Healthcare professionals including plastic surgeons must build a social media presence to maximize their reach. Social media for plastic surgeons has emerged as a necessary marketing strategy specifically to engage prospects and convert them into paying patients. Plastic surgery experts often struggle to generate qualified leads for their clinics. Social media platforms offer them uncountable opportunities to attract new leads that have higher chances to convert later.
Plastic surgeons with a great social media presence can find potential leads and nurture them to conversions. Every social media platform has its benefits for plastic surgeons. The professionals just need to effectively utilize these platforms to grow a strong online patient base. A study result shows that 5 billion people interact with businesses more often on social media. This shows the importance of a noticeable social media presence for plastic surgeons to increase their patient interactions.
Online marketing through social media platforms can make all these possible for plastic surgery practice. It offers a virtual space where a surgeon can share informative yet creative posts to promote their surgery offerings and educate the patient about diverse plastic surgery-related topics. However, you need to create a social media marketing (SMM) plan to enhance your social media visibility and portray your practice as a credible resource.
Below we will provide you with a comprehensive guide to social media marketing for plastic surgery practices along with details of the right platforms for your practice. You can follow our SMM tips to grow your practice’s social media reach. Additionally, you can hire a renowned healthcare social media marketing agency to seek their personalized services. Let’s first understand social media marketing for plastic surgeons.
What is Social Media Marketing for Plastic Surgeons?
It refers to the strategic utilization of social media platforms to promote plastic surgery practice and earn high-quality leads that have a higher potential to convert into loyal patients. It consists of various online marketing practices where plastic surgeon share high-quality, informative posts on diverse social media platforms and maximize the reach of their practices. Social media marketing offers meaningful opportunities for plastic surgeons to connect and interact with patients. They can build long-term relationships with existing and potential patients through effective social media strategies.
It is not enough for the professionals to simply be active on social media. They must have certain social media management skills to thrive in the digital space. Social media for plastic surgeons requires them to create and share organic posts and paid advertisements to expand their audience reach on social media. If implemented correctly, SMM can build your plastic surgery practice in a true sense.
Nowadays an attractive social media presence of a business really matters to the people who may purchase from it. A survey result has shown that nearly 78.3% of people turn to social media to learn more about a healthcare provider before they book an appointment. It highlights the growing influence of social media on the healthcare decisions of people. It even increases brand awareness and results in more patient inquiries.
Key Reasons Why Plastic Surgeons Must Invest in Social Media Marketing
A surgeon can achieve numerous benefits of SMM if they effectively utilize the platforms and implement certain strategies. From increased patient engagement to noticeable website traffic growth, social media marketing for plastic surgeons offers an extensive range of advantages. Let’s check out the four major benefits of SSM for plastic surgery practice.
1. Benefits of Paid Advertisement
It is one of the most popular features of social media. Plastic surgeons can leverage paid social media advertising like Facebook ads and Google ads to promote their surgery offerings.
Paid advertising offers instant online visibility for plastic surgeons. They can enhance their clinic’s reputation which eventually positively contributes to their practice growth and profits.
2. Continuous Patient Engagement
Plastic surgeons can showcase their skills and the outcome of their surgeries through engaging social media posts. Visual content on Facebook and Instagram is more likely to engage patients.
Informative content and research updates on LinkedIn help plastic surgeons establish themselves as knowledgeable authorities in the ever-competitive healthcare market. Social media allows direct communication between plastic surgery professionals and patients which improves patient engagement.
3. Unmatched Website Traffic Growth
Engaging social media content generates interest among patients about a plastic surgeon. It increases the chance of more website visits which often results in unparalleled website traffic growth.
Plastic surgery professionals must share compelling ads with educational or exciting promotional content. These social media ads also drive noticeable website traffic as they direct potential patients to the plastic surgeon’s website. Additionally, patient reviews encourage more patients to visit the website.
4. Wider Audience Reach
Every social media platform helps plastic surgeons make their practice reach a wider audience. They need to choose the right platform to promote their practice through engaging content. Utilization of trending and relevant hashtags in social media posts also increases the reach.
Furthermore, two other significant elements of social media marketing are targeted paid ads and influencer collaborations. These two also can broaden the reach of a plastic surgery practice.
4 Major Social Media Platforms for Your Plastic Surgery Practice
Social media for plastic surgeons can be ineffective if you fail to choose the most effective and right platform for your practice. Practitioners need to choose the right social media platform to promote their plastic surgery services. Every social media platform offers diverse benefits for healthcare practices. Thus they need to identify which platform can offer them the maximum benefits. It is crucial for their social media engagement and practice growth. This way they can connect with their target audience and stay ahead of their competition.
