tor’s email address by offering something of value, such as a complimentary medical guide to a common condition. Once you have her email address, you have a way to stay in touch with the prospective patient and build a relationship of trust and confidence in your ability to solve her problem. 

BOTTOM LINE: SOCIAL MEDIA ARE WORTH THE EFFORT
Social media marketing is a tool that most medical practices will be considering in the near future. A blog is a social media tool that can educate and inform existing patients and attract new ones to your practice. It is inexpensive, effective, and well worth the time and effort required to create a presence.

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