When it comes to social media marketing, most medical practices make the same mistake as other small to medium businesses: they try to copy what the big corporations do and spend a crap-load of money and resources on likes and follows.
Why It Matters:
This is a mistake because big businesses use social media for a totally different reason, according to Jason McBride, a marketing consultant. They do it for brand awareness. They don’t invest in social media. But they have big enough budgets to warrant this strategy. You don’t.
Unfortunately, when a medical practice hires an external marketing agency, social media marketing is one of the first things that is recommended.
But here’s the rub:
- social media marketing is easy to do
- because it is easy to do, your competitors are likely doing it, too
- agencies will typically measure results with what are called ‘vanity metrics’ such as likes and clicks
- likes and clicks on their own have no calculable value
Now this is not to say that you shouldn’t be using social media. It just shouldn’t be the major thrust of your marketing investment in time and resources.
Bottom Line:
As McBride points out, You can’t pay bills with dopamine.