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We are committed to educating and assisting our members in understanding how to leverage social media to grow their practices.  In that regard, this past Thursday C & E presented its 4th in a series of webinars on social media. This webinar was distinguished by its nuts and bolts approach from how to set up a Facebook page to how to claim your presence on Google Places.  The increasingly popular QR (“Quick Response”) codes were also explained – how to create them and for what purposes to use them.  Specific suggestions were offered for ensuring that your patients will return to your facebook page, including: Refreshing your page at least weekly Create monthly events and follow up with pictures, comments and videos Create a landing page and change it several times monthly Create excitement using contests, flash sales, humor and giveaways with purpose The webinar also reviewed a number of Facebook applications that are useful in creating a page for your practice.  These applications or “Apps” included emailmeform.com for creating an appointment scheduling function, Involver YouTube Channel to integrate your YouTube videos on your page, Selective Tweets for posting...

The webinar was entitled, Yelp 101:  Maximizing Yelp’s Business Tools to Attract New Patients. The moderator first provided a brief overview of Yelp.  He illustrated how much the market has changed in just a few short years and contrasted the ability of an ECP to take advantage of Yelp’s free tools with that of costly yellow page ads.  In illustrating just how much consumers have embraced Yelp he pointed out that Yelp receives 53,000,000 unique visitors each month and that 4,500,000 visitors each month access Yelp through their smart phones.  He discussed the types of advertising that are trusted by internet users – 78% recommended by users and 61% online opinions.  He illustrated in some detail how ECP’s can set up a FREE business Yelp page at www.biz.yelp.com. and provided some tips for making your business Yelp page more attractive, such as providing photos of your office and dispensary and including a biography for each ECP ( a copy of the slides from the webinar have been posted on C&E’s Social Media Resource Center). He then discussed more recent additions to Yelp – Yelp Deals and Yelp Check-Ins.  Yelp Deals are very easy for an ECP to set up.  You can...

I would assume that most of you have at least heard of Yelp, a website that connects consumers with local businesses, including your eye care practice.  You might find it relevant to know that last month 53,000,000 consumers used Yelp to help make their buying decision.  In the coming weeks C & E will be co-sponsoring a seminar to assist ECP’s with the ability to unlock their Free Yelp Tools and to educate them on the power of Yelp.  The webinar is entitled, “Yelp 101: Maximizing Yelp’s Business Tools to Attract New Patients” and will be held on Thursday, August 11, 2011 at 5:00 P.M. Pacific/8:00 P.M. Eastern.  This webinar is part of our ongoing series of webinars focusing on Social Media.  The webinar is complimentary to C & E members and to anyone who “Likes” C & E on Facebook so please pass this on to any of your colleagues who might not be members of C & E. Coincidentally, today I had the opportunity to listen to a brief webinar on “Yelp Deals”, a new feature just launched by Yelp to enable you to instantly convert Yelp visitors into new patients.  The “deal” part of Yelp Deals is similar in concept to that of Groupon and other sites (e.g....

We recently co-sponsored the first in a series of webinars on Social Media with our Social Media partner, CESSON 3.0.  The focus of the first webinar was Growing Your Practice Using Social Media.  Justin Bazan, O.D., Park Slope Eye, Brooklyn, NY who has built a very successful practice primarily through Social Media shared some of his insights and experiences.  For example, he highlighted the importance of setting up Google Alerts (www.google.com/alerts)  for your name and business or practice name so you can monitor what is being said about you and your practice.  He received an alert that his practice had been featured in well known local blog.  The blog has its own Facebook page so he created a Facebook ad to target the people who had read (Liked) the blog.  The net result of this exercise was that 73 people clicked on the link from his ad and booked appointments on his Facebook page.  Total cost for those 73 appointments was $50!  If that doesn’t illustrate the power of Social Media I don’t know what does.  A representative for Marcolin Eyewear also shared some of their experience in building their various brands through Social Media experiences as well.  We would...

We are excited to announce the introduction of our Social Media Library of Knowledge.  You can access the Social Media Library through your MyC&E account at cevision.com. The initial content of the Library includes step by step guides for our members to easily create their own Facebook, Twitter and YouTube sites, as well as a selection of videos that will enable you to become more familiar with social media generally.  Our plan is to gradually add content to and update the Social Media Library over time and we anticipate that it will become a “go to” social media resource for ECP’s.  We believe that it is imperative for eye care professionals to embrace social media as it is the most cost effective way for building patient communication and retention as well as for practice marketing.  Yellow page ads just aren’t’ the best use of your marketing funds in the increasingly digital domain that we find ourselves in.  The introduction of our Social Media Library is merely the first step of broader social media strategy that C & E will unveil in the coming months.  Assisting our members navigate the myriad of opportunities for incorporating social media into their practice...

To continue from my prior post about my opportunity to attend Vision Monday Leadership Summit in New York. Another presentation that intrigued me concerned the convergence of social media, mobile and e-commerce.  The statistics regarding the growth of mobile are astounding.  I also learned a new word – gamification, the ultimate way to encage a new generation of audience.  According to Wikipedia, “Gamification is the use of game play mechanics[1] for non-game applications (also known as “funware“)[2], particularly consumer-oriented web and mobile sites, in order to encourage people to adopt the applications….  Gamification works by making technology more engaging,[4] and by encouraging desired behaviors, taking advantage of humans’ psychological predisposition to engage in gaming. …As of September, 2010, gamification was used by marketers and website product managers as a tool for customer engagement,[7] and encouraging desirable website usage behavior.[6] \”  I am personally intrigued by this convergence and I am committed to finding ways to make these developments relevant to your business and practices, so stay tuned for my future blogs in this area.           C&E...

The week before last I had the opportunity to attend the annual Vision Monday Leadership Summit in New York.  I try to attend every year as it is a great opportunity to get a “big picture” view of the forces of change affecting our industry.  This year I was invited to participate in a panel on New Alliances. In my presentation, I stressed that although we are not new (founded more than 25 years ago) we have evolved far beyond our original purpose as a billing service and now offer a myriad of services, including social media and other programs to assist our members in adapting to a changing market, online tools to increase back office administrative efficiencies, programs like Lifestyle Eyecare Centers™ to increase patient revenue and traffic and education for staff and ECP’s. One of the more interesting discussions concerned recent developments in 3D and the implications for eye care professionals.  Last week the AOA announced its partnership with the 3D@Home Consortium, a group of more than 45 companies, to improve the understanding of 3D/S3D viewing as a safe and appropriate technology for all viewing audiences. Here are some interesting facts that I learned about 3D: Children...

Welcome to my first C & E blog posting.  As you know, C & E was founded more than 25 years ago as a buying group and remains one of the leading buying groups in the nation.  Together with my partners, Steve Wagner and Harvey Yamamoto, O.D., we have worked tirelessly to create services and programs to assist you and your colleagues in building successful eye care practices.  I am pleased to report that C&E has evolved into so much more than a billing service.  Our core focus today can be grouped into five key areas: Increasing back-office administrative efficiencies Assisting ECPs to adapt to a changing market Offering services to increase patient revenue & traffic Educating practice and staff Responding to margin compression: saving ECPs $$$ In the coming months, together with my partners and colleagues, we will be highlighting the services offered by C & E in each of these areas and we will be inviting your questions and comments.  The first topic we will address is how C & E plans to assist our members with understanding and integrating social medial tools into your marketing and communication programs.  I believe that...