OPTICAL PRISM July 2021 | Page 35

OPTICAL PRISM | FEATURE

Creating a social media plan

BY BRYNN LOW , Marketing4ECPs

You wouldn ’ t go on a road trip without looking up directions and booking a hotel first .

Just like anything else in your life , social media requires careful planning .
You wouldn ’ t just “ wing it ” for other areas of your practice and social media should follow that same rule .
Who Are You Trying to Reach ?
Before you do anything on social smedia , remember your target patient . If your ideal patient is a 65-year-old with eye disease , TikTok probably isn ’ t the place to focus your social media efforts .
Likewise , what you post should reflect your target patients .
If your focus is families , then you should be using images of families on your social media . If you ’ re trying to grow dry eye then talk about that in your posts too .
Creating a Plan
WHO ? First thing ’ s first : who is actually posting on social media ? Is it you ? Do you have the time and the skills to do it properly ? While social media might seem intuitive , doing it properly takes time and effort . You might want to consider having a team member handle it or hiring an external provider .
Something else to consider is using a social media scheduling tool . This allows you to plan social media posts in advance instead of spending your days posting . Some popular scheduling tools include :
• Hootsuite ;
• Sprout Social ;
• Later ;
• Buffer .
WHAT ? Now you need to figure out what you ’ re putting on social media . To do this , you need to remember two key things :
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