PracticalDermatology

Creating a robust online presence and winning the attention of your target audience requires constant innovation and exploring new ideas and strategies. One of the exciting ways to do this for your dermatology practice is through influencer marketing. An online influencer for you is an individual who commands a significant amount of attention and trust with valuable audiences and is relatable to the field of dermatology.

Getting such an influencer to share and recommend your dermatology website content and support your services and products can make a strong impact and boost the prospects of your practice in the online world. But it is not easy to get the attention of such influencers and get them interested in what your dermatology website or blog and your practice has to offer. Here are some useful ideas that you may apply to engage with an influencer and win their cooperation for mutual benefit.

Determine the Influencer’s Audience

In order to select the right online influencer who can make a substantive difference to the marketing prospects of your dermatology practice, the first thing is to learn about their audience. A part of their target audience should ideally be the same as your target audience in your local area where you operate your practice. Therefore, anything that the influencer says to them in your favor will have a real impact on the traffic to your dermatology website as well as your practice.

When the audience is common, the interests become shared between you and the influencer. You will be in a position to offer your expert knowledge as a dermatologist, and the influencer can endorse you, support your efforts and services, and disseminate your articles, columns, and content to the audience where he or she is held in high esteem and commands influence.

How to Reach Out to the Influencer

Once you have identified the right online influencer with a commonality of audience and interests in dermatology, you can make a few simple efforts to reach out to them, demonstrate the opportunity for mutual benefit, and win them over to your side.

Share the Influencer’s Online Content. Most online influencers would have an impressive body of online content, which made them popular and earned them respect in the first place. You can begin by sharing selected works of the influencer through your social networks and blog. Even a very busy influencer will also take notice if they find that their content is being shared online by someone respected in their own field.

Influencers who are regularly creating and publishing online content keep a track of their mentions. They would typically subscribe to Google Alerts and have social media analyzer software programs to inform them whenever their content is mentioned or shared online. Therefore, your effort is not likely to go unnoticed for long.

Without expecting the influencer to return the favor, you can like or share their content on Facebook, re-tweet their tweet, and share their blog posts on your blog or social media. When you do something without expecting anything in return, and offer a sincere and unique commentary on some of their work, you would most likely arouse the influencer’s interest in you sooner than later.

Show Appreciation for their Work. If the influencer has written an e-book, published an outstanding blog, or released a video, podcast, or webinar, you can write a personal email to them to genuinely appreciate their work. Provide your incisive comments or insights about the work, which is likely to kick-start a conversation between you and the influencer.

Tell them about what you learned from that work and how it might help you in your professional practice and dealing with your dermatology patients. Link their work to your blog or website for a certain period of time with a recommendation to your readers to go through it. Such gestures will demonstrate your genuine interest in engaging with the influencer for mutual benefit.

Publish a Review of their Work. One of the most effective ways to create a relationship with an influencer may be to review work on a prominent review website or blog. You could even review it on your own blog or social media, and offer your commentary about it. The advantage with reviewing over social media is that many people may be eager to share it with others at the click of a button.

If the influencer commands a strong following, you would have already made inroads into that target audience by promoting the work of the influencer. Many of these followers may have the curiosity to know more about you, or click through your site link given in your reviewer’s byline to take a look at your practice website.

Send a Thoughtful Gift. Once you have broken ice with the influencer and created a conversation, you can gradually work further to cement a mutually beneficial relationship. You could send them a copy of a new book, which you believe is on a topic of their interest, or a souvenir that you may have got from a recent visit to an exotic destination.

Through your connections in dermatology field, you might be able to help them land an important speaking opportunity, or get them privileged access to a major event. You could even donate money to their favorite charity or to a cause they publicly support. If you want to join them in a common cause, do not just say you are ready to volunteer for work, but send a systematic proposal with specific detailed description of what you can do and how you can participate.

You may reach out to more than one influencer at the same time, depending on your focus on influencer marketing, and whether you are able to identify multiple influencers who are relatable to your local dermatology audience. Make an effort to foster relationships with them, learn from their art of influencing others, and eventually leverage the relationship to mutual benefit.

Naren Arulrajah is President and CEO of Ekwa Marketing, a complete Internet marketing company which focuses on SEO, social media, marketing education and the online reputations of dermatologists. With a team of 140+ full time marketers, www.ekwa.com helps dermatologists who know where they want to go get there by dominating their market and growing their business significantly year after year. If you have questions about marketing your practice online, call 855-598-3320 to speak one-on-one with Naren.

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