The Upper Hand: Chuck & Chris Talk Hand Surgery
The Upper Hand: Chuck & Chris Talk Hand Surgery
Medical Marketing 101 with special Guest
Chuck and Chris welcome Amanda Lovelace who is the Marketing Director for our large orthopedic department. We share a fantastic first discussion including marketing directions, the importance of personal relationships, how social can be considered, among many other topics.
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See https://checkpointsurgical.com or www.nervemaster.com for information about the company and its products as well as good general information about nerve pathology.
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Welcome to the Upper Hand Podcast where Chuck and Chris talk hand surgery.
Chris Dy:We are two hand surgeons at Washington University in St. Louis here to talk about all things hand surgery related from technical to personal.
Charles Goldfarb:Please subscribe, wherever you get your podcasts
Chris Dy:Thank you in advance for leaving a review and rating that helps us get the word out. You can email us at Handpodcast@gmail.com. So let's get to the episode.
Charles Goldfarb:Oh, hey, Chris.
Chris Dy:Hey, Chuck, how are you?
Charles Goldfarb:I'm great. How are you?
Chris Dy:I'm good. You know, I just tagged out my wife. She got home as we were about to ramp up with a recording. And so I started the shower for the kids. She's ending the shower with the kids. And I'm down here hanging out with y'all.
Charles Goldfarb:I love it. And you said, y'all, we have a special evening plan.
Chris Dy:You know, every now and then I can bring out some southern charm people. At least when I grew up in Florida, people didn't count Florida as part of the South. But I think maybe more and more. It's a little bit of the South. But yeah, and learn to y'all every now and then one of our fellows is from the south. So she uses y'all. So Emily has taught me the ways.
Charles Goldfarb:Yeah, I've said maybe on this podcast, but often had stated that there's not much about the South that my wife appreciates in me. But the user the partition, the word y'all is one thing she has adopted.
Chris Dy:So I had this really awkward interaction with a patient where I wasn't sure which pronoun to use, and I probably shouldn't be telling this fully on the podcast, but I slipped into this use of y'all. Which if you know me, I don't really use y'all but it was still felt like the safest pronoun to use. So I will credit the South for being ahead of the curve with the y'all
Charles Goldfarb:are saving your butt. But the reason you said y'all is we have a super special guest, Amanda Lovelace, who is the marketing director for the Department of orthopedic surgery at Washington University is joining us tonight. Welcome.
Amanda Lovelac:Thank you so much. I feel very welcome.
Chris Dy:It's good to see guys who welcomed me with a warm, y'all.
Amanda Lovelac:I have been known to slip a y'all into a text. I don't say it, but I use it when it adds a little flavor to a text conversation. So I'm a fan of y'all
Chris Dy:Are you from the south?
Amanda Lovelac:I'm from St. Louis. So I think history depends on which side of the line you are whether we were north or south.
Chris Dy:That's actually curious, because when I'm moved to St. Louis, people said, you're gonna get all that Midwestern hospitality. And then there was very much like a we're part of a South mentality. So I wasn't sure whether I was in the south of the Midwest. Can you settle that as a St. Louis? And?
Amanda Lovelac:You know, I think it depends. So St. Louis is so unique, and that it's not quite like the rest of Missouri. It's a little bit of an outlier from the state. And I think it depends on where you live in the city. Each little borough is so different. And that's why St. Louis is known for asking, you know, where did you go to high school? Because allegedly, it tells you a lot about the culture and community on where you're from? So I, that's a non answer to your answer. Thank
Chris Dy:you. Well, well done, well done, ever the politician that's actually, as a bit of an aside, one of one of the papers that we recently looked at distribution of care in the St. Louis region, and it's very much where you went to high school as it relates to health care, I'm going to leave it at that. And I'm not going to unpack that anymore. But it was definitely a telling tale in terms of how unique St. Louis is in terms of distribution of things.
Charles Goldfarb:As a Southerner, I don't think St. Louis is the south. There are some flavors we get. But Chris, I know have said to you, again, referencing my wife, that one of the things she didn't love about this out is how there's a lot of Oh, my God, it's so great to see you. Let's do lunch. And lunch never happens. And New England where she is from would be like, they just be like, Hey, how are you? Yes, Go screw yourself, and then never have another conversation again. And we're somewhere in the middle. I think people are honest and open.
