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.
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.
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 have been running social media workshops for optometrists through their consultancy firm, Social Practice.
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.
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 foot- print to better present themselves to potential clients online.