If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you already know many of the reasons we believe aesthetic professionals need to embrace social media: Patient education. Reputation management. More effective marketing to today’s consumer. But, in light of a recent study by researchers at UCLA, there’s one that may trump all of the above: [...]
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Bargain Hunters Aren’t Bad People, They Just Need to Know about Better Alternatives
Everybody loves a good deal — and that’s as true for cosmetic surgery as it is for clothes, cars and cosmetics. So says Regina Lewis of USA Today, whose article in the Money Quick Tips last week led off with the line: Demand for nips, tucks and wrinkle-free faces has consumers clamoring for bargains. The [...]
Best Practices: 7 Tips to Creating Your own Code of Conduct
At last month’s ASAPS conference in New York, I was encouraged to see the number of doctors who are coming to understand how valuable social media can be in promoting their practice. Slowly but surely, more and more aesthetic professionals are realizing that engaging with consumers online is the future and that they can do [...]
Infographic Friday: Listen Up, Doc, but Don’t Be Intrusive
There’s a reason they call it the “art” of listening. Trying to ascertain what consumers want is definitely more of an art than a science and nowhere is that more true than in social media. As this infographic from NetBase.com suggests, such “social listening” is especially tricky, in large part, because consumers aren’t sure how [...]
Go with the Flow: 3 Channels to Connect with Aesthetic Consumers
We spend a lot of time at RealSelf talking about the “consumer decision journey” for a very simple reason: When people begin considering cosmetic surgery, they really are embarking on a journey. It can take weeks, months or years as they consider and evaluate their options and it can extend long after the fact as [...]
Posting for Profit: 7 Benefits of Doctor Blogging
As an adjunct professor, pediatric ENT surgeon and CEO and chief medical officer of Annica Media, Russell Faust would seem to have his hands full, a jam-packed schedule and plenty of reasons not to take on the potential time-suck of social media. And yet, despite all that, he’s not only a firm believer in the [...]
Infographic Friday: Generate Buzz with Brand Advocates (not Online “Celebrities”)
Imagine Jennifer Aniston standing on the red carpet thanking you for her new nose or Victoria Beckham telling Oprah about how delighted she is with her new breasts. Well, “imagining” pretty much sums it up. Even if you were the doctor who performed those procedures, the reality is that celebrity endorsements are not all they’re [...]
Infographic Friday: The Search for Health Info Goes SoLoMo
Not familiar with the term SoLoMo? You should be because it’s rapidly redefining how consumers get their healthcare information. Increasingly, people are turning to Social media for insights, searching for Local providers who can fill their needs and doing it all on their Mobile devices. SoLoMo. It’s the connective tissue that’s helping aesthetic consumers navigate [...]
For Doctors, the Future of Marketing Is on Demand
If you’ve ever found yourself thinking that consumers are just too demanding, brace yourself. According to the folks at McKinsey, you ain’t seen nothing yet as evolving technology and rising consumer expectations are setting the stage for the next great stage in marketing. It’s called on-demand marketing and doctors who ignore it run the risk [...]
For Doctors, Providing Relevant Content is the Key to Social Success
If you’ve ever found yourself frustrated by Facebook, you’re not alone. Between disappearing posts, questionable conversion rates and a steady stream of platform changes, it’s not surprising that many doctors find the site a mixed blessing at best. Case in point: The site’s latest update which entails giving users far more flexibility in determining what [...]
Seven Million Reasons to Post Before and After Photos
One stat I shared with plastic surgeons at the ASAPS 2013 meeting in New York City got more attention than all others (and I gave out a bunch of new one’s). Consumers searching for a doctor on RealSelf rely more on photos than patient reviews. Nearly 7 in 10 of our audience members surveyed indicated [...]
Infographic Friday: Successful Social Media Starts with Strategy
“If everybody jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge, would you jump off it too?” If you’re like us, you probably heard that line a lot when you were young and about to do something that was destined to have an unpleasant outcome. These days, it’s just as relevant for doctors who see their peers engaging with [...]
Recent HIPAA Update Adds Requirements for Marketing Your Practice
As a board-certified aesthetic professional, it goes without saying that you go to great lengths to protect patient privacy. However, it now appears that you may need to go even further. Earlier this year, the Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced new HIPAA rules than not only update the Act’s privacy and security [...]
Infographic Friday: Don’t Get Canned for Sending Email Spam
How many emails do you get a day? 50? 100? Whatever the actual number, chances are you get so many that you make the decision whether to read them or delete them in a fraction of a second. The problem is that our daily email overload sometimes means that legitimate messages — newsletters you’ve subscribed [...]
The 5Cs of Social Healthcare: Keep the Commitment to Stay Top of Mind (Part V in a series)
Content, conversations, channels and code of conduct. As noted in previous posts, these four concepts form the pillars of successful social media marketing. Yet in and of themselves they won’t help you grow your practice without the fifth C of social healthcare: Commitment. Unlike buying an ad or mailing out brochures, social media is not [...]
The 5 Cs of Social Healthcare: Create a Code of Conduct for Online Interactions (Part IV in a series)
No doubt, you’ve heard the horror stories: In Missouri, an OB-GYN is reprimanded for posting inappropriate comments about a patient on Facebook. In Rhode Island, a doctor is fired and fined after revealing identifiable patient information on the site. And in St. Louis, a cosmetic surgeon is sued for negligence after the digital information in [...]
Infographic Friday: Savvy Doctors Use Video to Engage, Inform and Educate
Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you no doubt know that Google is the world’s largest search engine. But do you know which one is No. 2? (Hint: It’s not Bing, Yahoo! or Ask.com.) It’s YouTube, which among other things, is proof positive that consumers are increasingly turning to video to learn more about [...]
The 5 Cs of Social Healthcare: Choose your Channels to Connect with Top Prospects (Part III in a series)
When it comes to social media, all platforms are not created equal. And when it comes to marketing cosmetic surgery and other aesthetic procedures via social media, choosing the wrong one can result in a lot of wasted time, misspent marketing dollars and minimal return on your investment. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest — they all boast [...]
Infographic Friday: To Market Your Practice, Go Where the Patients Are
According to legend, the late bank robber Willie Sutton once answered a reporter’s question of “Why do you rob banks?” with the now-famous rejoinder “Because that’s where the money is.” In a way, it’s the same with social media marketing (although obviously without the criminal element): Why should you be marketing your practice on social [...]
Grow Your Practice with RealSelf’s 5 Cs of Social Healthcare (Part I of a series)
As the owner of a small business, you’ve probably heard of the 4 Ps of marketing: Product, Price, Place and Promotion. It’s a time-honored concept that works well when you’re selling widgets or washing machines but it falls short when your “product” entails a medical service, an emotional decision and the growing influence of social [...]
