Please don’t misunderstand my point here. I’m not slamming on dental SEO. Not at all. It’s an extremely important part of dental marketing and one of the dental marketing services that we provide here at My Social Practice. What I am slamming is the messaging from dental marketing companies who carelessly blur the line between non-participatory and participatory online marketing strategies.

Yesterday, one of our client practices forwarded me this email they received:

Really? C’mon… Can you see why this IS NOT social media marketing?

Dental office social media is a participatory marketing process. Social media marketing is something that you do, not something that you have. It begins inside your practice, not in an agency. If you don’t have the time to be involved in your marketing, then we recommend not implementing a dentists social media campaign.

It would be far better to hire an outside dental marketing agency to start an SEM, SEO, or print mail campaign. These are marekting strategies where the content created doesn’t have to be developed from inside your practice.

For example, Search Engine Marketing, AKA Pay Per Click or Google Ads, is a bidding process. The team and the dentist do not need to be involved in set that up. Matter of fact I would recommend that you definitely hire an agency to run your SEM campaign. It’s extremely time intensive and you need an advanced degree to understand the Google Ads platform.

Dental SEO Posts Versus Dentists Social Media

Don’t underestimate the people who are SO IMPORTANT to your practice—your patients and prospective patients. Here’s another example. Read the “SEO optimized” dental blog post headline below. I can’t tell you how many of these kinds of blog posts I see in practices that think social media is something you “have”—not something you “do”:

Some of the other real gems in the body copy above include:

• “…improve the lives of my Provo/Orem denture and cosmetic dentistry clients.” (Clients? I thought they were patients. And, I guess if you live outside of Provo/Orem they’re not interested in improving your life. Sorry.)
• “Alpine tooth restoration clients…” (Golly… I wish I lived in Alpine so you could treat me!)
• Etc., etc.

Social Media For Dental, Action Item:

Of all the actions items recommended in this post series, 26 Dental Social Media Marketing Truths, I’m making this action item the absolute quickest and easiest for you and your team.

Please either raise your right hand to the square, or link pinkies with someone in your practice, and repeat after me: “I, (insert your name here), do solemnly pinky swear that I will never abuse my patients, fans, followers or subscribers by confusing non-participatory, left-brain, SEO strategies with participatory, right-brain, dental social media engagement strategies. I recognize the difference between the two, and I realize that both can be useful when thoughtfully implemented. However, if I mix them improperly, may the fleas from a thousand camels infest my armpits.” Thanks. That will do.

Now, build your platform, create great content, infuse your personality, be giving, and reap the rewards of effective dental social media marketing.

This post is part of a the series 26 Dental Social Media Marketing Truths.