Wednesday, March 15, 2017

In Healthcare, Content is Still King

Originally published on February 28, 2017 at www.lmshealthpro.com.

By Kristen Brady

By now nearly everyone has heard this phrase: “Content is king.” Therefore, who initially mentioned this phrase? And when? Plus, is it still a fact on the Web?

Generally, Bill Gates gets credit for it, for an essay that he published in January of 1996.
Almost 20 years later, some say that social media knocked content off its throne. They state that social media’s power will lie in its gigantic distribution network, with millions of users of YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, amongst others.
The argument is that as a social media user who has a lot of friends online posts an interesting photo, quote or video on Pinterest, Twitter or Facebook, it’ll go viral because of that user’s massive network.
They are wrong. Yes, the big network helps. However, the post first must be intriguing. So, social media might be queen, yet content still is king.
And how do I know? Because Google tells me so.
There is an abundance of proof in health care. Before individuals search for specialist physicians, they usually first look for data regarding their health condition and its potential treatment. The search engines confirm these facts:
Month-to-month searches on Google

Breast cancer
3,350,000
Oncologist
823,000
Lung cancer
1,220,000
Cancer doctor
60,500
Colorectal cancer
823,000
Cancer specialist
33,100
Bladder cancer
301,000



Around 4 times as many online searchers browse data on breast cancer as for data on oncologists.
Should a practice try to capture the attention of those searchers who are not yet searching for doctors?
The answer is “absolutely!” Why not? Sooner or later they’ll be browsing doctors. Why ignore 5/6 of your potential patients?
For medical practices, healthcare content is not prohibitively costly. Virtually all of it already is in a physician’s head.
Therefore, no matter how small or large your medical practice, dear physician, give data foragers what they desire on your site and you automatically have built interest and trust in your capability of helping them.
Leading Management Solutions offers Marketing, Digital Marketing, and Social Media Services to healthcare practices.  We offer weekly blog posts written by professional writers with direct knowledge of healthcare management and search engine optimization. 
For more details contact us at (407) 674-1916.

Leading Management Solutions helps medical practice leaders identify ways to improve operations to increase revenue, employee engagement, and patient satisfaction. Learn more about us at www.lmshealthpro.com.

About the Author:

Kristen Brady is the founder and owner of Kaboom Social Media, your social media marketing and content specialists! Follow her on Twitter: @kb54927