A medical practice’s social media team and website as a whole can either fail a practice or make it successful beyond expectation. With social media and the website being the face of a practice it is important to take both of these things seriously. The following are just a few mistakes that many practices make when it comes to their social media and website.
Looking like a 1990’s Geocities Site
Having a website that looks like it hasn’t been updated in quite some time can be a warning flag to certain patients. The lack of care about a website can reflect badly on a practice. Practices who boast about having the newest technology for their specialty should pay someone to update their practice. Nobody wants to visit a site to make an appointment if it seems to be buggy or even freezes their computer. Taking pride in a website of a practice is important as it is the first contact that many people might have with a practice as the internet is the main way people research doctors.
Easy To Scan Website
The first thing that a person should see if the contact info for a doctor’s office. Having to search the website for this can lead a person to go elsewhere if they do not find it quickly enough. Make sure to put the contact form as well as contact information close to the top of the page. Another thing that many medical practices do is add too many tabs to the top. Drop down menus can help eliminate the need for a different tab for each section.
Not Engaging With Patients
The worst thing that can be done on a practice’s website or social media is that of ignoring patients. Social media is a place that people go to vent or to ask questions in their time of need. There will be plenty of patients who ask questions about an article or even a social media post that should be answered. This allows the practice to show their expertise as well as building patient loyalty. The other end of this is responding to those with complaints as a few bad online reviews can have potential patients going to the competition. Medical practices that are on top of their social media and blog look more professional than those who haven’t posted an article or tweeted since 2012. Not all posts have to be directly correlated to your specialty as weight loss tips or even general health tips can be given to readers.
Not Optimizing For Mobile
The number of mobile searches seems to go up daily with a variety of mobile devices being the main way people navigate the internet. Not having a practice’s website optimized for mobile can lead to potential patients just visiting a site that is a bit easier to navigate on their mobile device. Not having the website optimized for mobile can even impact the ranking your website comes up on the search engine for a certain term. Dropping off of the first page of Google just because the site hasn’t been updated for mobile can lead to a drop in patients as well as new appointments set. As you can see a great website and social media team can have a practice set on an upward trajectory. The patient care is the most important as referrals tend to fill offices as well. If the social media team and website are doing a great job then a practice will watch patients pour in!