In this day and age, with the rise of technology and smartphones, social media marketing is playing a significant role in the success of brands and businesses alike.
In the past, dental practices have relied on traditional marketing strategies to reach out to potential patients, but with the shift in our reliance on technology, it is time to implement a new strategy into your marketing plan. To target new patients, you must have an effective marketing plan in place, and social media needs to be a part of it.
Social media marketing involves using social media platforms to connect with an audience and promote your business through relevant content that you create specifically about a dental practice. You will reach your potential patients where they already spend most of their time on social media, giving you an advantage.
By promoting your practice on social media, you will reap all the benefits of having a successful marketing technique by using this to engage with potential patients and showcase your expertise in the dental field. Social media marketing is a budget-friendly way to build trust with potential patients, increase awareness about your practice and establish a credible reputation online.
Why do dentists need social media?
Social media marketing is now considered one of the most effective ways to receive customer retention in the united states. This is playing a key role in the branding and marketing strategies that are being put to use by businesses all over. These strategies are helping reap actual results, including an increase in traffic to your landing page and an influx in conversion rates.
It is essential to incorporate social media into your current marketing plan in your dental practice, giving you an advantage over competitors in the same field. Social media marketing opens the door to many opportunities, allowing you to reach patients in new ways and begin building a community through your online presence.
Social media allows you to be visible to a larger audience of potential patients, connect and engage with them, showcase your expertise and actively promote your practice.
Sometimes it isn’t even about having a ton of patients calling in, but more about meeting with a patient, showing them the credibility of your practice and seeing their satisfaction with your service. It is about the patient that keeps coming back, bringing their kids, telling their neighbors, and who will share your posts on social media.
Social media gives you the chance to simultaneously bring in new patients while building better relationships with your existing patients.
What is dental marketing?
Dental marketing is the marketing strategy and marketing tools that dental practices or dental clinics use to attract new patients.
Essentially, every interaction you have with potential or existing patients is a form of marketing. Aside from traditional dental marketing, dental social media marketing is a simple way to reach a larger audience, build a strong reputation, and rank higher in a google search.
With an authentic and engaging social media presence, a strong landing page, and a user-friendly website, you have everything you need to successfully market your dental practice.
How do you market a dentist?
To efficiently market your business on social media, you need to consistently post engaging, relevant, and valuable content. Simplicity is key, so keep your posts straightforward but educational. Social media is a visual platform, so use this to your advantage by posting relevant photos, infographics, or videos to reach potential patients better.
Here are some ways to successfully utilize your social media presence:
- Post influential before and after results to influence your followers
- Share positive patient reviews or testimonies you receive
- Post infographics about oral hygiene to educate your audience
- Create a faq (frequently asked questions) or q&a (question and answer) posts
- Post time-sensitive updates (closings, office hour alterations, etc.Facebook) to inform existing patients
Use social media as a way to interact with potential and existing patients, spread knowledge with your expertise and show off real results. This will promote your business while showing the integrity of your team.
11 quick tips to encourage potential patients with your social media
1. Use Facebook as a marketing tool
With over 258 active monthly users in the united states, facebook is retaining a huge online audience, both globally and locally, making it the perfect platform to promote your business on. It is a simple, easy-to-use option that will help you reach potential patients in your area.
Since Facebook is the most commonly used marketing tool in the united states, with over 94% using it to promote their business, this gives you the perfect opportunity to successfully build awareness surrounding your dental practice.
Use your Facebook page to interact with existing and potential patients, through the unique content you create and the knowledge you share through your posts. This will alter your online presence, making you more well known and respected by potential patients who may come across your page.
Facebook is the perfect place for sharing photos, providing updates, asking for client intel, doing a live q&a, or posting dental tips. These can be valuable ways to connect with potential patients on your Facebook page.
2. Use Instagram as a marketing tool
With over 120 million active users on Instagram in the united states, this photo-sharing app has become an essential part of any dental practice’s social media marketing plan.
By creating an Instagram account, you are allowing yourself to connect with potential patients on a platform that is solely picture-based, which is perfect for a dental practice to use and showcase their dental expertise.
Instagram can be useful by giving patients a place to tag when sharing photos of their pearly white teeth, but it can also be successful for posting behind-the-scenes images, promoting events, and sharing before and after shots of satisfied patients.
3. Use Youtube as a marketing tool
There are over 203 million YouTube users in the united states, and this number is expected to grow to 222 million by 2025, making it an essential tool in any social media marketing plan. Creating a youtube channel for your dentistry is a simple, cost-effective way to show off your practice and educate potential patients about the benefits of bringing their dental needs to you.
Among the users on youtube, 62% access the video platform on a daily basis, making it an easy way to reach your audience, share your knowledge on oral hygiene and interact with potential patients to promote your practice.
