Eye Care Practices Use Social Media To Connect With Patients

Online, June 13, 2011 (Newswire.com) - "We have been active in providing content and developing practice and patient education web sites for some time. The use of social media to help practices and patients stay connected on thoughts about eye care topics like LASIK and cataract surgery offers all involved a useful vehicle for engagement and sharing," said Katherine Carlisle, Managing Member.

Members of the iMeme Digital® group have been active in the development of internet marketing strategy and implementation since 1999. This includes the development of practice web sites, development and management of LASIK and cataract surgery patient education and surgeon directory sites, direct e-mail campaign and database targeting and development, search engine optimization (SEO) and the full scope of search engine marketing for clients. After evaluating "best practices" and using our experience and resources to formulate a systematic set of solutions for practices wishing to build social media presence through creativity, thoughtfulness and integration into social media, iMeme Digital® is able to offer ophthalmology practices access to the "know how" and "management oversight" necessary to get started in a comprehensive but reasonable format.

"Given the very rapid growth of social media it will become more and more important for eye care and surgery practices to adopt this method of connectivity to patients. Even for those ophthalmology practices that feel they have a solid foundation in internet marketing, participating in social media can be overwhelming and intimidating. It can also be a time consuming, ineffective and resource wasting effort," said Ms. Carlisle. "The need to blend Internet strategy, brand strategy, patient acquisition strategy and media strategy into a coherent action plan-AND do it in the context of a medical practice with regard to content sensitivities, privacy and security, is not trivial."

Early adopters of the iMeme Digital® program and services include Baltimore Washington Eye Center in Glen Burnie, Maryland; D'Ambrosio Eye Care in Lancaster Massachusetts; Eyecare Medical Group in Portland, Maine; Doctor & Associates in Westport, Connecticut and Michelson Laser Vision in Birmingham, Alabama.

"We knew that we had to start building a presence for our practice in the social media like Facebook but we just kept getting stuck and didn't seem to quite get it together," said Philip Harrington, Practice Administrator at Baltimore Washington Eye Center. "We were pleased to have the guidance, development resources and executional support to get this going."

"After creating the consistent brand identity across platforms we work to integrate them into a viral network and most importantly assist in the creation of ongoing digital content for ophthalmology practices-that they can be assured helps to reinforce the brand by demonstrating authority, building trust and being social," stressed Ms. Carlisle. "We take advantage of our collective 70 years of experience in ophthalmology and couple it with media and Internet know how to assist practices in their efforts."

"At Eyecare Medical Group we had set up a Facebook page that looked just like everyone else's and thought we were getting somewhere. Then we watched as our pages got transformed and how it projected our brand and identity," said Clement Berry, Chief Executive Officer of Eyecare Medical Group.

CONTACT:
Katie Carlisle, Medical Management Services Group, L.L.C.,
978-470-8217, or email, [email protected]
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SOURCE: Medical Management Services Group, L.L.C.