Eyeworld

EW ASCRS PREVIEW 48 March 2011 by Vanessa Caceres EyeWorld Contributing Editor Measuring social media for practice growth Metrics can help practices expand S o your practice has or will soon have a Facebook page and Twitter account. How are you using the informa- tion attained to attract new patients? If you don't measure how many people are visiting your social media sites, those sites are just vanity tools, said Gary Barnes, prac- tice administrator, Yankelove LASIK Center, Houston. Mr. Barnes will speak on this topic during the ASOA Congress session Measuring the Met- rics of Social Media. The session will be held on March 29 from 8 to 9 a.m. in San Diego Ballroom C at the Marriott Hotel. Mr. Barnes has been a practice administrator for more than 25 years. Although many ophthalmolo- gists and practice administrators are familiar with how Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social media sites work, not as many know what metrics are and how they relate to these sites, Mr. Barnes said. This is something he will explain in his presentation. Using metrics involves tracking the number of visitors to your social media site, deciding whether com- ments made are positive or negative, tracking how long visitors actually stay on your site, and tracking how often visitors to your site(s) are refer- ring the site(s) to others. "There are probably 100 different measure- ments you can take with metrics," Mr. Barnes said. However, Mr. Barnes said prac- tices need to do a better job with their use of metrics. "Many are un- aware that they could capitalize on social media by properly measuring how many people visit their sites," he said. "Social media is all about rela- tionship building," he said. "You want to measure the size of your au- dience, look at the degree of con- nectedness to the audience, and you want the power of the audience's voice." All of these elements can be accounted for through metrics. Focusing on practice goals Practice leaders must first decide on the primary goals of their social media sites, he said. If you want a Facebook page or Twitter account only for the novelty of it, then measuring metrics is not as impor- tant. If your primary purpose with a social media site is to increase rev- enue, improve patient satisfaction, or lower marketing costs, then met- rics will be of great use, Mr. Barnes said. You then must decide on the secondary goals of your social media sites, such as gaining more attention for your practice or introducing pa- tients to different types of surgery, he said. One key element with social media sites—and increasing your metrics—is involving everyone in the practice. "Everyone should be able to comment back to the pa- tients," he said. For example, if a vis- itor writes on your Facebook page about his or her experience at the front desk, your receptionist should have the chance to respond to that person in a positive manner. Another key element with met- rics is having a dedicated person to work with them, Mr. Barnes said. Al- though someone can easily do man- ual counting for some of the measures—for example, counting how many positive and negative comments are on your site—other metrics are more time consuming. There are companies and software programs to help with metrics, he said. There are also microsites that practices can use when advertising. This is a small website, usually with a catchy name, that leads people to the practice's main site. By using the microsite, administrators can track how many people were led to the microsite that was advertised, Mr. Barnes said. Effectively using metrics could even involve having a full-time per- son solely to manage social media, he said. While that may sound ex- pensive, Mr. Barnes said it's a matter of moving marketing overhead from other traditional venues and spend- ing it instead on social media. He said a large practice where he used to work would spend more than $50,000/month solely on radio ad- vertising. When put in perspective, $40,000 for a salary spent over a year on a person who manages so- cial media does not seem like that much money. Finally, effectively using social media sites and metrics involves re- sponding to comments and ques- tions. "If you have 10 positive comments and five negative ones, you have to figure out how to fix the negative ones and capitalize on the positive ones," he said. EW Editors' note: Mr. Barnes has no finan- cial interests related to his comments. Contact information Barnes: 832-255-1800, gary@barconti.com San Diego, March 25-29, 2011 If you don't measure how many people are visiting your social media sites, those sites are just vanity tools.

• Cover