Leveraging Social Media For Dental Growth
We get the chance to speak with dentists and dental marketing managers often. The other day I was on the phone with a dentist who wanted to know more about how he could use Facebook and Instagram to find new patients. After a quick introduction, he said, “Social media works for big companies but not for dental practices.”
In reality, small businesses, like your dental practice, actually see more benefits from social media than large companies with big budgets. The reason for this is that dental social media success depends not on how many followers you have or how much you have to spend. Instead, social media success depends on how much engagement you receive on your content.
Because dental practices have a local community focus, it’s easier to be authentic and get higher engagement.
Social Media for Dentists Connects in Real Time
The dental marketing power of connecting with a potential patient in real time cannot be overestimated.
Tools like TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook can drive awareness for your dental practice in real time. Practices with a solid social media strategy and a social media manager in place to monitor activity quickly, find increased new patients, and scheduled appointments.
Consumers are accustomed to connecting with businesses through social media because they allow for real-time engagement via messaging capabilities. If a dental practice does not appreciate, use or monitor these technologies, it signals unacceptable customer service.
Facebook Messenger, direct messages through Instagram, TikTok, and Google’s Business Profile Messaging allows patients to quickly connect to a small business and ask questions when they are most likely to purchase.
SOCIAL MEDIA CLIENT CASE STUDY
“My Social Practice helped us go viral on social media, landing us a spot on national television!”
Dr. Patricia London – Bright Inspired Dentistry
Multi-Channel Social Media Marketing for Dentists is Key
When social media for dentists is managed correctly with the right kind of content being published, the practice will see new patients.
It used to be that you could run a television commercial or buy a billboard, and you were good to go. Marketing for dentists is far more complicated and sophisticated now.
A great dental marketing campaign implements a multi-channel marketing strategy.
What Is Multi-Channel Marketing?
Multi-channel marketing is a method that uses multiple marketing channels to relay your practice message. It requires that you track each channel and apply value to ALL CHANNELS that were involved in converting a new patient.
An example of a multi-channel marketing campaign would include some or all of the following: Facebook ad campaign, Instagram and TikTok advertising, Local Service Ads, email marketing, blogging, Google review aggregation, referral programs, billboard ads, and LiveChat on your website.
Social Media for Dentists is an Integral Part of Multi-Channel Marketing
Multi-channel marketing is the way that forward-thinking dentists find new patients. The internet’s effect on information gathering is tremendous. Potential patients can gather information from multiple channels in a couple of minutes.
So, if you don’t have great Google reviews, the patient may not call and schedule, even though they were referred. All marketing efforts work together in conjunction to convince the patient to call.
A Multi-Channel Dental Marketing Example
To further illustrate, a new patient schedules an appointment. Your front desk team member asks, “How did you hear about us?” The patient says, “Oh, I read your Google reviews.” Your front desk team member attributes the new patient to your Google reviews, encouraging you to create an initiative to get more Google reviews.
But, there is a problem with this logic. The real story is that another patient referred this new patient. Before the new patient called and scheduled, she got online and checked your Facebook page, then went over to your Instagram account to peruse some of your posts. She then read your website bio and mission statement and afterward scanned a recent blog article. Finally, she checked your Google reviews.
The new patient is satisfied, goes to your website, and uses the LiveChat widget to connect with a team member.
In this example, what marketing effort should receive the attribution? The first interaction, the last? Or is it all of the interactions?
Do you see the problem?
Tracking digital marketing is a multi-touch, multi-channel process. In the example, without the efforts of word-of-mouth marketing, social media, website, integration of LiveChat, a blog article, and Google reviews, the patient may never have called in to schedule.
Solving Dental Social Media and Multi-Channel Tracking
You want to attribute a new patient to all the media channels that convert the patient. The simplest way to do this is to update your new patient intake form.
A typical dental intake form asks, “How did you hear about us?” with a single line for the answer, forcing the new patient to choose only one media channel. But as discussed above, knowing only one media channel throws off your data.
Make sure to get precise. Update your intake form and change the “How did you hear about us question” to:
Tell us ALL the ways you found out about us. (Please circle all that apply.)