Chris Dy:I think geographic variation and levels of transparency with how things are said is very interesting. And we are very much in the southern nice, kind of an intersection of the Southern nice with the Midwestern, nice, and definitely a lack of the East Coast transparency. And so for those of you that are listening to they're not from the United States, you're going to be completely baffled. But there is definitely a lot of, as they say small area variation and how things are dealt with in the US.
Charles Goldfarb:Amanda, tell us a little bit about how you became a marketing guru. And yeah, we want to learn a little bit about your path. And then we'll jump into it. Yeah,
Amanda Lovelac:yeah, I don't know. Know that I would call myself a guru, but I certainly appreciate certified
Chris Dy:guru, your work your guru? Well,
Charles Goldfarb:that's why we love you. Because if you call yourself a guru, I don't think it would be it would be as nice
Amanda Lovelac:Got it. So I have been with the department for I think four years. My first day with the department in my current role, although as it it's evolved over the past four years, was the very first day that wash you, as a whole sent everybody home to work remote. So it was a totally bizarre time to take on a new role. And nobody knew it was going on, I didn't even actually do my actual job until several months into the role just because nobody really knew what was going on. The reason I think I was able to be relatively successful is that I had been with WashU for years. So I came from the faculty practice plan, which offers marketing and communication services for the entire clinical practice of the school. So I went from having a real shotgun approach to marketing, communications, working, working with surgical services, non surgical services, to come into orthopedics, which is more of a sniper sniper approach to it, which is really interesting and really fun.
Chris Dy:Anybody who is matched into orthopedic surgery will appreciate the sniper mentality because that's what medical students who tend to go north big surgery are dubbed as people who are very, they're very intentional with their efforts is I think the nice way to say it, but we love that. So Amanda, why did why do orthopedic surgeons or hand surgeons, plastic surgeons and therapists, like if you're offering clinical services, why do you need somebody from your background with your expertise in marketing,
Amanda Lovelac:while people get hurt a lot, and a lot of people are getting older. And orthopedics is a service that everybody's going to need at some point. And there's a lot of people offering it. So there's a lot of competition. There's a lot of choice out there from a consumer perspective. And it's it's a break fix. Hopefully, it's a break fix type of clinical service. So it's not one that you typically have a super long relationship with a patient, unless it's super complex, or, you know, congenital long, long term chronic condition, hopefully, you can come and get fixed and then go on your way, which means you need patients constantly through the door. So if you don't have an awareness, if you don't have the reputation, if you're not top of mind, you might not get that business.
Charles Goldfarb:I love that. And that certainly rings true. And we're going to dive into a few techniques that we use as a department that Amanda is going to expand on to share with audience and this is an episode where we really hope there's feedback, because there are different ways to accomplish the goals. And while an academic practice is certainly different than a smaller private practice, a lot of this if not most of this will overlap with kind of what anyone and everyone thinks about. Before we dive in, if I may, I want to talk about recent events. And a marketing tool, perhaps, is the nerve course that was in St. Louis about a month ago.
Chris Dy:Wow. Chuck, thank you for that introduction. So as a marketing tool, probably not the best bang for the buck. But it was a fantastic event. So those of you that have been listening to the pod have known that we've been doing. We've been planning for this WashU nerve course, which happened at the beginning of April. It was a fantastic event. We had people from all over the world from let me see, there was one person who actually came from the UK, because he told me that he listened to the podcast and heard about it on the podcast. So that was amazing. But we had folks from Scotland, Ireland, Colombia, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, multiple people from Brazil, and then people from all over the US and North America. So a bunch of Canadians came in. It was great. It was super fun. It was engaging the faculty from plastic surgery, orthopedics and neurosurgery all came together. We I like to think we put on a good show. It was really fun. And we'd like to thank our sponsors, our educational grants. Donors including checkpoint, ortho Sal and oxygen for helping us put on the show and it was fantastic.
Charles Goldfarb:I heard it was fantastic, but I want to know did you use any funny accents during the course or do you just do that on the podcast?
Chris Dy:Unlike you, Chuck when I when I interact with people from the United Kingdom, I don't slip into this accent to you know, accommodate and may perhaps make them feel more comfortable. I did say Colombia cuz that is how you actually say, the country Colombia, not like Colombia Missoura.
