In my last post, I discussed the idea of a content strategy – using a blog and/or other tools to enhance the online presence of your medical practice. Today, I’ll provide you with some ideas for creating content. Not all of these will work for every practice, but if you pick the 3 to 5 techniques that are best for your situation, you’ll be well on your way to creating useful and beneficial content for your patients.
Sources of content include:
- Patient questions – whether you address frequently asked questions that you here when seeing patient, or you actively solicit ideas from patients for your content, answering these questions is a great way to provide content that people will want to read.
- Local resources – tips for healthy eating (from restaurants to farmer’s markets to recipes), places to
- Local events – healthy activities such as races or walk-a-thons, community events that you are exhibiting or providing services at,
- Staff activities – community service or volunteer activities, healthy hobbies, or anything else unique or inspiring that members of your staff participate in.
- Inspiring quotes – used as a basis for an article, or used on their own as a Facebook update or Twitter post.
- Guest authors – these could be other employees at your practice or health care providers who you have a referral relationship with.
- Links to articles – be sure to include some commentary (why is this article useful?) – this could be for breaking news, but also could be for seasonal information or useful statistics or trends.
- Find out how people are getting to your website – use keywords from website analytics to get ideas for what your prospects may be looking for, and the language they use when searching.
- Videos – summarize something you find online and include a link or embed it in your page, or even create your own videos.
Finally, here are some general tips to keep in mind when picking and utilizing the methods above:
- Make content development a habit. Pick a day of the week or time of day when you regularly work on content.
- Keep a file of content ideas – jot down notes in this file, and use it to pick ideas to fully develop.
- Don’t be too self-serving – if most of your content is simply promoting your services, people will lose interest fast.
- Add value – occasionally, it is OK to post a simple link to an article or an inspiring quote on its own, but focus on adding value by creating original content.
Do you have any additional ideas for creating content, or questions about the ideas above? Tell us about them by commenting on this article.