How To Get The Best
Out Of Social Media for your Dental Practice
If you’re looking to ramp up your dental practice marketing efforts, then you may want to consider using social media. By employing dental marketing techniques on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube etc, you’ll be placing yourself right in the middle of where many of your potential clients hang out online.
Did you know for example that nearly half of the world’s population (3.42 billion) use social media in 2019? That’s a 10% increase on the same period from 2015. Yet according to a recent survey only 1 in 3 dentists actively use social media as a marketing tool. So for those who embrace dental office marketing using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn et al, they’re tapping into a huge marketplace that’s ripe for the taking. What’s more, employing marketing techniques on social media is cheaper, more efficient, and faster than traditional dental advertising methods.
With this in mind just how do you establish and get the best out of a professional social media presence? Let’s take a closer look….
Choosing your platforms
There are a wealth of social media platforms that you can use to market your dental website and business. However it just isn’t possible to devote the time you need to updating and maintaining them all. For this reason it’s advisable to limit your choices. Most marketing experts would probably suggest using Facebook and Twitter as a starting point, and if you already have a LinkedIn account, you’ll want to be active on there too. The three listed above have the highest numbers of audience participation. In addition, setting up accounts is quick and easy and more importantly, free.
Just before you make that final decision however, here are some quick points to take on board…
The time factor – Posting tips, engaging with others, and sharing content, are all part of increasing your online visibility via social media, but achieving this takes a great deal of work. Inevitably this is going to be time spent away from other customer-facing activities, so this is something you need to bear in mind if you are considering doing it yourself.
Outsourcing – You could of course outsource this task to a social media company or an individual marketeer. However make sure you find someone who can convey your brand, ethos, and personality as well as you. If you’re going down this route, be sure to choose wisely. Alternatively you might want to delegate this role to a member of your own team who understands what your practice is about. However remember to allow them the necessary time to do it efficiently.
Image – in terms of branding it’s important to make sure that all profile pictures are the same across all platforms. This creates a level of familiarity for anyone viewing your profiles.
Okay so what’s the main aim of social media marketing for businesses like yours?
As a dental practice you’re really looking to build and cement relationships with potential patients. What you’re not looking to do is to continually sell your services. This is where many businesses go wrong. Remember people don’t like to be sold to.
For the most effective results, your social media posts should be made up of around 80% helpful information and just 20% advertising. So if you’re posting say 5 Twitter tweets, 4 should contain helpful hints and tips and only 1 should be of aimed at directly promoting your business. Once people learn to trust you – either by following you, friending you, or liking your tweets/posts – you can start to promote your services a little more. After you’ve done it for a while you’ll get to know when you can and can’t actively promote your business directly.
Top tip – There are numerous online search tools that you can use to track social media conversations such as Buzzsumo, Social Mention and Who’s Talkin. Every time someone within say a 20 mile radius of your practice mentions the word ‘toothache’ or the phrase ‘need a dentist’, you can be alerted in real time and be immediately ready to provide them with helpful information.
Create a systematic plan and stick to it
With social media, dental office marketing works best when used daily. The reason? It’s all about consistency. People are more likely to trust you if you post meaningful stuff on a regular basis. That means every day!
To make it easier, software such as HootSuite allows you to schedule posts days or weeks in advance and place them across multiple sites at the touch of a button. However bear in mind that you might want to post more on certain sites than others. For example on Facebook and LinkedIn you might only need to post 1-2 times a day. Whereas on Twitter 3-5 posts a day is considered a good amount to start. Once you start to see results and get traction, you can always build it up from there.
In addition, in order to keep a constant presence across multiple sites it does take a little planning and effort. For this reason it’s worth having a weekly checklist. Here’s an example:
Facebook – Friend 10 potential prospects, respond or comment on 10 posts, and post 5 helpful hints and tips every week.
Twitter – Follow 100 people, post 20-30 status updates, re-tweet and/or respond to 10 tweets every week.
This works best when the task is factored into your normal working day. Remember consistent quality content is key.
Observe and adjust
The good thing about dental marketing using the platform of social media is that it gives you ways of monitoring results in real time. Whether this is through likes or re-tweets, the number of impressions (views), or social shares, you can see at a glance which posts have gauged the most reaction. All you need to do then is to post more of the type that work, and less of the ones that don’t.
In addition you might also want to take a close look at the times you post. You might find that posting between say 6am and 6pm, gives you better results than posting between 6 pm and 6am. You may even find that a particular platform just isn’t working for you at all. In this case you might take the decision to drop it and spend more time working on those that are.
So there you have it. By choosing your platforms carefully, having a systematic plan in place, and observing and adjusting posts based on results, you really can supercharge your dental practice marketing efforts in a cost-effective way.
About the author:
Michael MacDonald (B Sc)
Michael has more than 20 years’ experience in the marketing industry including brand and marketing management roles for leading Healthcare, FMCG and Direct Marketing companies. Over the past 4 years, Michael has turned his focus to online marketing and has completed numerous international digital marketing certifications. His traditional marketing foundation enables sure-footed influence with integration of the latest digital tactics. His approach values data with the aim of maximising ROI.
Michael cross-trains for his quest to reach 100 years healthy and happy. So, chances are you’ll find him mountain biking, running or paddling a canoe when he’s not behind his keyboard.
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