How well are you really liked on Facebook?

If your hospital or practice is putting any significant resources toward getting “Liked” on Facebook, you may very well be wasting your time and money.

According to Peter Shankman, who gave a keynote at the Likeable Social Media conference in NYC, “liking” on Facebook and “following” on Twitter may soon be a thing of the past. In the near future, online relationships will work the same way offline relationships do: based on real interactions.

Offline, the concept of amassing hundreds or thousands of names and calling them friends just because you know their names is ludicrous. They have no real relationship with you, no reason to pay attention or care. It’s fake and everybody knows it.

Now, if you treat someone nice, do a favor, share an interest, a relationship could begin to develop. But if you don’t nurture it, put effort into the engagement, that relationship will quickly fade.

That’s the future of online relationships, too. The more someone interacts with your hospital or practice online (through Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Yelp, etc.) the stronger the relationship. If the interaction is weak or begins to fade…

Which begs the question

How well is your hospital or practice really liked on Facebook? And what are you going to do to change it?