Medical clinics face an increasingly competitive marketing environment. Large players are dominating SEO and Google Ads on the internet and drowning out the messages of other medical facilities that do not take an active role in online marketing. These large players understand the importance of SEO, content generation and of social media engagement to increase the brand recognition of their services. Can medium and small facilities keep from disappearing to the back pages of search engines without having a social media component to their marketing?
Some insight into this question comes from the recent post on Business2Community. This author argues that social media is a requirement in today’s business environment for 3 key reasons. First, a small to medium sized facility can get the same opportunity as a large player in the social media space. Any company can have a Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. account. So even with a much smaller budget, smaller facilities can get the same “online space” as a large players in the field such as rehabs.com.
Secondly, social media allows you to interact with and “hear” what others are saying about your facility. Other forms of marketing do not let you engage with your customer base in as meaningful a way as social media does. In our management of social media for our clients, we actively help our clients engage and communicate with their target audience. This can not be done through traditional marketing, SEO or Google Ads buys.
Finally, having an active social media presence boosts your overall online visibility. Your search engine rankings and overall website traffic will be increased by an active social media strategy. Our clients have seen significant traffic increases due to their social media efforts. A potential client after learning about your facility will most likely look at your company’s online and social media presence. Whether it is a true indicator of your facility’s quality or not, a poor online and social media presence will adversely affect that potential client’s opinion of your program. So it does appear that given the current state of addiction treatment center marketing that a social media strategy is a “must have” for any company that wants to keep pace with the competition.