Social Media Marketing Tips for Dental Practices
Using social media for marketing is hardly a new idea, but there's a reason for its popularity. Social media provides an excellent opportunity for dentists to connect with old patients and attract new ones. It's also a method to combat the all-too-common fear of the dentist's office and encourage trust in your dental practice.
Putting your company on social media can seem incredibly daunting, but it will become much more doable of a task with these tips and tricks. It's all about sharing your company values and making your presence known to customers, old and new. With a well-thought-out strategy, dental practice social media marketing can take your practice to the next level.
Benefits of Social Media Marketing for Dentists
As with many other industries, there are several benefits of social media marketing for dentists. Some of them include:
- The ability to connect with customers. Customers might enjoy building a relationship with you via your social media pages.
- Easy accessibility for patients. Social media is incredibly accessible since so many people use it in all forms every day.
- Increased ability to reach patients. Social media is good for reaching customers who may not have known about your business otherwise.
- Shareability. People can share your posts and generate more traffic towards your page.
- The opportunity to teach. You can use your social media to teach people about the importance of dental hygiene and visiting their dentist regularly.
- Being able to decrease fear. Many people are frightened of going to the dentist. Using social media provides a promising chance to lessen that fear.
Read on to see our dental practice social media marketing tips for maximizing your online presence.
Develop an Authentic Voice
Perhaps the most essential tip for any social media strategy is staying authentic and genuine to yourself and your practice. Your audience will appreciate authenticity much more than a persona that's too ‘polished.’ You probably already know your brand's unique voice, whether it's informative, friendly, passionate, authoritative, or something else. Your social media presence is a perfect opportunity to showcase the specific personality you've already spent time cultivating.
An authentic presence better helps you connect with current and potential clients and shows your audience you are trustworthy. It's no secret some people are afraid of dentists' offices. However, you can potentially decrease their fear of visiting your office if your social media posts are authentic and convey a knowledgeable yet friendly attitude.
If you showcase the office dentists on your pages, people might start to realize they don't have anything to be afraid of scheduling their regular dental checkups. People could begin to see dentists as trustworthy and approachable rather than intimidating if they see social media posts about the dentists' office being an easy and even pleasurable experience.
Make a Posting Schedule
Staying organized with a ‘content calendar’ is ideal to ensure you stay up-to-date on posting. It can be as specific or as general as you want. Whether you choose to plan posts a month in advance or just a week beforehand, creating some kind of schedule keeps you organized.
With certain platforms like Facebook, you can even write out posts in advance, and Facebook will post them at a later date and time of your choosing.
Examples of dental social media marketing ideas include:
- Patient testimonials
- Weekly posts about the importance of dental hygiene
- Special offers
- Dentist FAQs
- Informative videos
- Dental statistics
- Before and afters
As you can see, there's a whole world of social media content to be found for dental practices. Just make sure you have patient permission before posting any content including them. Creating a schedule periodically will help you take advantage of all the benefits of a regular social media presence.
For instance, maybe you decide to post to your Instagram page on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Every Wednesday, you decide to post a dental hygiene tip, and every Friday, you post an informative video or Q&A with the dentist. On Mondays, you might post a day-in-the-life style video to show patients what you and your team do in the office, or post employee photos, testimonials, and special offers.
A schedule ensures you stay active on your profiles while still allowing for flexibility. If it's only realistic for you to post three times a week, make those three posts effective. Schedules are designed to make your life on social media easier, not to stress you out and distract you from providing the best possible care for your clients. Once you create a posting schedule, try your best to stay consistent with it.
Keep It Consistent
Consistency is key with any goal, and this remains true for dental practice social media marketing. Posting regularly — but not too much — keeps your brand at the top of the customer's mind in the ever-evolving landscape of social media. If you go weeks without posting, your audience might forget about you. Attention spans are shrinking, so you have to post consistently to stay ahead of the game.
Regular posting also helps with brand recognition. When you post regularly, and with a consistent voice, you can reach more people because audiences will start to recognize your company. From there, you stay at the top of their mind with consistent posts.
A consistent schedule also helps you create a “rhythm.” If you make it a habit to follow your posting schedule and post consistently, it will become part of your daily or weekly routine. Thus, it will seem much more manageable for you to maintain in addition to all of your other work.
Prioritize Certain Social Media Channels
Not every social media platform will give you the results you want. Focusing on a few social media platforms might serve you better than trying to balance a presence on all of them.
Which social media channels you choose might correspond to the target audience of your office. There is sometimes a belief only young people use social media, but in reality, people of all ages use social media every day. Check out these stats from Pew Research Center about who is using different social media platforms:
- 77% of adults ages 30-49 use Facebook and 70% check it every day.
- 71% of adults ages 18-29 use Instagram.
- 42% of adults ages 18-29 have used Twitter, while 27% of adults ages 30-49 use it.
- 73% of college graduates use Facebook.
- 81% of people use YouTube.