Here we have mentioned four major types of social media platforms and how they can help you grow your plastic surgery practice online. We have also explained how you can smartly utilize these platforms to maximize the benefits.
1. Facebook
It is one of the most popular social media platforms which offers exceptional reach for users. Because it has nearly 2.8 billion active users worldwide. Plastic surgeons can share promotional content, long videos, and exciting offers on their Facebook page. Additionally, they can share the links to their blog posts and event information. This platform can be one of the most potential ways for plastic surgery practitioners to target their patient market.
How Can You Effectively Utilize Facebook to Make Their Practice Reach Wider?
- Facebook allows plastic surgeons to reach a wider audience and provides meaningful opportunities to promote their surgery services.
- You can effectively use Facebook’s targeting features to make your content reach the specific patient market based on various demographics and geographic factors like age, location, medical history, and surgery preferences.
- You can leverage the uncountable benefits of Facebook within your social media marketing budget. Because you just need to pay for clicks and impressions and you can easily control your advertising costs.
- Plastic surgeons can share valuable images and videos on Facebook to show the transformative results of their plastic surgeries.
- Additionally, they can share educational content in creative posts about various plastic surgery procedures and recovery procedures.
- Plastic surgery videos can be outstanding content to share on Facebook as they easily tell stories and easily convey complex plastic surgery-related information.
- You must consider carousel ads to share multiple pieces of information in a single ad. This way you can maintain your advertising costs and highlight various aspects of your practice.
2. Instagram
This social media platform offers an excellent opportunity for plastic surgeons to share photos and videos to run promotions. The impactful utilization of Instagram is a crucial part of plastic surgeons’ social media strategies. Instagram with almost 2 billion monthly active users allows plastic surgeons to run special promotional campaigns that can reach a wider audience.
It has another important feature called Instagram Reels which are short-form videos that can serve as storytelling. A study shows that US adults spend an average of 32 minutes per day on Instagram. It shows how important it is for plastic surgeon to enhance their Instagram page with informative and attractive content.
Tips to Use Instagram to Build a Solid Social Media Presence for Your Plastic Surgery Practice
- You can use Reels to advertise your surgery services or run a promotional campaign on Instagram. Reels can be used in the strategic utilization of social media for plastic surgeons especially to share quick surgery recovery tips and successful surgery stories.
- We suggest you share patient testimonials and before and post-surgery photos of the patients on Instagram. This will help you create a sense of trust among your potential patients.
- You can also share behind-the-scenes glimpses of your plastic surgery clinic and staff. Additionally, information regarding the expertise and proven experience of your staff can be extremely beneficial for your Instagram presence.
- Plastic surgeons can provide a video of the virtual tour of their clinic and its overall environment.
- You must respond to the direct messages and comments under your posts. This way you can make your followers feel that they are valued and heard. You can showcase your clinic’s commitment to deliver exceptional patient care.
- Instagram allows plastic surgeons to host live Q&A sessions to resolve common queries about their potential and existing patients. Additionally, they can collaborate with influencers on Instagram to increase their reach.
- Always use trending hashtags with your posts and host contests to offer giveaways for the patients. This is the best way to engage the patients and encourage their decisions to choose your plastic surgery services.
3. LinkedIn
It is a social media platform that helps plastic surgeons build a strong professional network with renowned medical professionals. Plastic surgery experts can achieve various business opportunities through these LinkedIn networks. They can share articles and aesthetic surgery journals on recent advancements in the plastic surgery field or a new surgery service you have just launched at your clinic. These can engage other medical professionals and encourage them to participate in meaningful discussions.
How Can Plastic Surgeons Utilize LinkedIn to Build Professional Networks and Expand Their Opportunities?
- a. You can showcase your medical qualifications and certifications in plastic surgery. It will help you build a professional profile on LinkedIn.
- Plastic surgery experts can add professional photos of their clinic or practice in their LinkedIn profile. Additionally, a concise yet informative summary can highlight the areas of their specialization.
- You can provide information about your successful surgeries with authentic photos. It will help you demonstrate your surgery skills and their outcome.
- Plastic surgery experts can organize engaging discussions with other professionals to gain more knowledge about their plastic surgery specialization.
- You should always link, comment, and share the content posted by other surgeons. This way you can be an active participant and build long-term connections with the industry leaders.
- We suggest plastic surgery professionals share blogs and articles to educate prospective patients. Additionally, they must post case studies and promotional content to showcase their expertise in the best possible light.
- You can also incorporate relevant keywords in your LinkedIn content to make your profile rank higher on search results. Plastic surgery SEO can be an outstanding idea to enhance the visibility of your practice.
