---
title: '5 Wrong Social Media Questions Physicians Are Asking About Social Media'
type: 'lecture'
url: 'https://doc.social/lectures/5-wrong-social-media-questions-physicians-are-asking-about-social-media'
published: '2020-12-23'
author: 'Matthew Ray Scott'
topics: 'Physician Marketing, Social Media'
transcript: 'yes'
---

# 5 Wrong Social Media Questions Physicians Are Asking About Social Media

5 Wrong Social Media Questions Physicians Are Asking About Social Media

## Summary

_Published as a recording without a written summary._

## Transcript

1,535 words · 11 min · automatically transcribed (aws-transcribe) and not checked by a person; it may contain errors, particularly in names, drugs and dosages. The recording is the source.

[0:01] Welcome everybody. This is Matthew Ray Scott, the creative director from Feed the Agency. Today I'm going to share with you a presentation entitled The Six Wrong Questions Physicians Are Asking about Social Media.
[0:17] Feed the Agency is a physician brand talent agency, and if you'd like to learn more, contact us at www.feedtheagency.com.
[0:29] At the end of this presentation, if you would like to be enrolled in an absolutely free webinar entitled The 7 New Rules of Physician branding Rockstars, click on the link at the end of the presentation, and you'll automatically be enrolled.
[0:46] This presentation was inspired by Jay Beer. Today. Jay gave a webinar entitled The Eight Wrong Questions Agencies Are Asking about Social Media. So I took some of Jay's great points and I added our insight in the health and beauty field and came up with today's presentation to apply to today's physician.
[1:08] The first wrong question that is most commonly asked by physicians is what's the hot new tool that we can bring to our patients.
[1:20] Here's a better question.
[1:23] How will Social Media fit into our Marketing plan?
[1:29] The second most commonly wrong question that we receive from physicians is how do I get more followers instead of a better question, which is how do we get people to take action? Isn't that really the challenge of Social Media or any Marketing, which is to get people to take some type of action that you want them to take.
[1:53] Because the goal isn't to be good at Social Media. The bigger goal is to be good at Business because of Social Media.
[2:03] The 3rd most frequently asked wrong question by physicians is how can we use Social Media and be compliant.
[2:14] A better question is how can we develop compellingly compliant stories.
[2:20] The truth of the matter is, is that the answer is simply be compliant. Whenever physicians back years ago entered into developing a website and sharing what they do with prospective patients.
[2:35] The same thing was asked, which is how are we going to minimize the damage control of saying or doing something wrong on our website? Well, you've already passed through that paradigm, right? And it's the same way with Social Media. You just don't say the wrong thing, and the same applies to Social Media.
[2:55] The 4th most frequently asked wrong question about Social Media that we receive is how can we sell more by using Social Media? And here's a better way of asking that question.
[3:10] How can we use Social Media so our patients know, like, and trust us?
[3:17] I threw up a couple of examples, and this is just from today showing you how people are using Social Media.
[3:25] And how many physicians are still using Social Media wrong. The reality is, imagine yourself in a social situation. You don't want to be sold to, and the same thing applies to Social Media. I just picked a couple of these at random, and you can see patients are tired of the same exact messages from plastic surgeons in their area saying, Hey, come in today and get 20% off, or come in today.
[3:51] And you'll receive a special opportunity or, hey, if you're a patient, you can win an iPad. Patients are confused by that. Frankly, it's such a commodity Approach to Marketing that, that patients have a tough time deciding who is really the specialist. So as a physician using Social Media, in our opinion, the key to Social Media is not to sell, it's to position you as the most credible expert.
[4:18] So 3 quick points here. Social Media is largely used as an opt-in construct. The goal is to develop that know like and trust, that interest level that you then allow a prospective patient or a prospective patient is persuaded, if you will, to be able to.
[4:37] Another action that could be setting up a consultation with you, that could be downloading a patient oriented white paper, whatever, a call to action, an opt-in, which is called permission Marketing. The second point is that Social Media is ideal to keep your physician brand top of mind.
[4:57] And lastly, Social Media can absolutely position you as the most credible expert in a particular field, and media and patients are using Social Media to help them make choices in their healthcare decisions.