Charles Goldfarb:Big thank you for educating How did that land with you, Amanda,
Amanda Lovelac:it was a recent SNL skit that I actually just saw come through my social feed. So I found it very hilarious.
Chris Dy:And so I really thought it was a great course we look forward to figure out a way to do it. Again, it was all of the, you know, for lack of a better term synergy of WashU nerve, we had, you know, all the people from plastics, ortho neurosurgery, alumni from all the programs, I think everybody loved it. And we look forward to doing it again,
Amanda Lovelac:I think you're being modest, or at least not saying quite how popular was it was so packed that our social media person couldn't even get in the room to come in and capture content for marketing, so to comments on that it was so packed, and so well attended, that there wasn't even room to walk around. And to it, you said it might not be the best marketing tool, but I think there's two different types of marketing, there's marketing to drive traffic and to get people in the door. And then there's marketing for reputation, which we know affects the ability to recruit, perhaps patient decision making, and certainly to retain, to attract and retain talent, and perhaps, you know, attract funding. So I think the nerve course was successful in both aspects in awareness and reputation. You
Chris Dy:know, I appreciate that, because I was thinking, in preparation for tonight's episode about how to approach what I really appreciate what you bring to the table in terms of marketing. And I think you get what we're trying to do here at Wash U, at least in North Beach department, you get the meaning of reputation and international recognition in excellence. And I've really under I've really appreciated how you have tried to position us both for the stuff that is very visible and the stuff that is not as visible to you know, continue that reputation. So thank you for bringing that up. Yeah, I would love to think one of our sponsors, and an exhibitor at the inaugural Washington of course, the upper hand is sponsored by practice link.com, the most widely used physician job search and career advancement resource.
Charles Goldfarb:hard. Yes, finding a job is not hard, but coming off of mute can be. I liked that, Amanda. I mean, it's like marketing 101. But there's marketing to drive traffic, and there's marketing to build brand awareness and reputation, and certainly as an academic center, but again, any practice wants a brand that's recognizable in their community. I guess the trick is, what's the community? Is it local? Is it regionals and nationals International. So do you, how do you spend most of your time, I would assume most of us on driving traffic, but there has to be brand building as part of much of what you do.
Amanda Lovelac:I think it depends on which pocket of marketing we talk about, we like to think that we pay attention to all of it. So on social media, which is one channel and one arm that we use to really create our voice and drive awareness, I would say that it is a regional and national platform that could be used internationally as well. I think it in the two different channels the that we have in social media. So one is Facebook, that everybody uses a lot. And the other is Instagram that we leverage a lot. It's two totally different audiences. So who we talk to on Facebook is more local, its consumers, it's a lot of staff. It's a lot of people at Wash U. So it's really just a big cheerleading session. It's people that know us may like us, but it's a really great way to get a message out and we have a relatively large following. And on Instagram, it's mostly professionals. So it's medical students, current residents, potential residents, fellows, other orthopedic surgeons, your colleagues across the country. So we that's more reputation. We try to drive awareness, talk about all the great things you guys are doing. Maybe assist in recruiting and then on Facebook, we really talk about the clinical services that we offer.
Chris Dy:I think that's fantastic. And I've definitely noticed that dichotomy in terms of who Facebook reaches versus who Instagram reaches, because I've had patients come in saying, Oh, I listened to your podcast with Dr. Goldfarb about thumb CMC arthritis that the department kindly spotlighted in the midst of the pandemic, you know about. I guess it is early or mid 20 20 And it really took off, and patients still quote me about that episode, which is scary, because I think our thinking has evolved a bit. And I'm actually not quite sure what I said on that podcasts, we'll have to go back and revisit that. But there's also the, you know, connecting with professionals on Instagram. So I mean, you know, one question I had for you, is how you think about individual surgeons trying to brand themselves within a larger conglomerate and a larger brand. You know, I know you have a lot to unpack with us about other things, but that was something that I think that, you know, a lot of younger surgeons are probably thinking about.
Unknown:So, so ask me that question in a different way.
