Optometric Management

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Several years ago, many of us may have wondered, "Why are all these teenagers exposing their lives on MySpace?" Today, social media sites are no longer the sole domain of the "25 and younger" crowd. For instance, Facebook estimates it has more than 500 million active users. Adults "friend" their kids, parents, coworkers, poker buddies and friends from high school, among others. They become "fans" of businesses, clubs and grassroots initiatives. No longer a mystery, social media sites are the places to be. "The average age of a social networker is 37 years old," says Karen Rocks, who owns Sparkfire Marketing, a medical marketing consulting firm. "For a suburban family practice, this is your target patient age range." Those optometrists who have begun to use social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, are finding that social media is not just a fun add-on to the marketing strategy. It really can produce results. The first week that Midwest City Vision Source became "really proactive on Twitter" was the same week it set up its first appointment through Twitter, says Keely Rowe, who manages the website and social media at the Midwest City, Okla. practice. "The following week we had two more appointments through Twitter," she says. "So, we're definitely seeing results. There are simply people out there — more and more of them — who use this technology to communicate. They're not going to get on the phone." Social media is a new way of looking at marketing. It requires a kind of day-to-day authenticity that differs from more traditional forms of marketing, where customers do not post opinions of your business — both good and bad — in real time. "The level of authenticity is immediately apparent to people," says optometrist Nate Bonilla-Warford, of Bright Eyes Family Vision Care, in Tampa, Fla. "So doctors need to avoid being too aggressive with marketing messages on these sites or the quality of relationships will suffer." It's a delicate balance, and while experts admit it sounds cliché, they say the best advice for those starting is: Be yourself. Here is some other sage advice from doctors who have found success in the time of Facebook.

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