Chiang A. Social media and marketing in your GI practice. Presented at: GI Outlook; Nov. 18, 2021 (virtual meeting).
Chiang A. Social media and marketing in your GI practice. Presented at: GI Outlook; Nov. 18, 2021 (virtual meeting).
Social media can be leveraged to broaden the reach of both yourself and your practice; achieving success requires shifting to a communications and public relations mindset, according to a presentation at GI Outlook.
“I always felt that there was a disconnect with this expectation that we were supposed to exit medical training and automatically be able to communicate with our communities and impact their health, but we’re not given any of the resources to do that,” Austin Chiang, MD, MPH, of Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and chief medical social media officer at Jefferson Health, said during the presentation. “Communication in the digital age, even today, isn’t taught enough in medical school; we’re not taught marketing, public relations or communications, and we can’t effectively use the tools that are out there to communicate with patients when, in fact, many of them are using social media to obtain their health information.”
Part of Chiang’s goal, both within the GI community and beyond, is to encourage clinicians to use social media and develop guidance on how to use it effectively to reach a wider audience while preventing the “further erosion of trust” in health care.
Chiang’s beginner’s guide to success follows.
Social media can be nerve racking, especially if it is something you have never been taught to use. Chiang noted, for him, every new platform comes with a robust learning curve that needs to be overcome.
“It does take a leap of faith,” Chiang said.
It is important to remember that each platform brings in a different type of audience. While Twitter and TikTok are often more patient facing, others (ie, LinkedIn) are more professional. Brand yourself in different but consistent ways that conform to the culture of each media channel. Chiang recommends something as simple as employing the same name, aesthetic or color scheme.
Having a platform that lays dormant is not beneficial to you or your practice. Chiang added that a dormant platform may ultimately reflect poorly on you and decrease your engagement.
Staying true to your voice and interests is pertinent to not only growing your platform, but leveraging yourself in the medical field.
“If you are interested in promoting a specific area within gastroenterology, having that niche will ultimately attract your audience,” Chiang said. “They will come to you because they will see you as the voice behind this specific niche.”
As Chiang said before, despite its importance, social media is not something that is not taught often enough in medical school. Learn from those around you; find physicians on various platforms who you may want to emulate.
Since beginning social media, Chiang has cultivated a following of more than 500,000 across platforms and amassed more 130 million views. Though he finds joy in managing his platforms on his own, enlisting help is not something he has completely ruled out.
Take advantage of the available opportunities to employ professional help from marketing agencies or by joining groups like the Association for Healthcare Social Media.
“Social media can be leveraged for its tremendous reach; the content is public, though, which therefore comes with advantages of reaching that wide audience but also disadvantages. … Social media for practice-building requires a shift in mindset. We’re not taught those marketing and communication skills, so put yourself in the shoes of a marketer and go at it that way,” Chiang said. “Be aware of pitfalls, make sure that you’re remaining professional on the social media platforms and, of course, more incentives and guidance are necessary.”
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