BUSINESS

  social media

Video Marketing

Capitalize on this growing trend

JUSTIN BAZAN, O.D.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, how much is a video worth? With regard to spreading the word about the services you provide and the conditions you treat, such as ocular surface disease (OSD), it can be priceless.

On social media sites, such as Facebook, videos have become tremendously popular — and show no signs of slowing down. In fact, Facebook reports that since June 2014, it has averaged more than 1 billion video views every day.

If you are looking to give your marketing a boost, utilizing video is something that will make an impact. Here’s how you can take advantage of this trend for promoting OSD services in your practice.

Video creation

Many of us have smartphones with video cameras built in, making shooting high-quality videos affordable and easy. Team them up with a simple and inexpensive slit lamp adapter, and you are ready to create video content for your social media sites.

For example, ocular surface issues lend themselves perfectly to video, as they are often visually stimulating and interesting to the general public. They also tend to have a “cool” or even a “gross” factor, which do really well. Remember, a key rule of social media is to put out engaging content.

A few ocular surface topics that have worked well for us include:

1. Foreign body removal. Although this is a great opportunity to showcase your skill set and educate the public, don’t just think metallic foreign bodies; think about using viral videos, such as the YouTube sensation of a worm removed from an eye (bit.ly/YouTubeWorm).

2. Meibomian gland expression. The more inspissated, the better. If it erupts like a volcano, it will surely be more engaging than if it had not.

3. Contact lens complications. Many educational opportunities exist here, and often can be done in an engaging manner. For example, share sensational news stories about the dangers of improper care (e.g., bit.ly/CLparasite).

4. Refractive surgery. This is another excellent topic that is visually appealing and highly educational. A video of LASIK eye surgery is a great example.

5. Specialty contact lenses. Get the word out about how specialty lenses can help ocular surface conditions. Take a look at the example from Dr. Boshnick below, which garnered a lot of attention. (Available at bit.ly/DrBoshnick.)

6. FAQs. Consider filming a video series addressing the 10 most common questions related to dry eye, such as “Why are my eyes dry all the time? Chop it up into 10 videos, and post them one at a time.

Video sharing

Don’t have a video library of your own? No worries. A great source of ocular surface video content is YouTube. A quick and easy way to start is to enter one of the aforementioned terms in the search box, and select a video that has a lot of views. Simply share the video by copying the url and pasting it into a social media post.

A new view

Now is the time to start utilizing video in your social media. Creating or finding great videos has never been easier. Not a day goes by without someone viewing one of our videos, making it a very effective marketing tool. OM

DR. BAZAN IS THE FOUNDER OF PARK SLOPE EYE, IN BROOKLYN, N.Y. HE IS A MEMBER OF THE AOA, NYSOA AND THE AAOMC. IN 2014 HE RECEIVED FINANCIAL COMPENSATION FOR SERVICES FROM ALLERGAN, BAUSCH + LOMB, VISION SERVICE PLAN, LUXOTTICA, THE VISION COUNCIL AND FOSTER GRANT. TO COMMENT ON THIS ARTICLE, VISIT TINYURL.COM/OMCOMMENT.