Are you looking for a strategy to use social media in your dental practice? Social media marketing for dentists isn’t any different than social media marketing for other small companies. For decades, dentists or healthcare providers have relied on word of mouth to grow their reach and reputation. However, regardless of the sector you work in, social media is gradually becoming more important for reaching a viewership.
In fact, according to a PwC survey, over 40% of healthcare buyers search for health information as well as client evaluations on social media.
This opens up an incredible possibility for dentists to connect with current and potential patients where they spend the most time. Let’s look at how to create a successful social media marketing plan for dentists!
Why Is Social Media Marketing Important For Dentists
Dentists may use social media as a two-way street to generate business and inform patients at the same time. Apart from informing consumers about things like location, services provided, working hours, and more, social media allows dentists to develop a personal relationship with their patients and construct a strong brand for themselves.
Building Relationships
Let’s be honest. Nobody is too thrilled to go to the dentist. People can often be nervous about visiting the dentist, which causes them to postpone appointments. As a dentist, you have the ability to develop excellent connections with your patients, and social media can assist you in doing so.
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat are all examples of social media platforms. Social media is a place to interact with people. Connecting with your audience on social media offers the possibility to develop trust with them if you engage with them.
When patients feel that you are putting their well-being and comfort first, they will likely have faith in you. On the other hand, if they believe you to be someone who means “totally business,” it is probable to exacerbate their existing anxiety surrounding dental visits.
Creating A Reliable Brand Voice
Having a strong social media presence can help you establish your own brand. To stand out in the crowded social media scene, you’ll need to develop a brand voice like any other business.
As a dentist, your best option is to have a brand voice that conveys trust. While many businesses portray themselves as fun, sophisticated, or even exclusive, as a dentist, your greatest bet is to have a brand voice that exudes trust.
You may advertise your expertise and history to demonstrate to your audience that they can rely on you. To illustrate your knowledge, you can provide them useful information or advise.
That isn’t to say you have to come across as a boring physician. You may include some humor in your content and display an unusual personality, so that people are eager to meet you in real life.
Your objective is to create a brand voice that assures people of comfort, trust, and relief through the use of social media. It’s not the same kind of excruciating pain they had imagined when they thought about a dentist.
Position Yourself As A Leader
Social media allows you to take things to the next level and position yourself as a leader while also allowing you to easily develop great relationships and establish a consistent brand voice.
It’s the same in digital as it is in real life: being a leader implies authenticity, trustworthiness, and consistency.
You may begin by using testimonials or reviews from clients on social media to establish your credibility. To be seen as a leader, you must assure your audience about your knowledge and reputation.
You have the option of sharing informative articles, taking part in online awareness campaigns, and directly answering your audience’s questions.
You may also share important research findings in a digestible format, or you can educate your patients about new types of therapies and procedures. Working with your colleagues might help you establish credibility as an industry leader.
Attract New Clients
When individuals are looking for a new dentist, they aren’t generally in the mindset of just going once and then forgetting about it. Patients don’t readily move dentists unless they are dissatisfied with the treatment. This makes seeking out new clients more essential.
You may schedule a patient’s first visit using social media. You may offer a limited-time deal or referral discounts to entice people to come in. This won’t cost you anything if you have a large enough following.
Choosing The Right Social Media Channels For Dentists
Facebook in social media marketing strategy for dentists
The majority of your potential customers may be found on Facebook, making it an easy choice. Because there are over a billion users on Facebook every day, the site can get crowded at times, which necessitates extra effort from you in order to succeed.
To be clear, however, the value of Facebook is found in your audience’s relationships and how effectively word of mouth may be shared across the site.
The company offers a variety of content types, including texts, pictures, films, and live streaming. You may use it to offer your audience a “behind-the-scenes” look at your job by sharing photographs of your team and workplace.
You may also suggest informative articles and blog entries that might be beneficial to your customers. You may hold weekly or monthly Q/A sessions to interact with your audience. These can be quite successful at getting people interested.
Always keep your Facebook page up to date with recent information about hours, location, and so on.
Instagram in social media marketing strategy for dentists
Despite the fact that Instagram does not have a large audience or distinct content types comparable to Facebook, it may still help you develop your brand voice. Instagram is especially popular among Millennials and Generation Z consumers, who are also some of the most active users of social media.
If your clinic specializes on cosmetic dentistry, Instagram may be a great place for you to grow your business.
You may use Instagram to show clients their photo-ready grins, as well as a few interior shots from your workplace. If you can include narrative into your Instagram content, it will be far more interesting.
Please note that the caption contains several hashtags. Hashtags can be a useful tool for increasing interaction if utilized correctly. A branded hashtag, on the other hand, might help you develop a distinct brand presence.
Twitter as part of social media marketing strategy for dentists
When it comes to reaching a broad audience, good ol’ Twitter isn’t very far behind. Although content on Twitter needs to be more specific and compact, you can use it to your advantage if you play it right.
A few words on Twitter’s short-form content may attract attention. Aspen Dental ( @aspendental) combines texts and pictures to engage their followers by providing amusing replies to a question. They also utilized a branded hashtag (#AspenNation) to build a series of posts while maintaining consistency.