[5:13] The 5th most frequently asked wrong question about Social Media by physicians is, hey, we've got a website. Why do we even need to use Social Media? Well, here's a better question.
[5:27] How do we integrate Social Media and align it within our website?
[5:34] Because the key really is to be a digital dandelion. It's absolutely critical nowadays when you look at the digital landscape, which consists of Social Media, your website, online press releases, the list goes on and on, is to allow patients or prospectives.
[5:54] to find out compelling and relevant information about you wherever they're looking for that information, whether it's through Social Media or whether it's through Google searches or just by word of mouth being able to come to your website.
[6:11] The reality is that Social Media is so popular that it's overtaking pornography as the number one web activity today.
[6:21] When you look at this particular chart, look at the years to reach 50 million users, and you compare this across the communication landscape of radio, television, internet, and Facebook. It's astounding. So many people using Facebook that it reached 200 million users in less than one year.
[6:43] The Other reality about Social Media is that you've got to make Google happy and because Google loves Social Media, uh, whether that's YouTube or Facebook or Twitter or Pinterest, the latest Social Media craze, is that you want to use these because Google loves these particular channels.
[7:08] Now one of the things that we do at Feed the agency is we have a brand positioning hub and we look at all the different touch points.
[7:16] This doesn't necessarily have to relate to just Social Media, but you can see the different touch points here, and this is an actual interface between online Marketing tools and activities and offline. The key is, and I talk about that digital dandelion, and the same thing applies to all of your Marketing tools, is you've got to be using the tools that can reach people the way that they want to receive information.
[7:43] And number 6, most frequently asked wrong question about Social Media is how do we create a killer Social Media campaign? Well, here's a better question.
[7:56] Better question
[7:58] Is how can we develop a sustainable social strategy that can turn patients into long term advocates. It's really the key, right?
[8:07] And here's 3 quick points. Don't make the mistake and confuse influence and audience. There's such a quest for how do we increase our followers, and it's such a bogus way of measurement. So don't confuse influence and audience. Secondly, start with your patients first. Focus on creating that engagement level with your patients. That's really most important. And lastly,
[8:35] If it's your practice that's creating all the chatter and the buzz, you're doing it wrong. It means that you're not engaged in two-way communication. You're just simply sending out RSS feeds or you're, or you're handing out statements that is just a repurpose of your website. Most physicians today are making that last mistake most frequently.
[8:59] And they're simply just sending out one-way statements. We even did a test. We did 57 plastic Surgery, Social Media sites, Facebook and Twitter, and we placed a comment on there that requested them to respond back. And amazingly, we had 7 Practices in Facebook and we had 12 in Twitter.
[9:23] That means that you're engaged in one-way communication. There's not a conversation going on here. It's just using it as another megaphone. It doesn't work, and people on Social Media want you to be social, and they'll read right through it.
[9:38] One thing to remember is is that Social Media is a marathon and not a sprint.
[9:43] So the critical components of that is that Social Media happens very quickly. You can hop onto Facebook and Twitter for quote unquote free as far as there's no service cost to use that, but there is a time investment there, and that time investment is basically focused not so much on constantly sending out endless tweets or Facebook posts, but it's coming up with a content development program.
[10:10] That your prospective patients are frankly interested in what's relevant and compelling to them that you can put your brand journalism hat on and push that information to them in the channels that they're listening and then position yourself as the expert that's the absolute key. And what happens in Social Media is, is that when you are social and you engage with people and you're not blasting them by trying to, to sell them, you earn the right.
[10:40] In time to promote what you're doing, and they'll reward you for that. And lastly, one of the keys is you've got to learn to be social, and it'll pay off in time for you. You found it informative, and if you'd like, you can enroll automatically free in the seven new rules of Physician branding rock stars. Just click on the link at the end of this, and you'll be automatically enrolled. Thanks and have a great day.