"Why Would I Follow You On Social Media?"

The Patient Whisperers
Apr 30
4 min read

Unlock Your Most Powerful Tool for Business Growth

As published in the May/June 2025 issue of Administrative Eyecare. To subscribe or view the entire publication, visit their website.

It’s safe to say that our potential patients are on social media. There are estimated to be 5.24 billion people on social media worldwide.(1) They bounce between an average of seven networks per month, spending nearly two and a half hours daily on the platforms.(2) With the New York Times recently calling TikTok “the new search engine for Gen Z,” we can all agree that if we want to grow, build a brand reputation, and reach new prospective patients, our practice (and/or providers) must be on social media.

Yet for many of us, we’ve seen little to no results from our efforts when it comes to bringing in new patients or revenue. Frustrating, right? Most of us have tried hiring an agency, sporadically posted ourselves, or enlisted “Lindsey at the front desk” to post birthdays, anniversaries, or promotions. We certainly tried all of this in our own practice and were underwhelmed by the results.

If advertising on social media is the fastest-growing marketing spend in the world (surpassing Google pay-per click ads!), then why does it still feel like a mediocre return or even a waste of time, energy, and investment for most healthcare practices?

We stopped and asked ourselves, “Why would someone want to follow us anyway? If we were our potential patient, why would we want to follow a practice or doctor? What would we want to see?” That question changed everything.

In under two years, we went from 1,000 to 14,000 fans and followers. Social media became our #1 source for new patients, generating over $2 million per year in revenue. We became known across our state as the place to go for our specialty, with patients driving four or five hours to see our doctors. Industry invited us to speak on webinars and flew doctors in to learn from us because we had “one of the best social media presences” in the country.

Now that is what social media is supposed to do. That’s what we want for you, too! So, back to our question that changed everything: “Why would I follow us?” If we don’t know the answer, we end up posting just to post versus actually connecting with our viewer on the other side of the screen.

We have to start by understanding who we’re posting for. Our four audience types are our:

Converted patient (follower)
Interested or potential lead (follower)
Investigating potential lead (non-follower)
Unintentional viewer (non-follower)

What stops their scroll if they’re following us, or if we show up on their explore feed and they have no idea who we are or what we do? We only have three seconds to hook their attention. What piques their curiosity or sparks their interest? If they tap our profile, what makes them stay or follow us? Put yourself in their shoes if you’re a scroller yourself. If not, think of it like you’re flipping through a magazine.

FIRST, WE MUST BE AUTHENTIC.

We trust people more than brands, editorials more than ads. 90% of consumers say authenticity matters when choosing a brand.(3) Even if we’re showing up as a practice on social media versus a provider, we can be human on social media. If your profile is full of what feels like ads and promotions, it misses the mark.

SECOND, LEAD WITH EMOTION, THEN OFFER INFORMATION AND FACTS.

Ask yourself, “If I were scrolling and saw this, as one of my four audience types, why would I care?” Think of this as the difference between projecting generic information (e.g. “eye health tips”) vs being specific and leading with the why (e.g. “3 things you should never do in contacts to keep your eyes safe and healthy”).

THIRD, IT HAS TO BE INTERESTING.

While viewers’ tastes are diverse, there’s universal consumption on social media of content that is:

Entertaining
Informative
Educational
Inspiring

Today’s consumer will pick you because they like you, feel that you care about them, and see you as a credible expert/experts, not because they did a ton of research or compared technology they don’t understand. Studies show that most Millennial and Gen Z potential patients check out your social media to decide if they want to call or make an appointment. AdAge reports that “Gen Z and Millennials unfollow brands with ‘boring’ posts.” If your profile is just birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays, it’s time to rethink the content.

Good news: No one has to do silly dances or be unprofessional. We found a content style and format that felt authentic to our team so they could show up as likable, passionate, and credible humans.

As you may have guessed, this type of content doesn’t create itself. We took a gamble, made it a full-time role in our practice, and waited to see what would happen. The results (as we previously shared here) blew us away. The role of Marketing/Social Media Coordinator more than paid for itself. Just like successful businesses outside of healthcare, we realized that social media would drive our success and that, when done right, it was worth it.

Last year, Forbes released the top nine jobs in marketing, and coming in fourth was Social Media Coordinator. Dollar for dollar, it was the most valuable role in our practice when it came to brand reputation, revenue growth, and building a loyal patient community online.

This position can look different for every practice - we’ve helped hire and train part-time, stay-at-home moms for this role, or created full- time positions that handle all things social and marketing, which takes so much pressure off a busy administrator who’s currently wearing the “marketing hat.” Whoever it is, make sure that the person curating your profiles and posting content has a good answer to the question, “Why would I follow you?”

REFERENCES:

1. Statista & DataReportal 2025

2. Global WebIndex 2025

3. Social Media Today, Stackla Report