Growing Your Practice with Social Media

With conversations making the shift to the online world, it has become increasingly important for businesses to also have an online presence. Being actively involved on social media sites not only allows businesses to create more personal relationships with their audiences, but it also gives them access to a pool of potential new business that has been relatively untapped until recently.

Consumer’s expectations and online activity are constantly changing. As they make the shift to relying on social media and online forums for more and more information, so too must dental practices. You have an audience that is ready and willing to interact with you online, so the more information and resources you make available to them, the more likely they are to come to you when they need dental work.

So just how can you use social media to generate business for your dental practice? Let’s explore some key points to creating and maintaining a social campaign, and uncover how this can help you generate new business.

How to Generate Business through Social Media

The first key ingredient to running a successful social media campaign for your dental practice is to establish a trusting business relationship with your target audience online. You want to showcase your practice’s personality in a way that will speak to your audience and encourage them to engage with you. The better relationship you have with them, the more likely they are to be open to sharing their opinions and ideas with you.

Before we delve into creating that relationship, let’s take a step back and look at how you can grow your following using resources already at hand. If your practice keeps a contacts log, the best way to spread the word is to send your database of contacts an email letting them know about your new social media campaign and ask them to “Like” you or “Follow” you on those sites. Research has shown that the main platforms you’ll want to be on are:

1. Facebook
2. Twitter
3. Google+
4. Pinterest

Other strategies include putting a CTA (call-to-action) on your homepage, running a contest to see how many “Likes” you can get in a month, running a special/promotion for everyone who “Likes” or follows your page, etc. Once you have a following, you are going to want to engage them by asking lots of questions, posting photos and releasing exclusive content to social media.

How to Form Business Relationships Online

Your customer base already spends an average of 30-45 minutes every day interacting with businesses online either by reading reviews, commenting on social media posts or buying products. This is their way of getting to know your brand, so you want to keep a few things in mind:

• Keep your brand personality consistent across platforms: if you are spunky and youthful on Facebook, your tweets should have a similar tone. The photos and content should match who you are as a brand. Remember, one personality is better than multiple-personalities in the online world.
• Listen to your audience: Make sure you also keep their interests in mind when posting content. Many users follow a company to get deals and coupons, and this is especially true for dental practices. A great way to get your patients involved is to run contests on Facebook. For example, (with patient permission) post Before & After photos on Facebook and have your followers vote on who has the best new smile. It will make them feel valued and will encourage them to spread the word about your office!
• Keep them coming back! Once they have liked your page or commented on one of your posts, give them a reason to re-visit your page. Offer them exclusive content that they can only find on social media. For example, offer a coupon for $10 off their next visit, a free toothbrush or a free e-book download.

Why is Social Media Important for Dentists?

There are many ways to answer this question but it mostly boils down to SEO value. Google indexes sites such as Facebook and Twitter which means the more keywords you use on those sites in your posts, the greater possibility you have of increasing your SEO ranking. Keywords can be used in plain text updates, image captions or Google’s favorite, hashtags (#). Either way, having a social presence is sure to help rather than hinder your practice.

Overall, social media has become a necessity rather than an option, especially for smaller practice areas such as dentistry. No doubt the social sphere will continue to change but in order to stay on top you must adapt and grow along with your audience. And right now, your audience is online more than ever. Take that leap of faith, and social media could be a giant win for your dental practice.

Social Media Updates

• According to a recent study done by the Search Engine Journal, there are 1.06 billion monthly active users on Facebook, 800 million active users on YouTube and 340 million active Google+ users followed closely by 200 million active Twitter users.
• Facebook recently updated their newsfeed to be more image-oriented. They are beta testing it on a few profiles, but it should roll out to the general public in the next month or two.
• Pinterest now has analytics available for Business accounts. Their data is very similar to Google Analytics and can be activated when you switch to the “new look.”