Chris Dy:So if you are a if you're in charge of a large practice in terms of marketing, but you have somebody who is very savvy with social media wants to establish themselves as a, you know, a unique entity, how do you incorporate somebody like that, like a young Chuck Goldfarb, for example, who has has multiple Instagram, you know, accounts and wants to establish himself as an expert in adolescent, pediatric congenital hand, has that fit into the picture? And how do you make that work,
Amanda Lovelac:having a physician or surgeon market themselves in the right way can do nothing but supplement the brand and help the brand and vice versa. So I think the the two can work really well together, as long as there's a little bit of awareness on what the other one is doing. So, for instance, if a young Goldfarb came, you know, has a really great content that they want to push out, and they're trying to build a social media practice. You start by, you know, the, the hashtags and the tagging of the accounts and getting awareness and getting people to pay attention and hopefully reciprocate that, that attention in that social space. So as long as it's not competing, and supplementing I think it can do nothing but help both parties.
Charles Goldfarb:Yeah, like I have a couple a couple of follow ups. One is that the department and that's through your leadership doesn't try to be overly prescriptive on how Chris runs his multiple Instagram accounts and how he posted about nerve surgery and food primarily. You had an awfully
Chris Dy:definitely food, because that's where my thoughts are mainly out of work. But you let
Charles Goldfarb:you know, not that we could necessarily tell Chris No, but we like him to be his authentic self and that patients find them or or young residents find them. That's great. So we're not trying to be overly prescriptive Is that Is that fair to say?
Unknown:Thats fair to say. We want to make sure that physicians follow guidelines and best practices and wash you as a whole, not just the department has really great resources and templates and guidelines and you know, if then algorithms on what you should do and what should not do, and that's just to safeguard really the physician to make sure that they're protected. And that digital space of you know, if and when somebody with not the best intentions may find them. But you're right, we're not trying to red tape, red tape at a desk, we're just trying to make sure that it's beneficial and that you are safeguarded.
Charles Goldfarb:So you mentioned Facebook and Instagram, which I think most of our listeners will obviously be aware of and many will partake in one or the other or both. Chris is often seen dancing on Tik Tok, I wonder where tick tock fits into your algorithm. And then more seriously, LinkedIn, either of those?
Unknown:We do have LinkedIn. And we do we do post over there engagement is not as quite as high as it would be on Instagram or Facebook. Tick tock tick tock is not a space that we've, we've delved into yet. We've talked about it a little bit. But you have to be really strategic in the way that you approach it. And it's really, I mean, obviously, video heavy, which is, which can be a challenge to get, you know, quality, good content that you actually want to push out from a Washington University platform. And Twitter, we we used to be we used to have a regular voice on Twitter, but we've kind of pulled back a little bit because gauge engagement wasn't really there. So there are a few different reasons we'll we'll still acknowledge and retweet and and make sure that we share the news but it wasn't the biggest bang for our buck.
Chris Dy:While I think twitter looks a lot different than it did two years ago, to be around us for so many reasons. And I don't think we should get into that right now. You know, I am intrigued by Tik Tok mainly because I know there's a there's an audience there and Uh, I wonder, you know, and this is, you know, this might sound very paternalistic, but you know, it's like, who should be reaching that audience? It's kind of like how I approach medical legal stuff to be very blunt. It's like, you know, if if we don't do it, the people that I think have a good sense of the literature, and you know how we approach patients in a very reasonable way. If we don't do it, somebody else is going to do it that may not have the same balanced approach. So part of me is very intrigued by Tik Tok in terms of what should be the messaging getting out there because I definitely hear things from patients, which for sure, they've heard on social media and various channels, sometimes Instagram and then younger patients and Tik Tok. And I agree with you, it's a totally, it's an untapped market for a lot of reasons. But it has to be handled with a certain with a certain sensitivity in terms of how you approach it because you have to come with really good content. Otherwise, you're just going to, you're going to be posting stuff that doesn't get viewed. Well, and I have a question I'm dying to ask you. But before we do that, Chuck and I have to acknowledge our other sponsor, who has been a fantastic sponsor for the nerve course. So I will open by saying that this podcast the upper hand is sponsored by checkpoint surgical, a provider of innovative solutions for peripheral nerve surgery. As a hand surgeon and therapists marketing professional, you know that nerves matter. It's why checkpoint surgical is singularly focused on elevating the clinical practice of peripheral nerve surgery with innovative techniques that help improve patient outcomes.
Charles Goldfarb:I would say that nerves matter more to some than others,
Chris Dy:they matter to everybody check Come on man.
