To stay with or ahead of the competition you also need to be seriously looking at how you can use social media for your medical, dental or health care business.

There are main options that are currently available to businesses:

•  Facebook
•  Twitter
•  LinkedIn
•  Google+

The number of people on social media shouldn’t be what dictates which platform is right for your business. The main factor is to understand what platforms your target market is using and how and why they use it. Regardless of which platform you use, you will be more effective if you follow these tips:

Tips for choosing the right social media platform

Facebook

Facebook is ideal for the following types of businesses:

• Business to consumer businesses. Businesses who target individual consumers are more suited to facebook than those who target other businesses.
• Retail businesses. You can use facebook to run, competitions, post engaging and useful information and entice your users with images and videos.
• Business that targets locally. Use Facebook ads to target specific populations.

Twitter

Twitter is an excellent platform for targeting a much broader audience. It allows you to create dialogue and discussion with people who could be great influencers for your business, but are individuals you may never have the chance to meet in person. Twitter has become a key platform for journalists to source breaking news and allows them to develop relationships directly with possible news or story sources. Twitter is more “fast and furious” then Facebook. Generally, it requires more time to maintain – it’s important to engage with your followers several times a day.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is ideal for businesses that target other businesses (B to B). LinkedIn can help you build trust, have regular dialogue with your business networks and position yourself as an expert. It is a great network to distribute expert articles you may write, provide expert opinion and advice by LinkedIn questions and directly target key prospects (through introductions and the upgraded pro version) using Inmail.

Google+

Google+ is Google’s new social media platform. Initially, it’s only been set up for individuals (not businesses) and has only just been opened up for anyone to create a user account. Previously, you needed to be invited by someone who already had an account. It’s a good idea to create a Google+ account and start familiarising yourself with the platform. How useful it is as a marketing tool is yet to be known; however, getting in early and getting familiar with it will increase your chances of using it effectively for your business should it take off

Below is an outline of common  website problems, our solutions, and some of the many benefits you will gain using our website CMS technology for your health care, medical or dental website.

 The Business Problem

The biggest cost associated with most business websites is not the initial development, but rather the ongoing support and maintenance. We can’t count the number of times we’ve heard health care professionals say to us, “my old developer charged me $100 to change one word on my website!” And what if you want another developer to work on your site instead? Oh, you can’t because the site is developed on a proprietary platform, and only your current developer can make changes.

This is because many small or older websites websites are built using static webpages. These webpages use  computer code that is  difficult to access on web servers and is virtually impossible to edit without special software and training. Thus, static websites are difficult and expensive to maintain.

This means:

• No updating – static sites are difficult and/or impossible to update
• Your website quickly becomes out of date and an embarrassment to your health care business
• No search function – users cannot search your site to find the content they are looking for
• Your website cannot grow and change as your health care business changes.
• Limited features – user login, forums, mailing lists, and calendar features require custom code and are expensive to implement.

The Solution

To solve this website design and maintenance problem, a new technology called a Content Management System (CMS) was developed. We use the WordPress CMS for all of our  health care, medical or dental website designs

A CMS uses a database to store, retrieve, and edit the content of your website. Each page of your site is stored as simple text – making it easy to edit, search, and manipulate. The CMS database allows for additional features to be easily integrated into the website: user login and passwords, events and calendars, blogs, news feeds, and much more.

Our Solutions

• All of our websites are created using WordPress, the most popular and easy to use  content management system (CMS)
• If you have an existing website we can more  your existing content into a CMS based website
• We train and support you and your staff  to use the CMS and update your website yourself

The Benefits

Your site’s content will be displaying using current web standards. This increases accessibility and makes your content more “future proof”

Your website can grow and change as your health business grows.

• Room to grow – Easily add functionality and features when you and your business are ready, set up blogs and newsletters for your growing content, have users subscribe to newsletters, and much more
• You are not trapped with a single web developer - WordPress is an open source software product understood by thousands of users and developers.

