Social media can help develop positive brand awareness, educate and retain existing patients and engage new patients. It’s your face-to-face place in the digital world. It can signal that your practice is current and up-to-date with technology and present your practice as a positive and approachable place.
Start with a plan. Choose social networks that make sense for your practice and your demographic. As a small business owner, you don’t have unlimited resources to spend on every social channel just because someone mentions they use it. Focus on where your core patients are, and put your efforts there.
If you’ve already got your social business pages set up, take a look at who are connected with you, and whether they’re engaging with your content. If you’re losing engagement or aren’t posting regularly, it can indicate some degree of business turmoil or instability and may impact attrition and new patient conversion.
You’ll also want to take a look to see how you’re stacking up against your competing area dental offices.
Once you’ve nailed your networks, your practice philosophies are in place, and your goals and target audience are defined, you’ll be effectively positioned to build your presence. The fact is, the more likes you have, the more people will see your posts.
Social channels like Facebook prioritize fresh content, so it’s important to post at least once per week and not more than five times. Studies show that posting more than five times per week can drop conversion and if you post more than once per day, your second post might not get any traction. Quantity over quality doesn’t win when it comes to Facebook.
Appealing and relevant content wins every time. For a dental office, the sweet spot is 1-3 posts per week – with ENGAGING content.
Social media marketing follows the same patient journey path as your traditional marketing might. You begin by building awareness, generating consideration, moving the decision-making process along, delighting patients and creating advocates for your business. You’ll want to consider your target audience for location, age, gender, and their pain points so you can build all of this into your content strategy.
When creating your posts remember that:
● More than half of your of posts should be useful/educational
● 10-20% can be promotional
● 10-20% can be about your practice culture, your community or holiday related
It’s about hitting a nice mix over the course of each month.
When you begin social media marketing, think about your brand image and unique value proposition. Your posts should reflect your brand “voice” so that patients and prospects get to know you and your team and what it might feel like to visit your office. You can use a mix of photos, videos, memes… people go on social media for entertainment. Make your posts visual, easy to consume and connect the messaging to your audience.
Use tools and supports to make social media marketing easier. Scheduling tools help project planning and reduce resource during prime practice hours, and by selecting a team lead to be your “social monitor”, you can feel more confident that you’ll stay abreast of what people are saying and to ensure you respond quickly to any comments or reviews FAST. By “being there” quickly you will show patients and prospects that you care.
