We compare the popularity of Google, YouTube and podcasts to emphasize that our patients have a natural preference for a medium from which they learn. Do your patients prefer reading, watching or listening?
This post corresponds to our latest podcast episode of “Russ and Randy” – a podcast on Healthcare and Medical Internet Marketing. We hope you like “Distracted Patients or Different Learners ?” You can find us on iTunes.
Are you new to podcasts? You have several options:
- Listen on Libsyn (if you don’t have iTunes)
- Go to Itunes and Download
- Click on player below
Most everyone knows the largest search engine is Google. The second largest is YouTube. Podcasting has grown exponentially since 2004. Google presents mainly text, YouTube produces video and podcasting is limited to audio. What explains the popularity of each?
Different Styles of Learning
Patients are probably not distracted and have preferences for searching the Internet and learning. Most likely, most patients stick to the medium from which they learn best.
As the majority of content on the Internet is text (articles on a website), Google presents mainly websites for us to read. Google attracts people who prefer to read.
Similarly, YouTube attracts those who prefer to watch and listen. Podcasts attract the listeners.
Russ and I are both doctors, in fact, we are both in surgical fields. Could the way we learn influence our career decisions?
We also query if different learners use different social media platforms?
Content of Your Website
The content of your website is probably all text. For marketing purposes (i.e. you want your website to rank), this is best. As of now, text can be maximally indexed, optimized and ranked. It’s tougher for the search engines to optimize and rank video and audio.
With time, you may choose to publish on different types of platforms, e.g. audio or video. (There are others, such as Slideshare.net which is a platform for presentations/slides).
Producing on different media exposes your practice to different audiences. On the other hand, you want to make sure that you are producing content preferred to your patient demographic (e.g articles, email, video, U.S. postal service).
If you aren’t sure, just ask!
Find “Russ and Randy” on iTunes!
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All the best!
Russ…and Randy
Healthcare and Medical Internet Marketing
Healthcare’s Rx for Web and Social
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