You may also use Twitter to promote dental hygiene pointers or start a discussion about common queries.
YouTube as part of social media marketing strategy for dentists
Dentists may use YouTube to develop their audience’s trust by uploading a video about dental hygiene.
On YouTube, people are constantly in search of recommendations and instructions. Dental health information is popular on YouTube, including content on how to keep your teeth healthy. As a dentist, you can produce material that demonstrates dental hygiene techniques and offers them useful information to maintain their oral health.
You may also conduct Q/A sessions or interviews with your coworkers. Dental Health Group’s video, for example, has a dentist answering common questions regarding aesthetic dentistry. This sort of film will aid you in gaining confidence among your consumers and establishing dominance in the industry.
TikTok in social media marketing strategy for dentists
TikTok is a relatively new social media network that’s gaining traction fast. It has video clips of fifteen to sixty seconds in length and can be an excellent method to get your material noticed quickly.
TikTok’s user base primarily comprises of Generation Z, with over 1.5 billion downloads to date.
Because it is a new platform, you may gain a competitive advantage by getting on board early.
You may be wondering what a short video platform with a largely youthful audience has to offer you. Here’s an example to illustrate the power of TikTok. Dr. John Yoo explains why it’s dangerous to open a bottle with your teeth in this amusing clip.
As a dentist, this may appear to be straightforward advice you’d offer to your patients, but the video was shared more than 80 thousand times and has over 3000 likes.
6 Effective Strategies For Dentists To Master Social Media Marketing
1. Take a Personal Approach
If you’re trying to establish trust with your audience, avoid writing too scientifically. You want patients to trust you as a person. Sharing pertinent material helps your audience think of you as an expert. However, sharing content that has a personal touch, such as behind-the-scenes photos or a client success story, helps people see you as someone they can relate to.
Sharing an amusing meme once in a while is a wonderful way to personalize your social media presence by requesting a few chuckles.
2. Publish Engaging and Informative Content
It’s an excellent approach to exhibit your expertise by publishing informative material about oral care. Furthermore, assisting your clients avoid any dental problems helps them regard you as someone who cares about their health rather than a business looking to get them to make an appointment.
The size of your audience’s network is what makes social media so powerful. If your fans find your postings to be useful, they are likely to pass them on to their friends. According To a Survey, 49 percent of people say that if they believe material is instructive and beneficial to others, they are more inclined to share it. As a result of publishing informative content, not only does it give value to your followers, but also improves your reach and interaction.
3. Interact With Your Audience
It’s not enough to simply provide useful information on social media in order to improve interaction. Connecting with your audience is essential for developing meaningful relationships with them. It’s as simple as asking about their dental health habits or their preferred toothpaste brand, if that’s all you know about them.
You may ask questions and use the question sticker to do so on Instagram Stories. You may also share replies directly to your stories using this method. You can live stream on Instagram Stories or Facebook Live and engage with your audience in real time.
Making an effort to converse with your followers is a good way to increase your credibility and, as a result, attract new customers.
4. Share Reviews From Dental Patients on your Social Media
Reviews are an excellent method to display current client word of mouth. People are more inclined to be influenced by the thoughts of other individuals than marketing content. Why not turn your clients’ opinions into marketing material?
You may utilize the same branded hashtag in all of your patient review postings, making it simpler for potential clients to locate them all at once.
If you don’t have any reviews, offer incentives to your patients for providing feedback. In a short period of time, this will help you get a lot of good reviews.
5. Invest in Paid Social Media Ads for Your Dental Practice
By a long shot, social media marketing is the most cost-effective form of advertising when compared to traditional methods such as newspapers or periodicals.
You can target the demographic, geographical location, and interests of your desired audience with social media advertising. To locate people who are similar to your existing client base, you may create lookalike audiences based on a contact list and upload a custom audience.
The right people and a following will develop based on your organic content and sponsored advertisements on social media.
6. Tailor Your Content To Each Platform
The most typical social media marketing blunder is to post the same material on every platform. Each social networking site has its own set of strengths and limitations. Text postings on Twitter, for example, may be more successful than text postings on Facebook.
There are many different audiences on each social media site. Sharing dental health information for older folks on Facebook may be a wonderful post, but it’d be odd on TikTok.
In order to avoid creating irrelevant material, try to adapt your content to each platform. This does not necessarily imply producing entirely unique material for every platform. You may always repurpose material to fit the channel you’re utilizing, as demonstrated by this 15-second vertical video on TikTok that I’m sharing on Instagram and Facebook Stories.
FAQ
Should I reply to negative client comments on social media?
Yes. You should attempt to address as many bad social media posts as possible. It’s only the beginning of the story. If at all feasible, reach out to those who had a terrible experience and see if you can figure out what went wrong and how you might have prevented it.
How much does social media advertising for dentists cost?
The expense of social media advertising is highly variable, depending on the marketing strategy, budget, and target audience. The typical monthly ad spend might be anything from $200 to over $50,000. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by it all, consider outsourcing the job to specialists.
How can dentists reduce the time required to manage social media marketing?
You don’t have to individually publish each of your postings. You can utilize Postfity to schedule your content across several social media platforms and acquire extensive insights into how it performs.
