Relevance of social media for Doctors in India

It is important for doctors to market their service through all available tools/mediums and social media is one of the tools.
Here I have tried to list down various types of marketing tools used by healthcare professionals in the order of there importance:

1. Word-of-mouth
2. Public lectures or seminars
3. Being a visiting consultant with more hospitals
4. Featuring in media stories
5. Websites
6. Participating in free check-up camps
7. Giving lectures at CMEs
8. Social Media

The above comprehensive list gives a good amount of publicity for the doctors to portray their services to their customers (patients, media, doctors, etc). With the advent of new technology and informed patients it has become prerogative for doctors to address using new mediums and be connected with there patients.

Now looking this scenario from Indian context the doctors are quite bearish accepting these new mediums. They still think and believe in the traditional form of marketing i.e. Word-of-mouth. The new generation of doctors are to a large extent aware about new ways to market themselves.

Doctors now are aware about treating their patients, keeping a stock of disease awareness brochures in d clinic, are available on mobile and email, don’t mind debating with patients and updated with latest developments in d medical science field.

Social media through freely available there is investment of time and this will be managed by trained Social Media Optimisation (SMO) consultants.

The SMO creates and helps to design various templates like account on twitter, facebook, wordpress, linkedin, plaxo, connect doctors , etc. Also creating the doctors website and aligning with these different social networking platforms. All these platforms will then be used by doctor to inform his patients about his knowledge, case studies, booking of appointments, etc.

Below is a small eg to showcase how social media can become a boon for healthcare professionals and doctors, check out on - mashable.com

Importance of online information in healthcare

It is a growing need to have authentic information on healthcare available online for reference. As the educated population in India is increasing at a rapid rate, the usage on World Wide Web is also increasing by leaps and bounds. Especially the patients in the urban areas tend to surf online for doctors and treatments recommendation. The online space is also not regulated so a lot of un-useful and incorrect information is available.

In the Indian scenario following are the websites:
1. Medindia
2. eDoctor
3. Totalhealthcareinformation
4. Webhealthcentre

Of the mentioned websites Medindia is the biggest and the No. 1 in Asia having more than a lakh visitors every month. The medical websites offer information on current health news, news on research reports, diet information. These websites also offer BMI calculators, doctor reports database, online consultations, etc. With everything available online the consumer hardly has to visit doctors for follow-ups.

Also the healthcare industry has seen the growth in alternative medicine therapy and this has led to most consultants to create a web space of there own. The Homeopathic Consultants are the most tech savvy practitioners having most websites dedicated on Homeopathy. Most of the homeopathic doctors have online chat, payments, consultation incorporated in the website creating it as a ONE STOP SOLUTION.

Some of the websites on homeopathy are as follows:
1 e-homoeopathy
2 homeoambrosia
3 homeopathictreatment4u
4 homoeopathyforall
5 lifepositive
6 iheal

With the rise of social media the doctors have now become more tech savvy by having blogs, facebook and twitter accounts. A doctor in Chennai recently reported the whole OT procedure on twitter thus unveiling the new age of communications.

The healthcare industry has grown tremendously and this has led to the growth of the online content. The only and major issue with d websites is more than 90% of these websites don't have authentic information or managed by non medical professionals.