How to Use Visual Content in Your Dental Practice's Social Media Efforts

Kelly Matsudaira

About Author

When it comes to content marketing, it’s not just about creating high quality, original copy anymore. Sure that is still very important, but visual graphics are a vital part of the process as well. People are naturally attracted to visual stimulation, and these days on social media, they can’t get enough.

According to MDG Advertising, on average content that contains an image received 94% more total views than content without any images. They also found 67% of consumers believe seeing a detailed image is very important and holds more value than text information, descriptions and even ratings. And finally, when images show up in a local search result, 60% of consumers are more likely to consider contacting that business.

Why Dental Practices Should Use More Visual Content

If you need more proof than the statistics above that you should be using stimulating visuals within your social media posts and marketing messages, here are four more reasons:

1. Visual graphics are more digestible and stimulating for patients. Today, people don’t have the patience or time to read through bulky paragraphs of text to get the information they seek. However, they can scan an infographic or image easily and quickly to get your marketing message. Graphics also condense large amounts of information down into easy-to-read visuals that will attract the eye, and maybe a potential patient will spend a little longer on your message.
2. You can earn your patients’ trust and loyalty through compelling pictures. They say, “a picture is worth a thousand words,” and when it comes to your dental services, an image can sell better than you can. For example, if you offer cosmetic dentistry services to improve patients’ smiles and self-confidence, there’s no better way to show it off than through a before and after gallery. The images speak for themselves!
3. Images can help increase your brand awareness. When you start using pictures of your office, staff, patients, community events, or even use your brand colors and related-images, people will start to associate these pictures with your practice. You will be able to draw more potential patients in through your dental marketing messages, and they will get a better understanding of your brand’s identity.
4. When you start to get really creative with your visual aids, you will begin to attract a wider audience. For example, if you create a stunning infographic that explains the benefits of daily flossing and brushing your teeth and post it on your Facebook page, you have the potential of that graphic going viral. A few patients may share it on their Timeline, and some of their friends will see it and post it, and maybe some will post it to Pinterest or Google+, where more people see it. Then your circle of viewers grows bigger and bigger.

Where on Social Media to Use Graphics

Before you even begin to start designing your visual content, you need to know where your patients are on social media. It does your practice no good to post all your images to Facebook if no one is on there to see them. You need to be where your patients are. Do some research and see where they hang out. You can ask patients when they are in the office, send out an email survey, or review your own analytics on specific social media platforms to see how well you are doing there. Once you know where your patients are, then you can let the creative juices flow.

However, there are two huge social platforms that are known for visual content, and if you’re not using them, you may want to consider adding these to your list.

Pinterest - With more than 70 million users, pinning images has become a popular hobby. First, create your business page so you can periodically review your analytics. Then create boards that your patients want to see, like a before and after gallery, pictures of your office and staff, teeth whitening, cosmetic dentistry, dental humor, your favorite recipes, fun things to do in your city…the possibilities are endless.

To get more ideas, hop onto Pinterest and do some searches of your own to see what other dental practices are doing with their boards. But always be aware of optimizing your pin titles and descriptions with specific keywords you think people are searching for so your pins show up in the search results.

Instagram - This is one of the fastest growing social networks with more than 200 million users. People love to take pictures, upload images and record short videos to share. If you’re not familiar with Instagram for businesses, do some research and see what others are doing.

Once you create your account, start taking pictures around the office and post them. You should balance between business pictures and fun pictures. You can even take short 15 second videos. People love to see behind the scenes of practices, or you can record a video giving dental advice. Be sure to use relevant, popular hashtags to show up in search results because hashtags are widely used on this platform.

Both of these visual social platforms can be very beneficial spaces where you can grow patient engagement push your marketing messages. To cultivate your following, be sure to put the social icons on your website and inside your email marketing campaigns so people can check out your pages, and then follow you. Or, you can make an announcement through email, other social networks or flyers.

How to Easily Create Visual Content

Now that you know where to post your images, it’s time to start designing. But you don’t need to be a graphic designer to create stunning visuals for your social media campaigns, so don’t let them intimidate you. In fact you don’t even need to know how to use complex software programs, like Photoshop, InDesign or Illustrator, to make them. There are many online alternatives that are easy-to-use and free or low cost.

Here are some great resources to check out:

• PicMonkey allows you to edit pictures, use special effects, crop and resize, and add text.
• PowerPoint can be used to create unique, compelling presentations that you can share on SlideShare, or you can use it to create images for social media.
• Photovisi lets you create beautiful collages of pictures with easy-to-use templates.
• Recite This allows you to create quote images that inspire and motivate people.
• Easly.ly helps you to easily create infographics if you have large amounts of data, information or statistics you want to put into an easy-to-read visual graphic.

There are many different types of visual content you can create to help improve your social media marketing, increase patient engagement, and build a stronger following. Do your own research, check out helpful design websites, but most importantly, just have fun with it.