Charles Goldfarb:Checkpoint. surgical's portfolio includes a range of handheld intraoperative nerve stimulators, nerve cutting instruments, and biomaterials To learn more visit www dot checkpoint surgical.com Checkpoint surgical driving innovation in a nerve surgery, I used a checkpoint surgical stimulator yesterday, disclosures.
Chris Dy:it's funny I have to like when I give when I bring out the stimulator, I give the disclosure I said we I guess speaking free some checkpoint research funding, etc. So you know, the disclosure comes out. So I hope that you would also disclose your potential issues here. But, ya know, we use it, we use it frequently and very much appreciative of checkpoints, sponsorship for the nerve core. So they came out in force, and I think people really appreciated that. So Amanda, the question I wanted to ask you, is that when I started in practice, you know, many, many, many years ago, because I'm very, very old now. I was told to get out there and you know, kind of pound the pavement boots on the ground in terms of going to private practices for you know, family practitioners, primary care doctors and give a talk. Is that still relevant now?
Amanda Lovelac:Absolutely, it absolutely is. We know that building those relationships in the community, are crucial to, to not only building the individual surgeons reputation and awareness, but driving those referrals. And we have a lot of different pockets of referrals and relationships in the community. We work closely with a lot of different area. companies that are headquartered here, so really great relationships with those that are in tune with their workforce. We have great relationships with work comp case managers and businesses in the St. Louis area, right relationships with our physical therapists and occupational therapists, which are so important to an orthopedic practice. You guys is hand guys note know that. And of course, the pediatricians and primary care physicians, and some specialists who also have targeted pockets of importance for different different divisions, different sub specialties in ortho. So yeah, it's it's super important. And we are really lucky in our department that we have a resource dedicated to doing that. So we have crystal who is our outreach liaison, so she builds and maintains those relationships in the community. And not everybody has that we have hospital liaisons, and it with our hospital partners and across WashU. But in orthopedics, we know how important it is. So the department has invested in a really great marketing communications infrastructure. And that outreach, that relationship referral management is a piece of that. So we're really lucky. I'm lucky.
Chris Dy:Highly, I think it's fantastic. I mean, you know, if you were somebody who say you had a, you know, a bright young hand surgeon and she wanted to get out there and kind of pound the pavement and talk to people and build, build a practice. What would you recommend that they talk about? Like, what's the what's the way to get an in with, you know, either maybe it's a different population if you're talking to primary care doctors versus therapists, because I personally have found the therapist to be a fantastic source of referrals and collegiality, and you know, that that might be my particular situation, but what do you what would you have them do at that initial interaction? I
Amanda Lovelac:think we asked that to I think we ask our community partners, we ask our physicians, what do you you know, we have this, we have this team of new new physicians that are on board, we'd really like to introduce them to you, what are you interested in learning about, and then we take that and we kind of we build content from there. Speaking of your CME course, which was a two day affair, really well attended people coming internationally to attend, we also offer that on a much smaller scale. So to our referring physicians PTS ATCs, in the area. And we have like an hour, we've got, you know, usually an after work after clinic type setup with some dinner. But that's based on what our referring partners want to want to hear about what do they want to know about? What do they want to learn about something new and exciting new treatment, new protocols? So I want to know what, what you want to build your practice on, you know, what do you want to focus your practice on, and then we can talk about that. But really, it's it's playing to our audience. So if the referring physicians, our audience, it's, it's what matters to them.
Charles Goldfarb:I love that. And I before I kind of want to go a little different direction. But you know, our sports colleagues invite many, many physical therapists in ATCs, across the community to their every Tuesday, early morning conference, we probably have an opportunity there, Chris, for especially our lectures on Monday mornings, maybe not all of our Monday morning sessions, but seems like we could be more inclusive with our community. But what I was gonna say is that I think the boots on the ground concept, I bet some listeners question, the importance of it. And, you know, I think establishing oneself in a community is harder and 2024, than it has been historically. And some of that may be post pandemic, but let's, let's think about the realities. One, emergency department care used to be the way you built your reputation. Some orthopedic surgeons don't even you know, have a hospital, close affiliation, and may not take emergency call, hanging out in the doctor's lounge and meeting other physicians. That doesn't happen anymore. No one has time the doctors lounge sucks, and most places the food's not very good. And so those opportunities to ingratiate yourself, or at least become a real person behind the name, I just think they don't exist as much. And so trying to get out there, especially for the young physician and young young surgeon and young therapist, I think matters.
