Why you should consider using dental social media marketing

There is a lot of talk about social media marketing for business. Some dental practices are jumping on the social media bandwagon. Other dental practices have an intuitive hunch that there is something to all of this, but they’re just not yet sure what it is.

I get asked all the time, ‘Do I really need social media for my dental practice?’

The staggering statistics speak for themselves. In December 2015, Facebook had fourteen million Australian users and YouTube had just less then fourteen million users.14 A recent survey in the USA found that 92% of orthodontists used Facebook, followed by 72% of general dentists, and 70% of paediatric dentists.

Social media tips

The most successful and ‘liked’ activities on social media have some common threads. Use these as guidelines for your activity:

• Be fun – Successful practices make social media fun for team members and patients. It’s not a chore.
• Do the unexpected – Throw out the boring and be a little adventuresome.
• Be involved in the community – Nearly every thriving practice does some good in their community. And they talk about it online.
• Use patient images – Many patients are happy to help you in your efforts. Remember to ask permission.
• Share team members’ personalities – Patients and prospective patients become loyal to people they know and like.
• Link back to your website – When posting tips or news remember to include a link back to a relevant page on your website. This will improve your Google ranking.
• Mix your posts – Have a great mix of educational, fun, and promotional posts on social media. Too much of one will be overpowering. Try and have a balance.
• Experiment – Use a small part of your marketing budget to boost certain posts and promotions. Test and see what works best for your practice and patients
• Be yourself – Be genuine and don’t try to be anything that you and your team aren’t.

Social media summary

The important rule to remember when starting with social media is to build up gradually. Start using only as many platforms as you can handle well. Be regular, be friendly, be fun, and be as non-commercial as you can.

• Step one is to create accounts everywhere.
• Make social media part of someone’s job in the practice.
• Spend fifteen to thirty minutes a day composing posts.
• Get releases from your patients for all photos and video.
• Be familiar with the latest social media guidelines from ARPRA Dental Board of Australia.

Dental social media marketing

We know that you are busy, so we can take the hard work out of keeping your dental social media pages fresh with our dental social media marketing services. We will post content to keep your social media profiles current while giving your patients and prospective patients the right mix to educate, inspire and inform while sending the patient back to your website to find out more about you.

Not only will we create new social media content for you, we’ll also schedule and post on your behalf. Find out more about our dental social media marketing services.

Carolyn Dean

Carolyn Dean is the author of ‘Fully booked – Dental marketing secrets for a full appointment book’ and is the managing director at My Dental Marketing. Carolyn is a widely known seminar speaker and dental marketing consultant working with over twenty-five years’ experience in sales and marketing, working with some of the largest global IT organisations.