An effective social media program, one which includes metrics that measure performance, can be a powerful marketing tool for an optometric practice.

“Our job as businesses on social media is to track, as best we can, how many of the people we are connecting with on social are turning into actual leads,” says social media marketer Elise Darma.

Here, Ms. Darma discusses the metrics practices can use to determine whether social media posts are effectively reaching patients. In addition, she provides tips on how to change course if your current methods are not working.

Metrics

Ms. Darma suggests using the following metrics to track the effectiveness of your posts:

1. Link clicks. Most social media platforms give you access to analytics where you can see how many people tapped on links you shared on your profile. This tells you how many people are seeing and clicking on links in your post after seeing your content in their social media feeds. The number of link clicks can be found on different social media platforms in the following ways: On Facebook, click on the “see insights and ads” button beneath any post, then click on “total insights” on the next window. On Twitter, click on the “tweet analytics” button (which looks like a small bar graph) that appears underneath each tweet. Instagram functions a little differently as it only lets you put a link on your page profile, but you can view which posts led to such clicks by going to the “View Insights” button under each post, and any link clicks will show up under “profile activity.”
2. Patient self-reporting. Ask new patients how they found out about you. For example, did they see a post on Facebook or Instagram? Consider adding the question, “How did you find out about us?” to your intake form, and increase the frequency of posting on the common sources that appear to keep an influx of patients coming. You can also ask patients to leave you a review on Google if previous patients have listed that as a common way to find your practice.
3. Direct messages. People do business with other people. Therefore, inviting followers to direct message your account with any questions can get conversations started, and potentially invite them to book an appointment.

Changing course

“If your content is not resulting in people taking action to either interact or book with you, then you need to take a good, hard look at your content and figure out why it isn’t resonating with people,” Ms. Darma says. “You must meet your ideal patients where they are. If you are not speaking to their concerns, they won’t be paying attention to you.”

If you’re not sure what your patients want from your practice, you can always reach out to your loyal visitors and ask them, she continues. This can be done via a quick phone call or survey. offering a small reward, like a coffee store gift card, to thank them for their time.

Keep at it

If you don’t see results right away, don’t get discouraged, says Ms. Darma. It may take some people months, or even a year, to officially walk through your practice door, especially since patients usually only visit the optometrist once a year. Don’t change your strategy after only one month, but revisit it after a few months. If your practice is new to using social media, Ms. Darma advises to consider the first attempt an experiment. Then, once a baseline is established, the practice can have a better idea of what results to expect from future attempts. OM

Ms. Darma’s website can be found at https://elisedarma.com/ . Ms. Darma also offers a free Reels content calendar, found at https://onvideo.co/calendar .