THE SOCIAL PRACTICE
By Russ Martin
Dr. Jeff Goodhew, an optometrist at Abbey Eye
Care in Oakville, Ontario, is one of the savviest
social marketers in the eye care industry.
have been running social media workshops
for optometrists through their consultancy firm,
Social Practice.
Abbey Eye Care is active on every major
social platform, from mainstream networks
like Facebook and Twitter, to newer ones like
Tumblr, Pinterest and Instagram. The practice
posts regularly and interacts with clients on
social media, using it both to drum up new
business and to foster deeper connections with
existing clients, turning them into life-long
customers and advocates.
Before launching Social Practice, Goodhew says
he’d often go to social media conferences with
other optometrists and see what they learned
“go on a To Do list,” but not get done once they
got back to the work and faced the day-to-do
challenges of running an optometry practice.
Now Goodhew, who’s also president of the
Ontario Association of Optometrists, is sharing
what he’s learned about the social web with
other eye care professionals. For the past two
years, Goodhew and his two business partners
26 www.spineoptics.com
To remedy that problem, Social Practice offers
day-long workshops during which optometrists
set up all their social profiles and prepare pieces
of content to post.
This fall, Optical Prism spoke to Goodhew about
how optometrists can improve their digital footprint to better present themselves to potential
clients online.