If you think your physician practice doesn’t need its very own YouTube Channel, think again. Physician practices face a highly competitive market in towns and communities across the country. This means they need every edge over the competition they can manage.
Video marketing is one area where you can easily set your practice apart from the others and establish yourself and your practice as a true authority in your area of specialization. And when it is extended to the creation of a YouTube Channel, it can be a home run.
Statistics to Know about YouTube
YouTube is the third largest website on the Internet today. It receives more than one billion unique visitors each month. Popular analytics site, Alexa, ranks YouTube as the number three site in the U.S. and globally. According to The Guardian, the average visitor spends 110 minutes per month on YouTube.
People Like YouTube Videos
Not only do they like viewing YouTube videos, but they also like to share them. One person shares a video with friends. One (or ten or more) of that person’s friends share that video, and pretty soon, the video has potentially traveled around the world in a matter of minutes.
This means more exposure for your practice and establishes you as a greater authority in your field. Additionally, videos stay around for a long time. Even if it doesn’t go viral today, that doesn’t mean that when your area of specialization is in the news, your video won’t crop up again and suddenly go viral.
What types of videos do patients like? Patients like educational videos. This means that videos on specific medical conditions, surgery processes, treatments, pre and post-op videos, and technology used in the practice are all videos that are well received versus straight advertising videos. Breaking news and public service announcements also do well. That said, an overview video describing the practice, its specialties, uniqueness, and staff can also be quite helpful, especially to to new patients.
YouTube is Under-Utilized by Physician Practices and Hospitals
According to US hospitals on YouTube report published in the Journal of Communication in Healthcare, only 11 percent of hospitals in the US (634 out of nearly 6,000) has a YouTube channel of their own.
Many physician practices aren’t taking advantage of establishing a YouTube channel, let alone multi-media marketing to spread the word about their practices or expertise. But that’s great news for you. It means that YouTube isn’t currently crowded with videos in your field of medical practice.
Less competition means you’ll get the lion’s share of the traffic when people are searching for information your videos provide. You can capitalize even further by adding a local element to your videos.
Videos Have their Own Search Engine
YouTube itself is a search engine. In fact, it’s the second largest search engine online today – second only after Google. Additionally, Google, the undisputed King of search engines, is YouTube’s parent company. Google offers a video subsearch, which when optimized, can not only help your practice to be found, but help you establish further credability.
What this means is that you can optimize your videos (just as you optimize your website and content) so that people who are looking for the specific information you have to offer actually find your videos.
How Can Physician Practices Maximize YouTube Channel Usage?
Remember, first and foremost, that video marketing is another tool to help promote your website. Let your first YouTube offering be a video introducing your practice to potential patients. Let them get to know you and the members of your team.
Don’t stop there, however. People are enthusiastic about videos that educate them on their conditions, explain the surgical process, and that serve as public service announcements. Give them what they’re hungry for.
Then give them more. Show them the latest technology you have in your medical practice and explain how these tools and technology translate into better health, faster treatment, or specific benefits for your patients. If you’ve purchased a new, cutting edge laser, create a video about it.
YouTube in general (and a YouTube channel in particular) provides you an open opportunity to share your physician practice and specialty with your community and the world. You can use this as a platform in a wide variety of ways, each one serving to assist your practice in its overall marketing efforts.