Many suppliers offer video resources for ECP websites. The Eyeglass Guide’s YouTube page, developed by Transitions, offers informative videos to upload.
Digital communication is becoming more visual every day. And the power of video to help communicate about your practice is another way you can more dynamically convey your expertise to current and prospective patients.

Education videos have a special purpose, which is to help explain eyecare and eyewear related topics to visitors to your website.

These videos are typically placed on a special section of a website (i.e. labeled Education Library). It is a good idea to have references to specific videos in content in other parts of the website with hyperlinks to that video. This not only lets website visitors know that the video content is available on the site, but promotes more engagement (encourages website visitors to click on something). Search engines love to see internal links on a website and as a result will reward you with improved search engine results.

It is also a good idea to put educational videos on social media sites. This can be done as permanent content on the site and/or as a post. A good place to put these videos, for example, is on Facebook tabs. Did you know that you can have internal pages on a business Facebook page? These internal pages can be found by clicking on the Tabs section of a Facebook timelines layout. These tabs are a terrific place to put videos, especially educational videos. You can use a third-party software company, like Tabsite.com, to create the content for a Facebook tab (or internal page) and then automatically upload that page to your Facebook page.

Videos help patients understand eyecare conditions and enhance a practice’s professional image. From top to bottom: Schaeffer Eye Center, Barnet-Dulaney-Perkins Eye Center and Dr. David Chang.
Examples of Educational Videos

Here are some examples of practices that are using educational videos on their website:

Schaeffer Eye Center—This multi-location optometric practice in Alabama uses a combination of professionally developed videos and doctor-produced videos. Go to www.schaeffereyecenter.com/eye-conditions.php to see how they have created an entire educational library of videos to describe common eye conditions.

Barnet-Dulaney-Perkins Eye Center—This busy multi-location practice in Arizona uses video in several ways on their website; Video Education Library, patient testimonials and doctor interview format. Go to http://www.goodeyes.com/video-library and see how they are using video to communicate and educate.

Dr. David Chang—This MD practice specializes in the treatment of cataracts. This website has a video about cataracts that starts playing as soon as you come to the home page. Go to www.changcataract.com to see how Dr. Chang uses video to start the education process as a cornerstone of his website.

Getting Educational Videos

There are several sources for educational videos:

Professionally produced—There are several companies that have professionally produced educational videos available to put on your web properties (subscription based). One is EyeMaginations. They have a wide selection of videos on a variety of eye-care topics. You can customize which videos show up on your website.

Another company that has professionally produced videos is Glacial Multimedia. They specialize in doing customized videos that can be used for educational content.

Vendors—Frame and lens vendors are a great source to get professionally developed video content that can be embedded on a website or social media platform. Typically, they will have the videos posted on their YouTube channel that you (or your webmaster) can embed on your website. A great example of non-commercial educational videos that are available from a vendor is the YouTube channel, Eyeglass Guide. This channel has several videos professionally produced by Transitions.

We also post helpful videos on our site, ECPWebCoach.com about how to embed a YouTube video.

Educational videos can be a powerful addition to your website or Facebook page. And you can spend as much or as little as your budget will allow to be able to get great educational video content. So give it a shot (pardon the pun), do some homework by using the resource links in this article and start using educational videos to help grow your practice.

Bob Main is an optical industry veteran, with over 35 years of experience in the eyecare industry with the last 10 years specifically focused on the internet and social media. Main is the head coach and founder of ECPWebCoach.com, an education company that teaches ECPs how to use the internet and social media to grow their practice. He can be reached at bobmain@ECPWebCoach.com.



CLICK Puts Video in Focus

The value of video within your website and used on your Facebook page can be significant. It’s not as difficult or expensive as you might think.

CLICK has several resources to help ECPs learn more about the potential of video. See contributor Bob Main’s recent post on CLICK which takes you through the basics: How To Use Video To Help Grow Your Practice www.visionmonday.com/technology/click/article/how-to-use-video-to-help-grow-your-practice