Top 5 Ways to Effectively Use Social Media Marketing for Plastic Surgeons

Social media marketing for plastic surgeons has become a necessity in the modern world. While social channels have caused ripples in the plastic surgery scene, what’s interesting is that at the onset, they were considered as nothing more than awesome spots on the web to share pictures of your feet by the beach and shots of the Grand Canyon in the distance. 

Then again, it makes perfect sense as to why these platforms have come to influence plastic surgery practices and their patient’s decisions. 

Consider this, in the United States alone, about 79 percent of Americans have at least 1 social media profile. As if that’s not a remarkable stat on its own, one study indicates that on average, internet users tend to have an average of 7.6 social media accounts and log in about 116 minutes daily. 

With people (including prospective patients) voluntarily spending nearly 25 percent of their free time on social media platforms, as a business, you need to have a presence on social media. 

In today’s article, we’ll be looking at how to carry out social media marketing for plastic surgery and highlight just how you can get up to speed. 

1. Create Engaging Content

There’s lots of content to be found on the social media platforms, some of the posts are hits, some of them are misses. While you can’t avoid the occasional dud, there’s a formula you base your posts upon so that audiences actively seek to engage with you. 

With engaging content, you get to build your brand awareness and expand your reach. By creating compelling content that tells a unique narrative, prospective patients will seek to know more about your brand and reach out to you. 

The insights you share need to have some diversity not just in the copy but also in visual formats. Doing this will act as the glue that binds your creative efforts together since patients will be keen to hear about what you have to say in every post. 

It’s an ingenious way to build your reputation as an authority figure in the plastic surgery industry. 

2. Identify your Ideal Patient through Before-and-after Photos

If you’ve got it, flaunt it. 

Visual appeal is key when it comes to social media marketing for plastic surgeons for good reason. While word on the street maybe that your business does impressive plastic surgery operations, sometimes, seeing is believing. 

For this, we recommend sharing before-and-after photos on social media platforms for prospective patients to check out the kind of services your offer and the kind of results you can offer them. This can not only encourage potential patients to request a consultation but also it helps them to see themselves achieving a similar outcome.

If you’re looking to specialize in a particular procedure maybe because it’s profitable or comes easy to you, then note down what your ideal patient would look like, and what they’d like done. This will prove handy as you develop before and after posts for your ideal target demographic. 

Importantly, you need to maintain consistency not just in your posts, but in the brand messaging, aesthetic marketing, and imagery.  

3. Use Testimonials to Build Trust

Plastic surgery is a delicate industry. Patients want to feel that they are being operated by the best not just so they can get the right look for themselves, but also, for health reasons. 

Referrals and testimonials can help convince patients who are on the fence about a particular procedure to commit. This is because they offer real-world insights into why patients can trust in your expertise. 

While referrals and testimonials have had a hand to play in social media marketing for plastic surgeons, most plastic surgeons don’t know when the best time to ask for them. They either wait too long before engaging patients about a referral or ask too soon. 

Having been around the block, we believe that the right time to follow through is right after a successful procedure, you know when the patient is all smiles. 

Handing them a simple questionnaire to fill is our go-to approach as you’ll have sufficient feedback to share on social media platforms. If the patient consents to it, you can also snap before-and-after photos as a way to add credibility to your posts. 

4. Drive Traffic to Educational Website Content

Do you know those questions patients tend to ask? Yes, the ones you’ve considered featuring in the FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) section of your website. 

How about creating informative blog posts about them? Not only will they provide fantastic material for patients to read through but it will also help drive traffic back to your website. To do this successfully, we recommend sharing snippets of the articles on social media and include a link that directs readers to your website so they can read more. 

Importantly, this kind of content will also help you with plastic surgery SEO and likely boost your search rankings. Effectively, this will translate to more business as patients will easily find you online. 

Notably, video content seems to be leading the charge when it comes to social media marketing for plastic surgeons. To leverage its power, you can tease audiences about oncoming blog posts with short video clips. Doing this will boost the odds of engaging with followers and the beauty of it all is that it doesn’t have to eat up all your time. There’s a host of scheduling apps you can take advantage of so that content I posted on a regular. 

5. Be Unique on Every Social Media Platform

As alluded to before, people tend to have multiple social media platforms. With some of them being your prospective patients, they don’t want to see the same content as they switch from one platform to the next. 

If you happen to copy-paste your content from one social channel to the next, it’s high time that your stop as you run the risk of making patients bored, and uninspired to keep checking your social presence. 

Having revealed this, writer’s block is a very real phenomenon. At times, creating new content seems like the hardest thing to do. When this happens, you can always recycle post ideas. You have to be clever about it though, you want to use unique images in every post and maybe the caption can be spun in some way. 

Here’s how to maneuver on a couple of popular platforms:

• Facebook – video content on Facebook tends to fare better thanks to tweaks made to their algorithm in recent times. You can also choose to share blog posts from your website and think of other ways to create organic content.
• Twitter – this is the home of trending news. If you’ve got a hot story fresh off the press, this is the ideal place to share. Tweeps also tend to engage a lot with animated GIFs, hashtags, entertaining images, and blog content. 
• Instagram – high-resolution images and videos of before-and-after shoots have a home here. Also, if you’ve got funny and relevant quotes or posts that reveal the latest promos on offer, be sure to share them. 
• Snapchat – this platform is all about getting the conversation started. Make sure you do this by sharing attention-grabbing images on a regular to engage with millennial and Gen Z patients.
• Pinterest – create DIY guides and infographics that your patients can follow to improve their aesthetic appeal and take better care of themselves.
• YouTube – you can create a weekly/monthly vlog about procedures and the behind-the-scenes around the office that leaves the audience in oohs and aahs.

Building A Strategy Around Social Media Marketing for Plastic Surgeons

While the pointers shared should help get started, there’s much you need to get acquainted with before going all-in with social media marketing for plastic surgeons. 

To cover ground much more effectively, we recommend taking on the services of an aesthetic consultant. This will be a masterstroke as they’re well versed in creating content that appeals to plastic surgery patients and will help lighten the burden. 

Get started today!