Five ways to engage patients with Facebook pages

While the percentage of adults who are online has remained at about 79 percent for the past several years, a Harris poll conducted in July indicated that in 2010, the proportion of those online users who turned to the Internet for health information reached a record high of 88 percent.

Creating a Facebook fan page for your physician practice is a free, easy and increasingly essential way to leverage this phenomenon. According to Lee Aase, director of the newly created Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media, Facebook is becoming the de facto directory that people use as a source for phone numbers, addresses and other contact info for friends and businesses. In other words, if you're still spending money on Yellow Page ads to reach the 21 percent of your patients who aren't online, it's time to take advantage of the multimedia capabilities Facebook offers in reaching out to the majority. 

And while there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to social media, experts have identified some clear traits among pages that work. Here, FiercePracticeManagement will present their top five best practices for engaging your patients through Facebook fan pages for business.

Create an extension of your practice


Show your practice's personality


Achieve a return on your time investment


Apply common sense


Use tools to streamline your web time



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