- TikTok
- Nextdoor
- Google Search
- Bing Search
- Yahoo Search
- Google Maps
- Yelp
- Patient Referral
- Drive By
- Mail Piece
- Billboard
- Radio Ad
Correct Tracking Solves Marketing Mysteries
Once you update your intake form to multi-channel tracking, it won’t be long before you start seeing new patients from your social media platforms.
One of the first questions the dentists and dental marketing managers ask is, “How long does it take to start seeing new patients from sociall media efforts?”
Whenever this question is asked of me, I tell this quick story…
On October 28th, 2011, I spoke with two practices, and both of them signed up for our dental social media service. The first practice was all-in. We trained their team and sent them ideas, and they did everything we asked of them.
It took the practice a couple of years, but before long, she had more than 25,000 followers on Facebook. The doctor reported that she was consistently generating close to 50 patients a month from social media and has continued to do so ever since.
The second practice didn’t do anything. We would call for appointments, and the practice would be busy. We’d send them emails, and they wouldn’t open them. We all wondered why they kept paying us. And, if they happened to get some patients from social media, no one would ever know because they never tracked anything.
Which Social Media Channels Should You Use?
You want to put your time into the social media platforms your potential patients use to gather information about a local business.
Most people use Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. You definitely want to include those channels in your marketing efforts. If you decide to leverage Instagram, you should look into Instagram Influencer Dental Marketing.
TikTok is on a serious rise, especially since the pandemic. There have been more downloads of TikTok in the app store than any other social media application. If you’re interested in implementing TikTok into your marketing, you should read our blog post titled 13 Awesome TikTok Dentist Accounts to Follow.
Pinterest can help find new patients. If you have a team member that likes to do photography on the side, Pinterest could be valuable. Approximately 85% of all Pinterest users are female, with the majority between 30 and 49 years of age. So, if you’re trying to reach mothers, Pinterest should be on your list.
Youtube is a channel for which only some consumers search to find a new dentist. Still, it is a great place to host all of your videos and can greatly help search engine optimization also knows as SEO.
What about LinkedIn & Twitter?
LinkedIn is a professional network that’s great social media platform if you’re a specialist looking to connect with general dentists and increase referrals. But it’s not a great channel to reach the local consumer.
Twitter has become a news outlet, and not designed well to find new patients for dentists. We’ve tried many dental campaigns over the years with Twitter and it’s not proven to be a reliable social media channel, at least not for dental practices.
Social Media for Dentists: How Much Time is Required?
We all know, especially in a post-pandemic world, that the bandwidth of team members is maxed out. When you kick off a social media campaign for dentists, there is no one size fits all answer, but there are a few rules.
Most of the time spent on dental social media isn’t the act of publishing; it’s finding creative ideas that will get great engagement. Some dental social media ideas are simple, like posting a photo of a team member. Others may be more intricate, like a campaign to raise money for a local charity. Either way, planning is needed.
Why the Doctor Should be LESS Involved In Social Media Management?
Notice that I said ‘management,’ not ‘participation.’
We’ve worked with thousands of dental practices, and as committed as a dentist says they’ll be, inevitably, they get swamped with more important tasks. Nearly every time we put dental social media management on the shoulders of the doctor, tasks get delayed or dropped.
I’m not bagging on doctors. Running a practice is brutal, and social media management gets kicked down the road easily. The solution is to create a social media marketing position and allocate time for that person to do their job. Choose the person on your team who is most excited about social media or who has had the most experience.
Their tasks will include creating a content schedule, executing ideas, and reporting on the campaign’s success. They’ll need some time to do all of these tasks. We recommend about 2-3 hours per week.
You’ll find that this time investment will become extremely valuable. What are 5-10 new patients a month worth? Is it worth 10-20 hours a month of social media marketing time? We think that social media is as valuable as your telephone.
How do you Know When Dental Social Media is Working?
Remember to change your new patient intake form to include multi-channel attribution. Once you’ve done that, you’ll be able to know how many new patients are influenced by social media activity. There are a few other data points in social media that are measured.
