LAS VEGAS – Hoping to make your practice’s Facebook page a success? Engage with your Facebook followers.
According to Monique Ramsey, founder of Del Mar, Calif.–based Cosmetic Social Media, the best path to social media success involves fostering. "Think about who your consumer is and what she wants to learn about," she advised.
"Provide that information to her and let her share it with her friends, because then your name is attached to that piece of content. And note it may not have anything to do with your cosmetic surgery practice, but this kind of a post will keep people coming to your page and get higher visibility for your posts in the newsfeed," she added.
Monique Ramsey
The goal is to have your posts reach more than the Facebook average, which is about 16% of your Facebook followers. With more than 1 billion people using Facebook, physicians need to be able to "cut through the noise," Ms. Ramsey explained at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery.
It’s okay for 20% of your posts to be about your practice – perhaps advertising special events and promotions – but the remaining 80% should be informative and off the topic yet engaging, meaningful, and fun.
For example, Ms. Ramsey crafted questions for one of her client’s Facebook page intended to trigger engagement in the form of comments. One read "It’s National Wine Day. Are you a red, white or bubbly?" Another post example was crafted to encourage fans to hit the "like" button and featured two cars, sporting false eyelashes which read, "Bet you the lady car uses Latisse – hit your LIKE button if you do too!" Both questions created a spike in traffic, engagement rate, and conversation on her client’s Facebook page, she said. The latter resulted in a reach of over 10,000 people and an engagement rate of over 11% (2% is average).
"You’re trying to create an emotional connection with your Facebook followers," Ms. Ramsey said. "When you’re doing your job right, you will. You will feel like a friend to people. You want people to feel like they’re part of a community. You want to be a resource for them. You want to share your own content as well as other people’s content. Social media is very reciprocal, so give a little and get a lot."
Other tips she shared for optimizing a practice’s Facebook page include the following:
• Be yourself. "Credibility and trust are important," Ms. Ramsey said. "Be authentic. Be humble. Think about influencing conversations, not controlling conversations. You can influence behavior but you don’t have to control it."
• Change your cover image at least monthly. That’s because cover images "get, on average, nine times more engagement than a regular post," she said. "Celebrate your 100th fan, or use this space to advertise a promotion you have going on."
• Make sure your avatar is superb. Ninety percent of Facebook users see your content in their newsfeed, "so it really needs to be good and easy to see," she said. "People prefer to hear from a face of the practice rather than a logo or building because we humans communicate with people, not logos."
• Monitor replies to your posts. If someone is sending abusive messages, "you can hide those messages and block that person from your page. Or it might be better to leave it there and let your community come to your defense on your behalf. I have only had to take down two messages on behalf of clients. Both were from competing physicians."
Ms. Ramsey is the founder of Cosmetic Social Media and had no other financial conflicts to disclose.