The Practical and The Powerful
Many eyecare professionals are seeing the power of digital and social media as a new way to build their visibility in their communities, raise their profiles with patients and help educate the public about important health issues. This month's CLICK looks at how a large number of optometric practices took part in such a project with a MS awareness social media participation earlier this month.
And, as you know, nothing stays static in the world of digital media for long! So this edition, we bring you important news about how Google+ tools can help extend all your social media posts with its new sharing program, courtesy of our CLICK contributor, Alan Glazier, OD, who's using the tool at his Shady Grove practice. And you can catch up on Google+ in past editions of CLICK.
Further, please be sure to examine CLICK's Cool Tools this month, where the topic #1 is the mandatory changes happening on Facebook at the end of this week, a move to the Timeline which will impact all pages on the monster site.
Take a spin through the easy-to-access CLICK Archive located under the CLICK button at VisionMonday.com, which features dozens of Cool Tools, Sites to See and other resources for building your web image and your office's connection to patients. Have you tried something new on your website or launched a successful social media campaign? Tell us about it and we'll consider it for an upcoming feature in CLICK.
—The Editors
Optometric Practices Take Part in Online Community Success
CHICAGO—Community involvement, escalated by social media, is a powerful way to build awareness and create change.
One such example happened earlier this month, when 33 Chicago-area optometrists used social media to help spread the word about multiple sclerosis through MS Awareness Week. These doctors joined nationwide supporters including country singer, Clay Walker and Today Show host, Al Roker.
As a sponsor of eight Chicago-area MS Society walks on May 6th, this group of Vision Source optometrists supported the organization's social media initiative to connect people impacted by MS through the online community, msconnection.org.
Throughout the week of March 13th, over 10,000 Tweets were sent via supporters using the Twitter hash tag #MS and over 750 using #MSConnection. Messages invited people to combine their efforts, knowledge and hope using the online community website.
One Twitter message from the MS Society to Vision Source read, "@VisionSourceLP Extremely happy & grateful to have you as a sponsor for Walk MS 2012! Thank you for your support! #MSConnection"
"By our connecting enough small victories among those impacted by MS, we could win some really big ones that will end MS forever," says Cynthia Zagieboylo, president and CEO of the National MS Society. The National MS Society helps people address the challenges of living with MS and through its national office and 50-state network of chapters, the group dedicated $164 million to programs that enhanced more than one million lives. The Society also invested $40 million to support more than 325 new and ongoing research projects around the world.
Founded in 1991, Vision Source is North America's largest network of private practice optometrists with more than 2,400 offices in the U.S. and Canada. Vision Source members have been increasing their use of social media recently and many are taking part in the groups Facebook and Twitter pages and initatives.
How I Simplify My Business Social Media Marketing for Free Using Google+
By Alan N Glazier, OD, FAAO
ROCKVILLE, Md.—Managing multiple communities of social media marketing at once can be daunting and frustrating. As an example, logging on to your Facebook to post, then logging out, then logging into Twitter to post the same message, then logging out and perhaps LinkedIn (you get the picture) is time consuming and inefficient.
Tools like Hootsuite, SocialOomph and a host of others have been around for a while and offer somewhat a solution to this problem, but they also have limitations; a significant one being they don't link to Google+ (yet).
Wouldn't it be great if you could go to just one community, create a post and simply click all on all your other communities you wanted to share your post to and be done? Now you can, and you just need a Google+ account and Google "Chrome" browser.
It's called the "Extended Share Option" (ESO) and it's what I use to proliferate my practices internet marketing message across my social media communities.
I created the post you see here in my Google+, clicked the "share on" icon that was added to my page after I uploaded the free ESO, then I chose the social media streams I wanted to copy it to. I choose different streams for different posts, as I proliferate a slightly different marketing style in different communities of interest depending on factors you can read about in my book Searchial Marketing.
While there is a learning curve to use social media for marketing in your practice, ultimately it can be efficient using tools like ESO and you can greatly reduce the time you have to spend for it to be successful.
You may say "Google+?! I'm barely off the ground using Facebook!" But, Google +, as a Google property, is becoming incredibly relevant in how you place in search engines when people search for the products and services you offer by geographical vicinity.
In order to better understand why every business needs a Google+ presence, visit my blog this week on Sightnation.com to learn more about why Google+ is proving to be so important to your internet marketing presence.
Alan N. Glazier, OD, FAAO is the founder/CEO of Shady Grove Eye and Vision Care in Rockville, Md. A search and social optimization consultant,
he is now a regular contributor to CLICK and also writes a regular blog for
SightNation.com. Glazier is at
aglazier@youreyesite.com and his regular
posts can be found via his Twitter handle: @EyeInfo, his blog:
eyeinfo.wordpress.com and his website:
YourEyeSite.com.
Author: Searchial Marketing: How Social Media Drives Search Optimization in Web 3.0.
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