Engagement: Social media engagement is when someone likes, comments, shares, loves, saves, and follows your content. Social media platforms look at engagement to know whether content should be shared with more people. The higher the engagement, the more your post will be shared. All social media platforms have engagement tracking resources. They allow you to see how well one post did over another post and how much engagement you received this month over last month.
Impressions: You receive an impression when your post moves through the visible portion of someone’s screen. That’s right, everything you look at is being tracked on social media. Impressions are an easy measurement of how many people see your posts, and it works hand in hand with engagement. The higher your engagement, the more impressions you’ll receive. It’s that simple.
Should You Hire A Dental Marketing Expert Or Agency?
Suppose you already have a successful social media strategy and are tracking your new patients correctly. In that case, you probably do not need to hire an outside agency. But, for everyone else, there are two options:
#1 If the statements below sound like you, you need an agency to help set everything up and provide minimal support.
- I have someone on my team that wants to manage social media, but this is the first time they’ve done it, and they would need some training.
- My team wants to be involved in social media marketing, but we’re not sure which team member should take on the responsibility.
- We have 3-5 hours per week to allocate toward social media, but we need to figure out where to start.
- I have someone on my team managing our social media, but I don’t know if it’s working.
- We’ve already hired a company to do our social media for us, but we’re still determining if it’s working.
#2 If the statements below sound like you, you would want an agency to manage your social media professionally.
- We want to get involved with social media, but we’re completely slammed.
- I’ve already done this, but the team member in charge of social media left the practice, and I don’t want to reinvest all of the time into training someone else.
- No one on my team wants to answer LiveChat or Facebook Messages. They’d rather answer the phone.
- I want to find new patients with social media, but my team members don’t believe it’s something we should do.
- I’ve tried social media, and it didn’t work.
How We Help You Succeed With Dental Social Media?
With over thirteen years of trial and error, in the dental industry, we’ve developed a plug and play dental social media marketing that works with any practice regardless of size.
Social Media Support and Training: Some practices want to manage their own social media channels. In situations like this your team is assigned a social media consultant, which is your point of contact at our offices. They’re your go-to person when you have any question about dental social media.
They’re in charge of training your staff, implementing softwares, providing social media content ideas, setting up tracking and reporting, offering trending content ideas, graphic design support, and anything else needed in social media for dentists.
Managed Social Media: Other practices don’t have anyone on staff who can manage the content creation and accounts. For this situation we implement a managed social media for dentists campaign. A team of social media guru’s take over content creation, posting, responding to comments, responding to direct messages on behalf of the practice. You can rest assured that everything is being taken care of and go back to the business of dentistry.
DSO Support and Training: Dental Service Organizations and Group Practices lean on us for support and training as well. Our team scales well with DSOs in a growth stage. When working together with a corporate marketing manager we are able to execute quickly and efficiently. DSO and Group practice social media marketing is a specialty of ours.
Social Media for Dentists: We Want to Help
You can rest assured that your consultant or manager knows the ins and outs of social media marketing strategies for dentists. They will be sharing photos, creating opportunities for engagement, and carrying out a plan for your campaign.
The dental social media package allows you to build an awesome online presence, whether your busy schedule allows you to stay engaged or not. You can participate as little or as much as you like.
It cannot be overstated how significant social media content is to the success of your practice, and the value of social media for dentists is only growing. Social media management for dentists can feel daunting. That’s where we can help.
We wanted to create a service that would be just as effective as hiring a social media marketing specialist but easy enough for dental professionals to do themselves, without breaking the bank.
We absolutely love working with dentists and orthodontists.
Our social media gurus are standing by to help you build your practice using social media. Just give us a call or request a dental social media demo. We’ll even buy you lunch as we discuss a social media marketing campaign for your office.
What Happens When I Request a Demo from My Social Practice?
When you fill out a demo request, you’re not required to purchase anything. The purpose of the meeting is to see if we can align your expectations with the marketing services we provide. In most situations we are able to improve digital marketing results and save a dental practice hard earned dollars. In a few situations, we may not be able to help. But if that is the case, we’ll be honest and up front with you. You can count on transparency from every member of our team.
Our dental marketing consultants analyze your practice to identify weak areas that we can help improve, and also to see where we can best leverage your strengths. My Social Practice will tailor a personalized dental marketing strategy based on your practice size, patient needs, personality, staff, and location. We want to know everything we can about your practice to create the best possible course of action.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much should I pay for dental social media marketing?
