Results to Smile About: How to Boost Your Online Presence

Why Your Dental Practice Should Get Started with Social Media Today

 
Getting started with social media for your dental business can be hard – it’s time-consuming and sometimes very confusing. With so many different social platforms available, it can be difficult to decide which ones to focus on, what type of content to post, and how to measure your return on investment.
There are huge benefits to investing the time setting up social media for your business. You can connect and engage directly with prospective clients, deepen relationships with existing patients, and be in a position to respond quickly to inquiries. Social media is also great for reaching potential customers with targeted marketing, paid advertising and boosted posts.
Keep reading to help you demystify social media for your dental practice. By understanding which platforms are right for you, you can easily boost your online presence and start reaching current and new patients.
 
1. What do you want to achieve? Set some business objectives for your social media campaign, and you will quickly be able to see if your efforts are paying off.
2. Think how you want to be perceived. It’s a good idea to decide what style of ‘brand voice’ you want to use to engage with your prospects and patients online. Do you want to be serious and business-focused, or does your dental practice lend itself more towards a lighter tone? You do not need to throw your professionalism out of the window, but social media is a great place to show off your team’s personality.
3. You don’t need to be everywhere. Choose which social platforms will be the most suitable for your business needs, and focus on those. See below for a helpful rundown of what works best where.
4. Research the competition. Before you begin, take a look at the social media offerings of your competitors, as well as that of companies you admire. Take note of what works well and what could be improved. This will help you get a better idea of what content you should be developing and posting for your dental practice.
5. Consistency and quality are key. Make it easy for your potential patients to find you, by using the same business name and logo everywhere online. Follow guidelines for image sizes and resolutions, as these vary from platform to platform, and always use high-quality images. Good spelling and grammar are also very important.
 
 

The most popular platforms

Facebook has a huge user base with more than 1.8 billion monthly users, and is best for consumer-oriented products and services – so it is perfect for your dental practice! Try sharing content such as educational tips and success stories. You can also use paid advertising and boosted posts to reach highly targeted prospects.
Twitter is great for sharing short snippets of information. Links to interesting articles on your website or elsewhere would work well. It’s good to include a photo with each post to make them stand out in your followers’ Twitter feed.
LinkedIn is good for establishing strong business-to-business relations. Articles about business practices and professional matters work best here and can help you improve your online presence.
Instagram is perfect for promoting products and services with a strong visual component. Try sharing behind the scenes photos and patient before and afters. Nothing will show off your business and personality like the winning smiles of your happy customers!
 
 

See How You’re Doing

Once you have everything in place, you should start to track customer engagement. This is important to see the impact and reach of your social media efforts. It can be as simple as a spreadsheet where you log how many ‘likes’ each post receives, or something more complex like reviewing Facebook Insights and LinkedIn analytics. For more sophisticated tracking options you can use Google Analytics to see if your social media efforts are driving traffic to your website and landing pages.
 
For more help on how to set up your social media, download our handy checklist here:
How to Get Started Using Social Media
 
Setting up social media for your dental practice needn’t be like pulling teeth! By understanding which platforms are right for you, you can easily boost your online presence and start reaching existing and new patients.
Don’t have the time to do it all? At Different Perspective, we specialize in digital marketing. We offer social media setup, management, content creation and advertising – contact us today!