Social media pages for your dental practice are virtually meaningless without a consistent supply of share-worthy content. It builds relationships, expands your audience and helps new patients find you.
For dental teams just starting out with digital marketing, the moment after they set up their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts can hit like a ton of bricks — now they actually have to think of something to post. And not just one thing, they need daily content for social media marketing to be effective!
We often hear the same concerns: “What in the world should we be publishing?”, “I’m afraid we’ll be boring!” and “What’s the purpose of a tweet or Facebook post?”
When you understand the goal of social media and the qualities of great content, you’ll find it easier to brainstorm ideas with your team that will strengthen relationships and grow your practice.
Why Your Content Needs to Be Share-Worthy
In the earlier days of social media, posting a viral video of a cat playing the piano was enough to get a few Likes on Facebook. Not anymore. While there are still people that enjoy that kind of content, it won’t get you anywhere in your goals of turning patients into advocates for your practice and building your business.
With the overwhelming amount of content pieces on social media vying for attention, and platforms like Facebook and Instagram filtering them more than ever, how can your messages rise above the noise? The answer is through your existing patients. When they interact with and share your social media content, it boosts its reach among the people most likely to become new patients: their family and friends. Suddenly it’s not you with the bullhorn, it’s your patient sharing what they love about your practice with people who are close to them and trust their recommendations. There’s no better marketing than that.
So how can you create social media content that your patients will want to share?
Five Guidelines to Creating Share-Worthy Social Media Content
As a preface, don’t try to sell dentistry every time you blog, update, or tweet. Although once in a while it’s good to talk about the services and treatments you provide, recognize that people are following you on social media to connect as friends, not as customers.
1. Provide Value
First and foremost, the best way to build a strong social media following is by simply providing content that is worth people’s time. While brainstorming post ideas, ask yourself “What can I share that would improve patients’ lives?” Then, think about the best way to present it.
2. Make It Personal
One of the greatest strengths of social media is its ability to build a sense of community. Focus on the needs, interests, and personalities of your patients and team members. By doing so, you create connections not as a business and its customers, but as friends.
3. Invite Interaction
Fan participation — such as comments, Likes and shares — amplifies the reach and effectiveness of your posts. But getting people to interact isn’t as simple as tacking “please Like this” to the end of all your posts. In addition to encouraging spontaneous interaction by providing high-quality content, occasionally design elements in your posts that give fans a good reason to leave a Like or comment.
4. Use Interesting Visuals
Incorporating images, infographics, photos, and videos is essential to creating effective content. A 2015 study reported that social media content with relevant visuals receives 94 percent more views than content without. Not only do images and videos make your posts more attractive, they are highly shareable and favored by social media algorithms — meaning they will appear on more news feeds.
5. Have Fun Together
If you’re having fun creating and sharing content, you can bet your fans are also having fun following and interacting with you on social media! The growth difference between practices enthusiastically participating in social media together and those who aren’t is like night and day. Involve your whole team, especially those who think they’re “too old for this.” Get creative. Don’t be afraid to show your lighthearted side.
While there’s so much more that could be said about each of these guidelines, the main point is people like doing business with people they know and like on a personal level — and they’ll tell their friends about them. Trying new things takes bravery and patience. Understanding what effective social media content is — then putting forth the effort to create and leverage it — takes both.
For more on this topic and example post ideas you can use today, we encourage you to download our free ebook below! We at My Social Practice would love to show you step-by-step how to take your practice from “scouring the web for something to post” to creating your own valuable content that helps you accomplish your business objectives.
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Find New Patients Now With Help From Dental Marketing Experts?
About the Author: Blake Hadley is a dental digital marketing expert and one of the founding members of My Social Practice. My Social Practice is a dental marketing services company located in Salt Lake City, Utah. Blake is passionate about helping dental practices grow. If you’d like to book Blake or one of the other members of My Social Practice’s speaking team, you can do that HERE. Interested in learning more about the benefits of SEO for dental practices or our agile dental website development service, you can learn more here.
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