On the low-cost end, many patient management services offer “social media” as a bonus or add-on for $50 – $150 per month. This type of social media marketing typically consists of pre-made graphics, posted automatically to your social media accounts once or twice a week. While this is certainly inexpensive, and checks the social media box, it’s not an effective way to run a social media campaign. Unfortunately, this is how many dental practices are currently running a social media campaign, and they don’t even know that it’s wasted money.
On the high-end of the social media for dentists marketing scale, are agencies. A marketing agency will design and develop custom content for your social media campaign. The content is usually fantastic but the budget is high. It’s typical to pay $5000+ depending on the services included in the package.
Enter…. My Social Practice. Our social media service fits nicely between these two extremes. We are far more unique and custom than auto-posted pre-made graphics solution, but not so custom that campaign costs are way out of reach for the majority of dentists.
We also are one of the only dental companies to offer managed social media services. This type of service allows our professional social media agents post, advertise, respond, and run full fledged campaigns on behalf of the practice.
Chat with us and get set up with what your dental practice needs, simple social media for dentists. No fluff or extras, just a great social media marketing plan that fits your practice. We offer the most valuable, out-of-the-box dental social media marketing solution on the planet.
How do I market my dental office using social media?
Social media for dentists is the process of increasing dental practice revenue through attracting potential dental patients via online digital dental marketing methods. Social media for dentists creates awareness for a dental practice within the local community. When done successfully, social media for dentists has the power to target thousands of new patients. Social media allows potential patients to see exactly what your specialties are, as well as the culture and brand of your office.
In addition to social media for dentists, a dental practice should also use dental SEO, reputation management and Google review aggregation, paid social advertising, content creation, Google ads, email marketing, and dental website conversion techniques.
An integrated dental marketing plan that includes several of these services, will allow your office to stand out from the competition.
What should I post on my dental Facebook page?
Many practices are effectively marketing their practices by posting relevant content to Facebook. Facebook has continually proven to be a successful social media tool in increasing awareness about a dental practice. It is important that dentists keep their Facebook marketing pages up to date with authentic photos and videos.
Authenticity is a big deal when it comes to social media for dentists. Dentistry is not an industry that crates a lot of interest. Even dentists get bored of dentistry. Think about how difficult it is to get a local consumer interested.
The best content to post to social media is content that is created inside your practice. Photos and videos of your team interacting with patients and each other. Check out one of our favorite dental social media clients in this case study.
Why do dentists need social media marketing?
Once upon a time… dental marketing was about word of mouth, billboards, television ads, radio ads, and shamelessly begging for referrals.
Then the internet happened, and social media for dentists has evolved into one of the most cost effective ways to market your dental practice. Social media for dentists is the new word-of-mouth-marketing.
Social media for dentists allows patients the ability to connect with your practice through the social media tool of their choice. This could be Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Nextdoor, Pinterest, LinkedIn, WhatApp, Youtube, and all the tools that are yet to come.
What is the best social media for dentists?
Dentists should focus on using Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok as the social media marketing platforms because these tools have the highest potential engagement in social media for dentists.
Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok are incredibly effective because the algorithms give a dental practice a leg up on big brands with larger budgets. Social media for dentists is more effective because they can leverage personal relationships to increase engagement. And, engagement means more visibility.
How do dentists use Instagram?
Instagram marketing can be an important part of social media for dentists plan, but only if it is done correctly. To get the most benefit from Instagram, a dental practice should follow a dental marketing strategy that encourages engagement. The dental marketing strategy should include some fun content on the practice Instagram page, which will encourage people to engage with their page and share it with others.
Adrian Lefler is the CEO and Co-Founder of My Social Practice and a recognized dental marketing expert with nearly two decades of experience. He is a trusted voice in dental marketing, AI in dentistry, and emerging technology, and he hosts BYTE SIZED, a podcast focused on dental AI, innovation, and technology.
[Byte Sized Podcast Ep. 44] Why Dental AI Rollouts Stall Before They Start (It’s Not the Technology)
