Ask a man what's on his mind, and he'll spit it out in a few words. Ask a woman, and she'll tell you everything she's thinking, and when she's done, she'll share all that she learned from your conversation with her friends. Am I exaggerating? Maybe just a tiny bit. But really, women are much more talkative than men.
How can acupuncturists use the power of talkative women to their advantage? One option is Facebook.
Before you start saying "Ain't nobody got time for dat!" - hear me out.
Recently, I posted a question on a popular Facebook page entitled "Acupuncturists on Facebook," which has nearly 4,000 followers: Do you treat more men or women in your clinics? I received a flood of responses. Only one practitioner reported treating more men than women. The majority of practitioners claimed that 80 percent or more of their patients are female.
Another article could be written about how to increase the male population in your clinic, but we'll save that for another time. Before we try to change the statistics, let's work with the facts that are before us:
Fact #1: We already know acupuncturists treat more women than men. Women are also lead players in the social networking world—claiming the role of "biggest supporters" of social media. For most women in North America, social media is a major source for daily entertainment and 75 percent of women are using it. Women do the bulk (62 percent) of Facebook sharing. In fact, women spend an average of 12 hours per week using social media, which is nearly two hours per day!
Fact #2: Women have a huge influence on family healthcare decisions. Women continually influence entire social networks regarding healthcare opinions within the online community. I've seen healthcare questions asked online over and over through the years. You've seen how this works. When someone needs an answer or an opinion about almost anything, they ask their friends. Where are most of their friends? Online.
With the help of women, a business page for your clinic on Facebook can be a great resource for connecting with and educating your community; and bringing in new patients. If utilized correctly, each Facebook update gives you the potential to influence far-reaching numbers.
A Word of Caution
My guess is most practitioners already have a personal Facebook page. It's a good idea to keep your personal and professional lives separate. We all have lives beyond the clinic. It's not a good idea to share personal relationships and weekend adventures with all of your potential patients. How many of you have been tagged in "not so flattering" pictures on Facebook. For me, that in itself is enough to keep my personal page and my clinical page separate!
HIPPA requires that a patient's identity and personal health information be protected. I've seen many practitioners post pictures of their patients with success stories on their clinic Facebook page. Remember, if you are going to post pictures or personal success stories about your patients, you must get a written release.
Getting Started
Contrary to popular belief, you don't have to spend all of your time on Facebook in order to benefit from having a page for your business. You can be simple or extravagant, as long as you have a good foundation. Even extravagant doesn't take a lot of time. Once your foundation is strong, you can grow to whatever level you choose. Here are some helpful tips to get you started:
As long as you keep adding great information to your page, your list of friends will grow. I suggest twice-daily posts; one focused on practicality and one with personality. If you give practical information, relevant to healthcare, your friends will want to share your information with others. Your second post should include a more personal message, that isn't sales-like. Remember, women like good information they can share, and also a person they can relate to.
Strategies
While doing research for this article, I spoke with multiple social media marketing specialists who had some really great information to share.
Catch their attention: People look at pictures and links more than they do plain text. Try to include a picture with your status update. (*Hint, you can easily go back and change the comments on a picture if you make a typo.) If you are only posting text, try to keep it under three lines.
Ask your readers a question or use an open-ended comment. This will get your readers to interact. Interactions are what drive the viral nature of Facebook. Anyone who is following any of the people interacting on your site, are also following the conversation. If 10 people comment on your post, and those 10 people each on average have 300 Facebook friends, you have a potential of 3,000 people who may see your post, your comment and your page. On average, 60 percent of a person's Facebook friends are locally based. The odds that something will catch their eye are pretty likely.
Hashtags: Hashtags (the traditional # symbol) used to be exclusive to categorizing posts for Twitter users. Recently, hashtags have become searchable through Facebook. What does this mean for you? Hashtags are searchable in nearly all of the social media sites, which helps you when advertising your business page. Anyone who is looking for information on a topic now has a very simple way of finding it across all media platforms by using the hashtag along with their search criteria.
Think of hashtags as the land rush of the 1800s. They literally lined up the settlers, gave them all a different flag and then said: "On your mark, get set, go!" They took off, and wherever they planted their flag became their property. With the hashtag, you are planting your flag to claim your territory. Example: I live in Meridian, Idaho. I have begun adding #meridianidahoacupuncture to my posts. Anyone who searches #meridianidahoacupuncture can easily find me. The more posts I create, the better I look during the search. You can easily be identified by your specialties such as #acupunctureshoulderpain, #acupunctureIBS, #acupuncturefertility, etc.
Timelines
Timelines should not just go forward. Take your time to go back and fill in the blanks. People want to know your history. Who are you? Where did you come from? How long have you been in practice? You can go back and create the history you want people to see. Consider adding photos from internships, college graduation, and places you have worked along the way. Your timeline can be kind of like a resume. Patients like to see who you are and where you come from.
Conclusion
Facebook has come a long way in the last several years. While originally it was simply a fun spot for people to hang out and chat, now it's an information network extravaganza! If you haven't yet created a Facebook page for your clinic, it's probably time to reconsider—especially if you treat a lot of women.
Treat a woman right, build a relationship with her, give her plenty of information, and she will share, and share, and share!
References
Chronic pain afflicts over 20% of the adult population. Sadly, most MDs have essentially no education in treating pain, beyond offering a few toxic medications. Then they tend to steer people with pain away from those health practitioners who are trained. This puts the acupuncture community on the front lines for addressing this epidemic.
When the body is going through a stressful event, the sympathetic system is activated. This activation will help the body with a life-threatening situation. If this state is activated for prolonged periods of time, it starts to consume energy. These traumatic events that generate stressors in the autonomic nervous system (ANS) will eventually become internalized.
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One of the things that makes acupuncture so difficult to measure is that the medicine actually does contain some esoteric aspects. There have been numerous studies that demonstrate the neurochemical reasoning behind why acupuncture points stimulate the autonomic nervous system to enact change However, not all the benefits of TCM can easily be measured by randomized, controlled trials. But does that make them fundamentally and definitively untrue?
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