4. YouTube
Social media for plastic surgeons will be incomplete without an attractive YouTube account with engaging video content. This is the best platform to answer common questions through explainer videos. Plastic surgeons can share patient testimonials and post-surgery transformation videos on YouTube. You can also share virtual tours of your plastic surgery practice facilities and staff interviews. This type of content can help you build patient trust and maintain transparency with them.
Tips for Plastic Surgeons to Use YouTube to Promote Their Surgery Services
- You can create videos on topics like plastic surgery procedures or recovery details. You can also mention the potential risks and benefits of these surgeries in the videos.
- The videos must be mobile-optimized as almost 29.71% of all YouTube visits come from a mobile device.
- Your videos must address the common concerns regarding various plastic surgery procedures.
- You must not forget to demonstrate your plastic surgery skills and knowledge through your YouTube videos. You can share patient testimonials and host Q&A sessions to resolve common patient questions.
- Plastic surgeons must invest in high-quality video equipment and editing software to create exceptional videos.
- However, they must avoid technical jargon when they write content for YouTube videos. The video messaging should be easy to understand for the common people.
- They should maintain consistency in uploading videos on YouTube. Additionally, they can schedule the posts and optimize their videos with relevant keywords to rank them for search results.
10 Social Media Marketing Strategies for Plastic Surgeons to Maximize Their Reach
SMM has become a necessity for plastic surgery practice as more people are interested to know about this field due to the lack of availability of correct information. However, we have mentioned 10 strategies to implement in social media marketing for plastic surgeons to help them skyrocket their practice growth. Follow these strategies and boost your SMM efforts.
1. Maintain Uniqueness on Every Social Media Channel
Identical photo and video content with similar written descriptions can seem boring for social media users. This happens mostly because they scroll through social media feeds and are more likely to find similar content from various social media pages. That’s why plastic surgeons need to create unique content for every social media platform. Social media for plastic surgeons can offer outstanding benefits if they maintain their uniqueness across diverse social media channels.
Identical content can make your social media followers disinterested and they may not engage themselves with your plastic surgery practice. You must post unique pictures and videos with versatile captions on every single platform. You can recycle the ideas but should not post similar content be it written or visual.
Plastic surgery experts can use different terms and phrases to make their social media posts unique. Furthermore, every social media platform user has their preferences when it comes to content types. What works for Facebook’s audience might not impress Instagram users. You need to create personalized content for every platform to keep your practice relevant on the specific platform.
2. Try to Engage with Your Audience with High-Quality Content
Social media engagement largely depends on the types of content a user posts. Social media marketing for plastic surgeons is engagement-focused and requires the professionals to directly communicate with the patients. You must know how to create high-quality content that can encourage discussions and generate interest among the patients. Social media marketing includes not only the sharing of valuable content but also responding to the queries of patients regarding that content.
Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn allow patients to comment on your post and ask questions. You must effectively utilize this opportunity to interact with the audience and increase their engagement with your social media pages.
However, it is not mandatory for board-certified plastic surgeons who have a significant social media following to respond to every comment they receive. They can perform this practice selectively. But plastic surgeons who have just started their social media journey and lack a prominent following must engage in frequent conversation with their followers. It will help them build long-term connections with potential patients and create a sense of trust.
Related Post: Content Marketing for Doctors: How to Engage Patients Online?
3. Post Content on Specific Times
Social media success highly depends on the consistency of posts. Your followers may lack interest in your plastic surgery practice if they don’t get to see frequent updates from your end. You must be ready with informative content to post them regularly. Additionally, there are some specific times when engagement on social media platforms is higher as compared to other times.
According to a study, the best to post on Facebook is on weekday mornings from 9.00AM-noon and early afternoon from 1.00 PM-3.00 PM. This study has also shown that Fridays and Thursdays are the best days to share content on Facebook and achieve unmatched engagement.
Plastic surgeons may not create the desired engagement with their social media posts if they share the content on low-engagement days or times. Your social media post impressions will be low in such cases. Thus you can save your content to schedule it to post later and ensure unmatched social media engagement.
4. Use Trending and Relevant Hashtags
This is one of the best ways to excel in social media for plastic surgeons. You can add trending hashtags to your social media content to add more patients to your audience list. Plastic surgery-related hashtags are extremely effective to increase the engagement of your social media posts. Hashtags will make your posts appear more often when people search for similar topics or hashtags on social media platforms.
We suggest plastic surgeons not only use hashtags. They must use hashtags that are mostly searched by those who are interested in plastic surgery-related topics and treatments. It requires them to conduct thorough research to identify those hashtags and related terms. These practices can positively contribute to better social media engagement for plastic surgeons.