Many Users, Many Places

You can have  multiple users for your website. This means

• The ability to update and change your content anytime using a web browser
• You can have multiple users who can change your website if you wish (you and your staff)
• Your site is backed up on a secure server with multiple redundancies.

 Climb the Search Results

Our CMS software  makes it easier to optimize your search engine results. That means your site is more likely to land on the first page of Google results , which means people are more likely to find you.

Want More Information?

If you would like to see how easy it is to change a website page – have a look at our support website.

Have more questions? Contact us for a free consultation

1. Facebook Copies Twitter with “Ticker”

While the News Feed claims to show you stories in real time, there’s still a slight lag, and it’s not exactly as “real time” as you’d think. The new Ticker solves this. Displayed in the top right corner of Facebook directly above the chat pane, like the chat pane, the Ticker follows you throughout Facebook, whether you’re on your News Feed or another user’s profile (or anywhere else for that matter).

Ticker shows you similar stories to what are presented in your News Feed, but it displays these updates instantly, enabling you to quickly identify, jump in, and comment on a story as the conversation is happening. Users can easily click on stories that pop up in their Ticker, view the full story, and comment, all without needing to navigate to a new Facebook page. Additionally, users with larger screens have the ability to adjust the Ticker to show more stories, pushing the chat pane down as a result, if desired.

2. The News Feed Gets a Makeover

These changes combine the former two-tabbed News Feed (which displayed either ‘Most Recent’ updates or ‘Top Stories,’ depending on which the user selected) into one consolidated News Feed. The smarter feed now shows a user stories depending on how frequently that user visits Facebook, with the ‘top stories’ (marked with a blue corner) since a user’s last visit shown at the top:

• If you haven’t logged into Facebook for a while, you’ll see more ‘top stories’ featured at the top.
• If you log in frequently, you’ll see more ‘recent stories’ featured at the top.
• In addition, photos are more easily viewable within the News Feed now that Facebook has made them bigger and more prominent.

3. Timeline: the new profile

Soon, Facebook will be replacing your Profile with what it’s calling ‘Timeline.’

Timeline is based on the premise that, up until this change, a user’s profile mostly consisted of recent updates. In fact, 99% of the stories you shared essentially vanished on Facebook. The new Timeline view of your profile solves this problem, enabling users to feature more stories from their past, organized by points in time.

How Timeline Works:

• Timeline is wider and much more visual than the old profile.
• Facebook automatically populates it with content via its algorithm, but users ultimately have complete control over what gets shown in their timeline. You can hide certain stories Facebook shows, highlight stories (by starring them) to show them more prominently, or add important stories that are missing.
• Users can also access a private activity log of their past Facebook activity and choose stories to add to their timeline.
• Older stories don’t vanish as new stories are added, like they used to.
• Timeline acts more like a scrapbook of a user’s past and present.
• Remember when you could add applications to your profile via boxes? Users can also now add applications to their timelines again.
• According to Facebook, Timeline is in beta and won’t officially be rolled out to users for another few weeks.

4. Open Graph and App Changes

Facebook has also made vast improvements to its Open Graph to allow users to more easily use, share, and display applications. The improvements also allow users to better discover what their friends are up to and which apps they’re using. They even enable users to instantly join in on others’ activity as they see stories displayed in their News Feed or Ticker. For example, you can instantly play the music your friends are currently listening to or jump in and watch the TV show they’re viewing.

5. Facebook’s New Subscribe Button

Last week, Facebook also announced the release of another new feature, the ‘Subscribe button’ for profile pages. Ultimately, the new feature enables Facebook to support and provide even more publicly available content, which is a huge stride for its position in the search market.

Up until now, users haven’t had much control over what see in their News Feed. On a user-by-user basis, the Subscribe Buttons gives you the ability to choose whether you’d like to see all updates, most updates, or just important updates from another user.

