In the dig­i­tal era, most tra­di­tion­al mar­ket­ing strate­gies have become either sec­ondary or even obso­lete, and this also applies to experts such as den­tists. For exam­ple, data from Den­tavox sug­gests that 35% of patients think that social­ly active den­tists are more car­ing and that around 75% of prac­tices already use den­tal social media marketing. 

Still, how can you get start­ed with den­tist social media mar­ket­ing? In this arti­cle, the sea­soned team at Rosy Strate­gies, your expe­ri­enced social media agency in Flori­da, takes a clos­er look at social media for den­tists and what your social pres­ence can do to grow your business. 

Social Media For Dental Practices: Why? 

Dentist and Patient Look Together on an Image on a Phone

Social media mar­ket­ing for den­tists can tru­ly change the play­ing field in terms of bet­ter brand vis­i­bil­i­ty, improved cus­tomer inter­ac­tions, and over­all busi­ness growth. Below are the key rea­sons why den­tists shouldn’t opt out of social media marketing:

  • Cul­ti­vate bet­ter patient rela­tion­ships: Social media enables you to keep in touch with your patients even when they don’t have any den­tal prob­lems or check­ups. You can share inter­est­ing posts, keep them up-to-date with any changes, share anec­dotes, and more. You can engage with your patients, and they with you. It’s a great way to facil­i­tate a more con­sis­tent bond with them.
  • New patient acqui­si­tion: Sim­i­lar­ly, social media can help you gain new busi­ness. This can hap­pen either through patient research, rec­om­men­da­tion, or sim­ply by land­ing on your pro­file by acci­dent. You can eas­i­ly attract new busi­ness by post­ing reg­u­lar­ly, using appeal­ing visu­als, and widen­ing your reach.
  • Increase site traf­fic: Social media for den­tists can also play an inte­gral part in help­ing your search engine opti­miza­tion efforts. Every social chan­nel enables you to place links to your site, which can help you boost traf­fic to your site. 
  • Improve brand­ing: Social media mar­ket­ing for den­tists can also help you for­ti­fy your brand pres­ence, cre­at­ing trust and, when done right, social proof. 

Dental Social Media Marketing: Best Platforms To Use

Look­ing at all the ben­e­fits, embrac­ing social media mar­ket­ing is a giv­en. Still, there are sev­er­al plat­forms with their own unique perks that den­tists may use to their advantage. 

  • Face­book: With around 81% of adults in the U.S. using the plat­form, using Face­book makes per­fect strate­gic sense. Face­book enables you to build a strong com­mu­ni­ty where you can build trust and engage with your patients. You can embrace sim­ple posts, reviews, imagery, videos, live streams, and even group chats to estab­lish your­self as a trust­ed expert.
  • Insta­gram: IG is more about visu­als, enabling you to show­case your skills in den­tistry, like show­ing cos­met­ic results and the cut­ting-edge tech you are using, and you can always show images of hap­py and sat­is­fied patients. IG can also be great for post­ing behind-the-scenes footage.
  • YouTube: It’s not a social plat­form per se, but it’s excel­lent for show­cas­ing your den­tal work in more depth. You can share edu­ca­tion­al video con­tent and dis­cuss dif­fer­ent pro­ce­dures, bring­ing these den­tal inter­ven­tions clos­er to your patients who might oth­er­wise be weary of them. 
  • Tik­Tok: With the plat­form sur­pass­ing $2.5 bil­lion glob­al­ly regard­ing con­sumer spend­ing, it can be an out­stand­ing busi­ness avenue. It’s an excel­lent way to reach out to younger audi­ences, share tips, and cre­ate engag­ing and fun edu­ca­tion­al con­tent with a light-heart­ed attitude.
  • Google Busi­ness: A pro­file on this plat­form will help improve your SEO through list­ings. It can help you reel in more cus­tomers in your vicin­i­ty, as you will be shown as one of the results in the “den­tists near me” query, and it’s also a great plat­form to get excel­lent reviews and build social proof and trust.

Social Media For Dental Practices: Strategic Steps

Person Using a Social Media Marketing Concept on Mobile Phone With Notification Icons of Like, Message, Comment and Star Above Smartphone Screen.

Social media mar­ket­ing can be over­whelm­ing with­out a prop­er plan. Using the right strate­gies can help you lever­age all the ben­e­fits of these plat­forms and aid your growth. Below are a few tips that can help you get started.

Defining Your Goals

You need to have a pur­pose on these chan­nels to get start­ed the right way and get results. Set­ting goals can help you with cre­at­ing con­tent that will align with your clin­ic’s objec­tives. For instance, you can focus on gain­ing new fol­low­ers, rais­ing brand aware­ness, dri­ving more traf­fic, gen­er­at­ing leads, and much more. 

Know Your Audience

You can’t real­ly reach your goals if you are com­mu­ni­cat­ing with your audi­ence the wrong way. Study the demo­graph­ics of your cur­rent patients and look at their needs and behav­iors. This enables you to cre­ate con­tent more tai­lored to spe­cif­ic require­ments already attract­ing peo­ple to your practice. 

Monitor Your Competition

Keep­ing an eye on the social pro­file of your com­peti­tors can help you deter­mine what strate­gies can work and what won’t. 

Don’t try to rein­vent the wheel; just observe. See what kind of pro­mo­tions are gen­er­at­ing the most buzz, what the most pop­u­lar con­tent for­mats are, and the most used ideas for content. 

Create Content Calendars

Pre-plan­ning is every­thing in social media mar­ket­ing. You need a post­ing plan to max­i­mize your poten­tial, and as such, you might need to plan a week or even a month ahead. Con­tent cal­en­dars can serve as roadmaps to cre­ate your con­tent, enabling you to see its visu­al impact and take advan­tage of the best post­ing times. It also allows you to forge your posts in bulk, so you don’t have to think about them every day. 

Engaging With Patients 

Engage­ment goes a long way in den­tal social media mar­ket­ing. It enables your brand to com­mu­ni­cate with your cur­rent and even poten­tial clients. They can ask you ques­tions and raise their con­cerns, and, as such, give you an oppor­tu­ni­ty to show­case your exper­tise. It also helps you human­ize your brand on the plat­forms, which goes a long way in build­ing trust. 

Take Advantage of Ads Marketing 

Social ads allow you to run dif­fer­ent cam­paigns with dif­fer­ent objec­tives. They can help with brand aware­ness, traf­fic improve­ment, lead gen­er­a­tion, and more. 

Fur­ther­more, you can spec­i­fy loca­tions, inter­ests, and demo­graph­ics to ensure that your ads will be shown to the right peo­ple, increas­ing the chances of growth. 

Measure The Results 

Social media for den­tists is also about track­ing your results to see what approach­es are work­ing and what might need tweak­ing. For­tu­nate­ly, most plat­forms have excel­lent ana­lyt­ics sec­tions where you can pin­point the things that might keep you from reach­ing your objectives. 

If You Need Help

There you have it. We can’t say that social media mar­ket­ing is rock­et sci­ence. Still, it does com­mand a good under­stand­ing of each plat­form, basic SEO, brand­ing, and user behav­ior, and it requires con­sis­tent work. That said, some den­tists may find that address­ing every require­ment of their social media cam­paigns is over­whelm­ing and might keep them from doing what they do best: treat their patients. 

As such, hir­ing a sea­soned dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing agency that can per­form all of these tasks will make per­fect sense for most den­tal prac­tices. You can always reach out to us to help you get start­ed with social media mar­ket­ing. We have the knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence to help you cre­ate a stel­lar social pres­ence that will keep old patients engaged while reel­ing in new ones.