The mass reach of social media makes it an ideal tool for Medical Practitioners, to interact with patients on a regular basis. Facebook undoubtedly, is thus far the most effective social media platform for reach. Here’s our top tips on creating a great Facebook page for your GP Surgery
- Create a business page on Facebook and link it to the personal pages of multiple staff members to increase reach. Each person can access the page by logging into their personal accounts.
- Create it as a Local Business or Place. Add details for the “About” section, add a profile picture, bookmark for easy access and keep the “Preferred Page Audience” as broad as possible.
- Read the tutorials and familiarise yourself with the page and its workings.
- Add your colleagues as admins by adding their email addresses, which will be a positive in case someone is ill or not in office, due to multiple access.
- Remember to be active on Facebook as the practice’s page. Post about 2-3 times a day. You can share others’ posts, but keep them relevant.
- Posts can be about the business hours, surgery news, PPG meetings, CQC scores, and factoids and other news (including events) from related webpages. Keep the content varied, to interest your diverse audience, and regularly check and reply messages.
- Consider uploading pictures from events at the practice, such as birthdays and other related events.
- Focus on organic growth over paid advertisements.
- To increase Facebook base, have some posters in the premises with the link or post related status updates from your personal account.
- Ensure a good complaints forum offline: this will keep complaints off Facebook. However, if it is on Facebook, deal with it in private.
- Be active only during office hours and it is advisable to consider Hootsuite as a platform for posting.
