Two pressures make this more relevant to GP owners than it might first appear. The first is patient volume and retention, particularly as billing models shift and patients become more willing to shop around for a bulk-billing option or a practice with better availability. The second, less obvious pressure is staffing: prospective GPs and practice staff researching a clinic before applying will look at its social media presence as part of forming an impression of how the practice is run and what it values.
A practice’s Facebook page or Instagram profile, even a modest one, becomes a kind of public front door. A profile that’s active, current, and genuinely useful signals a well-organised, patient-focused practice. A page that hasn’t posted in two years, or a profile picture that’s clearly a decade old, quietly signals the opposite — regardless of how good the clinical care actually is.
Public holiday hours, changes to GP availability, new services (such as skin checks, care plans, or vaccination clinics), and reminders about seasonal issues like flu vaccination timing are all high-value, low-risk content. This is the content patients most often say they wish practices posted more of, and it directly supports bookings without straying anywhere near a compliance concern.
Broad, factual health education — the kind found in public health campaigns — performs well and positions the practice as a trustworthy source patients can return to. The key distinction is staying general and educational rather than specific to any one patient’s circumstances, and avoiding any content that could be read as diagnostic or prescriptive advice delivered over social media.
Introducing new GPs, nurses, or allied health staff joining the practice, and the occasional behind-the-scenes look at the clinic, humanises the practice and helps both patients and prospective staff feel they know something about who they’d be dealing with. This kind of content also tends to have a secondary benefit for recruitment, which is often as pressing a concern for owners as patient volume.
Many practice owners assume the AHPRA advertising guidelines are stricter than they actually are, and as a result avoid social media altogether rather than risk a breach. In reality, the rules are specific and manageable once understood.
Under the National Law, practices cannot use patient testimonials about clinical care or treatment outcomes in advertising, cannot create an unreasonable expectation of benefit, cannot use a “before and after” style image implying a treatment result, and cannot use testimonials in any form connected to a regulated health service — this extends to reposting a patient’s positive Google review as a piece of marketing content. It’s also worth remembering that a comment left by a happy patient underneath a post is generally outside the practice’s control, but actively soliciting or amplifying that comment as advertising is a different matter.
Describing the services on offer, the qualifications and experience of the clinical team, opening hours, and factual, general health information are all standard content that doesn’t attract AHPRA concern. When in doubt about a specific post, a quick check against the National Law guidelines, or a second opinion from the practice manager, is a reasonable and common-sense safeguard.
Facebook remains the primary platform for most general practices, largely because it matches the age demographic of the bulk of the patient base and supports the kind of practical, informational content that performs best for this audience. Instagram can be a useful secondary channel where the practice serves a younger patient demographic or has a strong visual angle — a renovated waiting room, a new allied health service, a community health event — but it shouldn’t be the primary focus for most clinics.
A realistic, sustainable rhythm matters more than an ambitious one that fizzles out after a month. Two to three posts a week, covering a rotation of practical updates, general health information, and occasional team content, tends to be achievable for a practice manager to maintain alongside other responsibilities, and it compounds in value over time in a way that an occasional burst of posting doesn’t.
Given the thin margins many practices operate on, it’s reasonable for owners to want to see this activity connect to something concrete. Rather than expecting a direct line from a single post to a new patient booking, it’s more useful to track a handful of indicators over a few months: whether new patient enquiries mention finding the practice online, whether engagement is coming from people within the practice’s actual catchment area, and whether the practice’s Google Business Profile and website traffic are trending upward alongside social activity, since these channels tend to reinforce one another rather than operate in isolation.
Is social media actually worth the time for a busy general practice?
For most practices, yes, provided expectations are realistic — it works best as a steady trust-building and retention tool alongside other visibility channels, rather than a fast fix for patient volume on its own.
Can a GP practice repost a positive Google review on social media?
Generally, no. Under AHPRA’s advertising guidelines, testimonials about clinical care or treatment cannot be used in advertising, and reposting a review as promotional content is likely to fall into that category.
Practice managers are often nominally in charge, but rarely have time to do it well on top of everything else. That’s why many practices outsource to a medical marketing agency like Luna Digital Marketing — with the Practice Manager or principal GP still reviewing clinical content before it’s posted.
How often should a GP practice post on social media?
A modest, sustainable schedule — around two to three times a week — maintained consistently tends to outperform an ambitious schedule that isn’t kept up over time.
If you’re weighing up whether your practice’s current online presence is working as hard as it could for patient volume or recruitment, it’s a conversation worth having.