Overall, around 7 in 10 Americans use social media. Using this research and asking yourself which platform your typical or ideal customer might use is a great way to decide which channels you want to prioritize creating a presence on.
Define Your Audience
An effective social media marketing strategy reaches its intended audience. But before being able to reach your audience, you have to define who they are. Millions of people use social media every day, and you need to market only to those who might be interested in what you have to offer.
Evaluate the traits of your current customers. How old are they? What are their buying habits like? Are they parents, newly graduated college students, or single? Are they working or retired? Where do they live? Defining your audience will also help you choose which social media channels to prioritize in your digital marketing strategy to best cater to their needs.
Be Picky About Your Content
Your content should reflect your company values and voice. To build a meaningful relationship with your audience, you have to stay true — and authentic — to your branding. Generic content will only take you so far. Users will want to know what makes you different than every other dentist's office social media page. Is it your incredible customer service, your amazing staff, your comfortable office, or your accessible payment plans? Express these qualities through your content.
Creating content doesn't have to be difficult. You can take photos at the office or create your own graphics explicitly suited to your feed. Canva is a popular tool for creating social media graphics due to its versatility and accessibility. You can use Canva templates and customize them to fit your needs or create new graphics entirely from scratch. Canva has templates for Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, and Snapchat.
As we mentioned, posting regularly keeps your business at the top of peoples' minds. However, posting regularly doesn't mean posting anything. You should still be critical about what you're putting out there on your feed. After all, it's a representation of your team and your business just as much as any other marketing effort. Ask yourself if your social media presence is consistent with your company messaging, fits your style, and represents your company well.
Keep Your Posts Interesting
Try to stray away from posting the same content every week. While some repetitive posts can be helpful, such as your office hours, your audience might get bored seeing the same posts all the time. Freshen it up with fun facts, dental assistant spotlights, Q&As, or dentist-recommended products.
When creating your dental social media marketing strategy, consider the following factors:
- Color: A curated color palette for your social media channels is a great way to cultivate brand awareness for your business, and it contributes to consistent brand aesthetics.
- Tone: For many companies, a conversational and casual tone works well for reaching potential clients. Your audience will probably appreciate being spoken to in a language they can understand rather than in analytical speech.
- Accessibility: If possible, equip your video posts with captions and use easy-to-read fonts so everyone can enjoy them.
You can also encourage followers to engage with your content by encouraging comments or doing polls on Twitter or Instagram stories. Varied posts will encourage your audience to engage with your content and keep them coming back for more.
Be Open to Changing the Plan
Sometimes you're going to have an extremely busy day where you can't post the content you had planned, or something might come up where you need to post something different from what you had planned. That's okay! It's better to post content you're proud of rather than post just to continue adhering to your schedule.
On the other hand, maybe something unexpected and exciting will happen at the office that you want to post about, such as your 1,000th client, an employee's work anniversary, or a post going viral. You can also rearrange your schedule to post about the exciting event. A live update may be more impactful in this case than something scheduled. It's all about striking a balance between having a plan and staying flexible. With practice, you'll find what works best for you.
Dental Social Media Marketing Ideas
The bottom line is using social media should be fun. You're getting the word out there about your business, and you're engaging with customers new and old. Ready to begin your social media journey but not sure where to start? Check out and feel free to use the ideas below.
1. Tell People About Your Specials and Offers
If you're running a special for the start of summer or for back-to-school, using social media can spread the word. Create a post with the details, including how long the deal is running, any exclusions, and potential savings. You can also use social media to create reminders throughout the duration of the offer.
2. Share Tips and Tricks
Are there dental tips and tricks you've always wished you could tell everyone without having to repeat yourself every day? Social media marketing provides a perfect platform for just that. If there's a toothpaste you want to recommend, you're noticing a lot of people could use a refresher on the best way to brush, or you feel the need for another PSA about the importance of flossing, share it on social media!
3. Allow People to Meet the Dentists
Giving the dentists some time to shine on social media could do wonders for increasing trust and decreasing the fear associated with going to the dentist. Dental anxiety is extremely common, so seeing a dentist on social media might ease their concerns somewhat. Additionally, if they see other people having positive experiences at the dentist's office, their own fear might be quelled.
4. Display Online Reviews
Just like you can share reviews on your website, building space on your social media pamges to showcase positive reviews of your practice is one way to attract new patients. It's also great for putting people experiencing dental anxiety at ease. If they see other people having easy experiences at the dentist's office, they might be less worried about having a difficult experience themselves.
Kleer Growth Services Can Help You Maximize Your Membership Program
Using social media marketing at your office is an excellent way to emphasize the importance of dental hygiene. Oral wellness is integral to overall health, but many people do not have the expensive dental coverage and therefore aren't as readily able to schedule regular dental checkups.
With Kleer's membership programs, the power is returned to patients and dentists. Our Kleer Growth Team is dedicated to helping you implement digital marketing solutions for dental practices to help you make the most of your membership program. Contact us today to learn more!
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