Main Functions of the Subscribe Button

The Subscribe Button, which Facebook promises to start making available on users’ profiles over the next few days, will allow you to:

• Choose exactly what you can see from people in your News Feed. Facebook users can already view updates from their friends in their News Feed, but using the new button, users can now choose how much will get displayed. They will now have the option of seeing all of that particular friend’s updates, most (the amount that they currently see) of their updates, or only important updates (e.g. just highlights like a new job change or a move). Furthermore, users can also choose how much of what type of content will get displayed, such as photos, games, or nothing at all.
• Subscribe to people who aren’t your friends. As long as the user enables the Subscribe Button on his/her profile, you can subscribe to view updates from those people in your News Feed as well. This is a bonus for political figures, journalists, artists, bloggers, etc. who don’t want hoards of friends but do want the ability to spread their messages to others.
• Allow others to subscribe to your updates. Conversely, you can enable the Subscribe Button on your own profile and start generating subscribers to your updates as well. This will allow you to share your updates and content with more than just your friends. You can get even more granular with it, too. If you’ve enabled subscribers, you can limit what the public can see compared to what your friends can see using Facebook’s post-by-post sharing options (e.g. public vs. friends vs. custom). To enable the Subscribe Button on your own profile, visit Facebook’s Subscription Page and click “Allow Subscribers.”

In Conclusion

Technology changes. While it is important to stay current on the newest changes in social media, it is more important to understand the overall goal of sites like Facebook. Facebook wants to provide a rich experience that engages users with content that is the most interesting to them.

Facebook will always change. As marketers, we need to leverage data available through Facebook Insights and other marketing analytics to encourage engagement with prospects and customers. Explore the new changes Facebook has made, and think about how they will potentially impact your target audience.

Need advice on using  Facebook and social media for your health care, medical and dental practice?

Find out more about our social media services

Without the answers they provide, invariably the site doesn’t perform as you had hoped. It either :

• gets no visitors (traffic)
• or the visitors it gets don’t make contact with you.

Either way, you lose.

Here are the four questions you must ask:

1. Why do you want the website – what does it have to do for you?

• You may want it to act as a brochure so the prospective clients can find out about your services.
• You may want it so your medical or dental reception staff  can refer clients to relevant pages of photos or service information.
• You may want it to increase your profile in the medical community.
• You may want it to make the job of your receptionist easier.
• You may want your clients or staff to log in to review certain information.

2. Who do you want to have visit?

• Do you want prospective clients to visit to find out about your product / service?
• Or do you want your existing customers to visit, and why?
• Maybe it’s a news site  where you want to deliver news on latest medical research.

3. How are they going to find it?

Today, sites are found by entering a search term into a search engine. Everybody wants to be on the front page of Google, but aren’t quite sure what they want to be there for.

You need to know

• what search terms you want to be found under.
• exactly what your customer is entering into the search engine to find you.

Wellsites can help by conducting keyword research so we present your story to them in the words terms they want to read.

Unless you have a highly visible offline profile, it’s unlikely they will directly enter your business name or your URL. So, remembering that every competitor you have wants to be on the front page as well… you have to consider SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and its implications.

4. What do you want them to do once they’re there?

• Do you want them to buy something?
• Do you want them to sign up for a newsletter, download more information, or an appointment form?
• Do you want them to fill out a Contact form?
• Do you want them to pick up the phone and call?

It comes down to having an exact understanding of the outcome you want from your medical, dental or health care website.

Building a website is much more than having a beautiful website design.

Creating a successful website is a science.

When you contact us we will discuss

• How people will find your website
• Exactly what you want them to do when they get there.
• Best Practice – the essential “do’s and don’ts” that make your website user friendly and easy to navigate.

Want to know more?

If so, your next step is to contact us

It has never been easier or cheaper. The following are tips to follow when registering your domain with Wellsites.

Tips when registering a domain

1. The only characters allowed are letters, digits and a hyphen (-)
2. Spaces are not allowed
3. The name should be between 3 and 63 characters long
4. www. is not actually part of the domain name
5. You can buy as many domain names as you wish
6. Domain names are NOT cAsE sEnSiTiVe – so abc.com is the same as ABC.com

Register Your Domain Name Now With Wellsites