Amanda Lovelac:meet and greets Lunch and Learns coming in to talk to staff, building relationships with the physicians, but not only not only the physicians, but but the staff at those practices as well.
Chris Dy:I will say I think that what's been what I've noticed with you know, it's taken years is having a good sense of the interactions that mattered most every interaction matters, obviously, but it is doing good work, to be honest with you, you do good work that gets out there. And, you know, the therapists that see our patients, you know, they see our patients, and they see the work that we do, relative to the work that others might do. And they may say they whisper a little bit about to some patients about hey, you know, it might be good for you to see so and so for this particular condition. And I think that, you know, of having your name out there and be it building those relationships is very helpful. So I totally agree, it's meeting people. And as Chuck mentioned, it's harder to meet people in 2024 than it was before, because it's very easy to, as you know, probably Chuck does, and I do too, you grab your lunch and you get up, you go upstairs and you dictate your charts. And you you know, whatever. But I remember listening to a recent department chair saying, you know, yeah, you just have to get in there and in the lounge and just kind of talk to people.
Charles Goldfarb:I don't know that I totally agree with you, of course, you want to do good work. And you want patients and therapists to recognize the good work and talk about it. And hopefully that happens. And I think it does, it doesn't happen quickly. And so I think it's tough to build a practice that way. And so if you aren't doing that, well, you're not going to be successful. But if you are doing that, and you have kind of a team like Amanda has done, then I think you're set up for success. And one other kind of topic that I'm curious about is how we how we as an example, for our listeners, use the internet and think about internet marketing. And it feel free to share a campaign but you know, we do certain things where we market to certain zip codes. We do certain things where we do geofencing on the internet to really distribute a message to a certain area, can you talk about some of those tactics where we are more strategic as opposed to social media where we don't get a lot of feedback on what's successful, we can be very targeted, like a sniper. With some of the things we do. They'll
Chris Dy:give it all away, Amanda, but you know, give us some good principles.
Amanda Lovelac:Yeah, yeah. So I mean, internet marketing, the interwebs is kind of a broad net, to cast. I think it encompasses everything. So it doesn't encompass social. And we have used geofencing in social to really try to target an audience that we wanted to get a hold of, for that reputation piece. So even though so just to back up a little bit, our our marketing, our social media coordinator, uses a platform called Sprout Social, to schedule and track all of our engagement across all of our platforms. So it's a really helpful tool, we should probably get them to come in and sponsor an episode of your podcast, since I just gave them a huge shout out. But it is a great tool. And we sniper in and hone in on audience. So an interesting campaign that we did for our reputation is the the recent aos meeting in San Francisco, we had a really cool patient story where one of our spine surgeons had a really complex case, where he talks about his approach in approaching the surgically from the back and then flipping the patient over like a hot dog and approaching from the front. And the imaging was really cool. It was just a really complex case that other scientists, you know, surgeons or scientists that other surgeons across the country, scientists would find interesting. So we said, hey, why don't we take this case study and target it to all of the orthopedic surgeons that will be in San Francisco for the ALS conference. So that was one, just and that's for awareness, you know, we don't expect a surgeon to fly into St. Louis, in the middle of the country and you know, get an operation done. Now, it's just to put our name, top of mind. So that's one way that you can use content, which is king when it comes to marketing, and super targeted, ultra targeted tactics to get your message across. I mean, really, the internet includes email marketing, so getting messages to and building a list and getting messages to those who have subscribed into your message. That's one tactic that we use, we actually are in the process of redesigning our consumer newsletter. So stay tuned for that we've got the first one coming out in the next couple of weeks. And then newly freshly launched, launched a monthly newsletter to those who have already expressed interest in us, you have to be can spam compliant, so you can't just you know, grab an email address and start sending messages out. Let's see, other than so another internet marketing tactic is paid search. So you know, social is taking your message and putting it out there and hoping that people see it. But a different approach approach is actually paying to be where the people are searching. So for instance, there are campaigns out in marketplace supporting our recon service, hip and knee campaigns and market supporting spine where somebody might be searching, hip replacement surgery, St. Louis, or knee surgery, St. Louis, or back pain, St. Louis. So under those circumstances, we pay to present you know, WashU ortho or Barnes Jewish hospital or however our entity presents to them, they click on us, they find us, they hopefully make an appointment and then you know, may perhaps maybe have a surgery. So that's, that's trying to meet the people where they are versus having them come to us. There's
Chris Dy:so much to unpack there. And I love it. I love it. And I think we need to have you back to talk more about it. As we bring things to a close, I guess the question I have is that my take on all this if I was somebody who was starting out in practice and in a relatively smaller environment that this feels like something that requires a lot of resources, which it does if you're in a bigger practice, but is there something that you could tell maybe the starting out, hand surgeon head therapist or somebody who's in a in a smaller practice? Is there something that they could do to help kind of get the word out in terms of marketing that isn't a huge outlay, either resources or, you know, finances to to help build their practice?
