8 Ways to Use LinkedIn to Market Your Practice

With more than 380 million users and over 1.5 million groups, LinkedIn is one of the most popular social networks in terms of active users. According to HubSpot, LinkedIn is said to be 277 percent more effective for generating leads as compared to other social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter.

So, if you are not active on LinkedIn, now is the time to sign up and connect with potential patients who are always sharing and seeking healthcare-related information. Here are some of the proven ways to market your practice on LinkedIn:

1. Keep your profile updated: You'll need to create your profile on LinkedIn to establish your presence as a medical professional. Your profile must include a headline, skills, expertise, and education. It is a good idea to define your professional goals and follow top influencers on LinkedIn. A complete profile provides a clear story of your work experience, which helps build your credibility. Also, a full profile will contain many keywords that will increase your chances of showing up on LinkedIn search.

2. Join relevant groups: You should join the most popular and active LinkedIn groups that suit your professional and personal needs. To make your presence felt in the group, you must initiate dialogues with other members or answer questions that are already posted in the group. Providing value to the group will help you strengthen your credibility as well as increase your network.

3. Connect with other members: Start adding other professionals to your network by synching your personal email with LinkedIn. You can also begin searching for other medical professionals in your area that would be helpful to connect with online. Once you've joined the groups, start connecting with fellow group members and regularly share valuable information.

4. Participate in group discussions: Joining a group and remaining silent won't help. You must be involved in discussions with other group members. You can initiate a conversation by asking a question or posting an article that you'd like to discuss. You can also browse through the group and see what other members are considering. You can join in the conversations by offering your viewpoint. Having regular conversations with other professionals will help you build credibility.

5. Share content: You can share content that reflects your area of expertise. However, you must only share professional content on LinkedIn. You can share links, pictures, or video that represent your profession or practice.

6. Drive traffic: Post relevant and engaging content that will help you in driving traffic to your practice website or blog. You connections are more likely to view you as source of quality information if you're providing a variety of content. As much as possible, refrain from regularly sharing content about your practice. By framing content in your post in a compelling manner, you'll be able to drive more traffic to your profile.

7. Run an ad campaign: Running an ad campaign can help you target patients who are active on the network. However, before running an ad campaign, you'll need to identify your target audience. After you've identified your target audience, you'll be able to map out a campaign that drives connections and gives positive results.

8. Create a page for your practice: Create a company page for your practice. Your practice page will allow administrators to post content on behalf of all its staff. Through your company page, you can post job openings, news, rewards and recognitions, and any other relevant piece of content. You can also highlight your expertise on your company page to gain the trust of others members.

Manish Chauhan is Digital Marketing Manager at myPracticeReputation which is an easy-to-use reputation management solution for physicians to help monitor, protect and promote their medical practices at all times in the simplest way possible.