You don’t need a Ph.D. in communications to know that the media landscape is undergoing rapid and far-reaching change. Newspapers are folding, books and magazines are going digital and now, it seems, even that mainstay of the living room is losing its lock on viewers. Truth is, more people are spending more time online than [...]
Tag Archives | online community
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
The 5 Cs of Social Healthcare: Enhance Your Authenticity by Encouraging Conversations (Part II of a series)
At RealSelf, we often hear from doctors who say they have a hard time convincing patients to post reviews after their procedures. Frankly, we’re not surprised; after all, having completed their aesthetic journey, what incentive is there for a patient to take the time to write a post-procedure report? Compare that to the non-stop stream [...]
The Future of Healthcare Marketing: 4 Trends to Watch this Year
Wondering what the coming year portends in terms of marketing your practice? The folks at healthcare marketing agency Franklin Street have given it some serious thought and identified four trends that will reshape how consumers find, select and interact with their providers in 2013 and beyond: Mobile Matters It’s official: There are now more smartphone [...]
Paging Dr. Google: Search Still Matters for Patients and Doctors (but Social Does, too)
You don’t have to be a software engineer to realize that millions of people turn to the Internet every day to research products, services and the businesses that provide them. That’s true for shoes, consumer electronics and, increasingly, for health information. In fact, according to a new study from the Pew Research Center, 72% of [...]
Aesthetic Consumers Are Smart, Social and Increasingly Analytical
It’s often said that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing but that’s not a problem for today’s consumers. According to a new report from IBM, consumers are not only digesting a lot of knowledge; they’re also taking an increasingly analytical approach to it that helps them make more informed decisions. For doctors, the result [...]
Infographic Friday: Who Ya Gonna Trust? Peer Recommendations Rule the Influence Roost
Forget banner ads, billboards and the bevy of celebrities touting brands of every type. When it comes to influence, as in who people listen to when researching products and services, they turn to one source more than any other. Their peers. Check out the “wheel of influence” in this infographic from the influence marketing company [...]
3 Rules for Remaining Relevant with Younger Patients
If you’ve been looking around your waiting room lately and thinking your patients and prospective patients are looking younger, you’re not alone. With more people in their 20s and early 30s opting for cosmetic surgery, doctors face a demographic shift that promises to impact every aspect of their profession. It’s a shift that’s both subtle [...]
10 Tips: Marketing to Women Means Less Talking, More Listening
“Women are from Nordstrom, men are from Sears.” It’s a bit of a cliché but like most clichés, it also contains a large kernel of truth: The sexes shop differently and that’s as true online as it is in the store. For doctors engaging in online marketing, the significance of that difference can be summed [...]
Create a Circle of Engagement in 3 Steps
If you’re like most doctors, you probably spend more time thinking about how to get clients in the door than you do thinking about them after they leave. If that’s the case, you may want to rethink your position as nothing carries more weight with the former than the experiences shared by the latter. That’s [...]
Smart Doctors Think Community, not Audience
If you’ve been having some difficulty building an online audience for your practice, we’d like to offer a simple, one-word suggestion. Stop. The fact is that the people you want to reach aren’t an audience at all. They’re a community and while the terms are often used interchangeably, understanding the difference is key to getting [...]
The Consumer Decision Journey: 5 Contact Points for Doctors
Unless you’re a student of marketing in your spare time — Spare time? What’s that? — you’ve probably never heard of David Edelman. However, if you’re a doctor hoping to connect with today’s aesthetic consumers, you might want to listen to what he has to say. As a partner at McKinsey & Co., Edelman is [...]
Infographic Friday: Doctors Should Start Marketing to Tomorrow’s Patients Today
Unless you’re the sort who enjoys deciphering demographics, you probably missed a little but significant event that took place earlier this year. Truth is, even those involved probably preferred to downplay the news. So what was the big deal? The first Millennials are starting to hit the Big 3-0. For many, the idea of entering [...]
Infographic Friday: Why Facebook Just Doesn’t Cut It
With nearly a billion people now on Facebook, it’s not surprising that some doctors think all they have to do is create a brand page and the world will beat a path to their clinic door. Truth is, you can build it but, as this infographic from GetSatisfaction.com notes, that doesn’t mean they’ll come. That’s [...]
Social Shoppers Offer Opportunities for Doctors Who Understand Their Needs
It should come as no surprise that shopping — whether it’s for cameras, cars or cosmetic procedures — is becoming an increasingly social experience. In fact, according to a recent study by Leo Burnett/Arc Worldwide, 42% of Americans — nearly 95 million people — now use social media to shop. Unfortunately, it appears that many [...]
Doctor Seeking Patients? Hint: They’re in Online Communities
If you think of your practice website as your digital storefront, have you ever wondered why more customers aren’t “knocking on your door? It may be because they’re all hanging out together at the virtual coffee shop down the street. According to a new report by PwC’s Health Research Institute, community-oriented sites show as much [...]
For Doctors, It’s not just Social Media, It’s Social Business
You don’t have to have an advanced degree in computer science to know that online communities have empowered consumers to an unprecedented degree. But did you realize they also offer similar benefits to doctors? It’s true. While some doctors still view social media warily and worry about the loss of control, others in the industry [...]
Consumers’ “Social Journeys” Offer Insights for Aesthetic Professionals
The Internet has reinvented the way people shop for everything from music to Mommy Makeovers. Empowered, in large part, by social media, people no longer take a direct route from perceived need to final purchase; instead they undertake a more circuitous path, embarking on what David Edelman of McKinsey & Company calls a “consumer decision [...]