Amanda Lovelac:It's a loaded question. I would start with social because there's no cost involved. I'm a new hand surgeon trying to build their practice. I think you need to dedicate some resources to having somebody to manage your relationships in the community. So building relationships with your physical therapists with the trainers, somebody to to tell your story on social?
Charles Goldfarb:Um, no, I think we got the gist of it. So your approach would be either individuals using social, or if you have someone to help them even better an individual meeting and greeting, giving talks in the community or having someone help manage that. What's the role for how do you see blogs, or kind of more detailed informational effforts
Unknown:Content is so important. So I think blogs are a great tool. And I think you have to tailor the blog or the news piece to the audience. So you can have a super technical super specific content that you push out that you can repurpose on social and case studies, to use as talking points in your outreach. Or it can be a more conversational patient's story, which is also a really good tool, because everybody wants to be able to see themselves in an outcome like, oh, look, this person went through this and came out. Okay, I can, too. So I think I mean, we are as a department have a blog, I'm using air quotes right now, for those who can't see me. We have a blog on our website, and it's really just called news. But it's serves as a blog to push out our patient stories, all of our, you know, building that connection, whether it's our staff, or our patients,
Chris Dy:or a young surgeon, is it better to, you know, kind of blogging long form as opposed to the kind of what used to be the long form tweet, or the very long Instagram posts? Like, what's better? Because, you know, in terms of where should they spend their effort?
Amanda Lovelac:I think it depends on which which platform, so Instagram, nobody's ever going to click, it drives me absolutely crazy. When people say Lincoln bio, no one's going to do it. So you have to put that content in short form long form. So I mean, several paragraphs is totally allowable on Instagram. And in fact, people will probably applaud you for giving the people what they want, on Facebook or somewhere else where it's more clickable, I think it's it's fine to put, you know, a little intro, little synopsis and then click through to the actual patient story.
Chris Dy:That's fantastic. Thank you,
Charles Goldfarb:Yes, super interesting. Oh, I was gonna say it's so interesting. And Chris, and I both enjoy this as I think you realize, Amanda, and we've done different things, each of us personally to try to, you know, get to the people, as you say, and and how successful I don't know. But I think both of us are proud of the practices that we have developed. And certainly some of that is the department reputation and your efforts. And some of its, you know, putting on courses.
Amanda Lovelac:Not to end this episode on a cliffhanger, but there probably could be a whole episode dedicated to measuring success. So that's a whole nother animal and marketing is how do you measure success? And there are lots of answers to that question, because it depends on what you're measuring. But that's, it's like the Holy Grail. You don't know. You don't really know all the time.
Chris Dy:Amanda, I love that. And we want to have you back. We're in terms of measuring success for the nerve course, we did not lose money that I'm aware of. So that's a win. But no, we should definitely have you back. Thank you for your insights. This was incredibly valuable.
Charles Goldfarb:Yeah, fantastic. And I would say measuring success, and how to handle patient reviews would be the two things I'd love to handle next time.
Amanda Lovelac:Yep, you got it. Can't wait, guys. Thanks so much for having me.
Charles Goldfarb:Thank you. Hey, Chris, that was fun. Let's do it again real soon.
Chris Dy:Sounds good. Well, be sure to email us with topics, suggestions and feedback, you can reach us at handpodcast@gmail.com.
Charles Goldfarb:And remember, please subscribe wherever you get your podcast. And
Chris Dy:be sure to leave a review that helps us get the word out.
Charles Goldfarb:Special thanks to Peter Martin for the amazing music. And
Chris Dy:remember, keep the upper hand come back next time