5. Choose the Right Social Media Platform for Your Practice
Plastic surgeons need to select the right social media platform to promote their practice. Every social media platform has its benefits to offer plastic surgeons. Thus the professionals need to understand which one can benefit their practice the most. We suggest you focus on a specific platform initially to track what works and what is not. Once you gain a significant following on that social media platform you can focus on the other ones.
You need to identify your target patient market which will help you understand which platform can effectively grow your plastic surgery online. This way you can increase the chances of your social media followers to convert into your loyal patients. Once you identify the right platform for your practice, it will make the process of social media marketing easier for you.
6. Create Posts with Patient Testimonials and Success Stories
Patient testimonials and success stories can be one of the most effective social media content for plastic surgeons. They must know how they can incorporate patient testimonials and surgery success stories in their social media content to provide potential patients the social proof of their expertise. These types of social media posts can create a sense of confidence among prospective patients regarding your plastic surgery expertise.
Patient testimonials are as effective as personal healthcare recommendations. That’s why they hold significance in social media marketing for plastic surgeons. Most potential patients look for social proof before they consider a medical care provider. You can request your existing satisfied patients to share videos where they have talked about how your surgery services have benefited them or their surgery experience.
You can share these videos or written reviews on your plastic surgery practice’s social media page. This offers you exceptional opportunities to showcase your skills and expertise. Additionally, you can add the before and after photos or videos to show how your patients enjoy their new appearance.
7. Prioritize User Generated Content
Consumers are more likely to prefer user-generated content than brand content. They tend to trust this content and learn more about the real-time conversations. It also provides insights into the real-time experiences of those who have already considered a specific service. One example of user-generated content is those comments that you can see under someone’s posts. Another example is when a plastic surgeon posts a question on their social media page for the audience to respond.
These types of content encourage other prospective patients to interact with your plastic surgery practice. Plastic surgeons need to understand which factors of their practice inspire the target audience. Additionally, they must determine how they can influence their patients to create user-generated content. Plastic surgery professionals need to stay updated with the healthcare industry trends to effectively perform these practices.
8. Consider Informative Videos for Your Social Media Posts
A research result shows that nearly 80% of individuals prefer video content to written content. Strategies of social media for plastic surgeons require you to share informative video posts on your social media pages to increase engagement. Videos are a preferable medium to convert complex healthcare processes like plastic surgery. They can show their diverse plastic surgery procedures and recovery details to educate the patients.
Practitioners can share plastic surgery videos to establish themselves as a knowledgeable resource in the plastic surgery field. Such videos can resolve common patient queries and offer you opportunities to improve your practice’s social media presence. You can start your YouTube channel and hire a professional videographer to create and share high-quality social media videos. Videos on your clinic tour or a patient interview can benefit your social media marketing for plastic surgeons.
9. Share Authentic Personality Posts
Your potential plastic surgery patients want to know about you personally. It will help them make an informed healthcare decision and choose a reliable plastic surgeon. Thus, you must share social media posts where you will share more than your plastic surgery expertise. You can share insights into your personal life like how you started your journey as a plastic surgeon and what drove you to this unique medical field. Additionally, you can share information about your favorite hobby, food, or any personal details that you’re comfortable to share with your followers.
Plastic surgeons can give the responsibility to someone at their clinic and ask them to follow you around and capture how you spend a day at your clinic. Such content dramatically increases social media engagement as these are loved by most users. They can capture you when you prepare for surgery, during post-operation visits, or interact with your staff.
10. Collaborate with Influencers to Increase Your Social Media Engagement
Influencer marketing has emerged as one of the most popular social media marketing strategies for plastic surgeons. They can send collaboration requests to popular healthcare influencers or those associated with the plastic surgery field. Plastic surgery professionals can partner with influencers and ask them to review your surgery services. This practice can help you build brand awareness of your plastic surgery practice and establish yourself as a credible resource.
These word-of-mouth recommendations work wonders for healthcare practices. Influencers who have a significant amount of social media followers can promote your surgery services and increase their reach. They can draw the attention of your target audience to your plastic surgery practice which you can use to acquire more patients. However, you must conduct thorough research to identify which influencer can most effectively promote your practice.
Conclusion
Social media for plastic surgeons provides a versatile platform for practitioners to directly connect with their prospective patients and ensure unparalleled growth for their practice. Many think that plastic surgery experts don’t require a social media presence but this is completely a myth. Like any other medical professional, plastic surgeons also must own a unique and engaging social media presence to grow their online patient base.
Plastic surgeons can build a robust presence on every social media platform with proven SMM strategies. You can implement our expert strategies to strengthen your social media game or hire SMM experts to add a professional touch to your online marketing efforts. It’s time to make your plastic surgery practice thrive on social media and a renowned name in the healthcare industry.
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