Youtube can be valuable for sharing oral hygiene tips, posting patient testimonial videos (with written consent), office tours, and q&a interactive videos to educate potential patients about your practice and the perks of trusting your team.
4. Create and post relevant infographics
By creating personalized infographics about your dentistry or information regarding oral hygiene, you can reach your audience in a creative way, using visuals to capture their attention. You can display useful information about your business or dental care, using your expertise to influence how your audience perceives your practice.
Using infographics is a simple yet effective way to educate potential patients while showing them the credibility that you have in this field. Because of the visual appeal of Facebook and Instagram, posting infographics to these platforms will be one of the most influential and impactful ways to utilize them.
5. Share patient testimonials
By sharing real patient testimonials with your audience through social media, you allow your followers to see real stories from real people, proving the expertise of your dental practice. Potential patients will better understand what you do, and the satisfaction other patients have felt after coming to your practice for their dental needs.
Potential patients will build trust with your business through the stories you share that will reach them on a more personal level.
This will allow you to share positive reviews and patient experiences that were more than satisfactory, giving you a leg up in this field.
6. Post before and after photo results
As a dentist looking to expand their business and increase their patient conversion rates, an impactful social media marketing technique for your dentistry will be posting before and after photos of a previous patient’s teeth. This shows potential patients real results, showing your practice’s professional education and knowledge in this field.
You will build trust with your followers, showing potential patients the results they can receive if they choose to get dental work done by your team.
7. Share valuable information about your team
To gain trust, build loyalty, and share your team’s knowledge with potential patients, it is valuable to post updates about your dental team or any information about their professional careers. Doing this simple technique will add a spotlight on your practice and your team to engage with your audience on a better level.
Use social media to post about your team, show off their abilities and help potential patients see the bigger picture of your dentistry. This will give them insight into your team members, helping build authentic trust between potential patients and your practice.
8. Post about current events or updates
To keep your audience and local patients up-to-date, social media can be a great tool to share information that is time-sensitive to your business. This can be about events, location changes or office hour updates, anything that existing patients may need to know.
Social media is a quick and easy option to share details about events or fundraisers that are happening at your office. This will not only give potential patients the opportunity to interact with you in person but also allow them to see the community you have built around your business.
It will also be helpful to post time-sensitive content on your social media page, such as hour or location changes, so that patients can easily look at your posts and be notified about important office updates.
9. Use social media to educate potential patients
One of the most effective ways you can use social media for marketing is to educate your online audience, sharing your expert knowledge on oral hygiene and the dental field. Through simple graphics or curated posts, you can share basic knowledge or unknown facts about oral hygiene with your followers on social media.
This is an easy way to engage with your online audience, display valuable information and prove your credibility through your professional knowledge and education.
10. Post consistently
To be successful on social media through your marketing efforts, consistency is key.
You don’t necessarily want to be overly active, posting multiple times a day, but it is good to post at a consistent rate to continue to create an authentic online presence for your practice.
This will show potential patients that you are dedicated to your social media page, your audience, and promoting your business. Your consistency will prove loyalty to your practice while engaging and interacting with existing and potential patients for the best results.
11. Target your local audience
While it is important to create a social media page to reach out to a larger audience, it is also important to remember to reach out to your local audience more specifically.
Your local audience is valuable; they are the potential patients who will most likely utilize your dental services since you are close by or worth the drive, if not too far away. Once you meet with a new patient, you can begin to build trust and turn them into a returning patient who is satisfied with the results of their dental hygiene due to the expertise and knowledge of your dental team.
Reaching out to your entire online audience is essential. Still, it is wise to reach out locally and target potential patients who reside in the same area as your practice to receive higher conversion rates.
This specific dentistry chose to interact with their local Facebook audience by posting about the derby in Louisville, KY. Since their office is in Clarksville, Indiana, they knew local patients would most likely be interested in the derby. It was such a big event in the area, so this helped local patients engage personally with this team and their page.
Using social media marketing to bring your practice success in 2021.
To successfully market your dental practice, you need social media to be a key part of your marketing plan. This involves using Facebook, Instagram, youtube, or all three to connect with a larger audience, share your knowledge on dentistry, and build a community of loyal followers who are interested in your service.
By having a social media account, you will be able to post photos or infographics that will support your team and your practice, proving the credibility behind all you do.
If you are looking to increase your patient retention rates, build a loyal following online, establish an authentic social media presence and increase traffic towards your landing page—social media marketing is the right tool for you to use in 2021.
Use these quick tips to encourage patients and engage with them online, building success for your practice through your activity on social media. This will help maximize the promotion of your practice and turn potential patients into existing patients with time.
To increase the marketing techniques and strategies you are using, partnering with Podium may be the next step for your dental team. Podium can give you the head start you need by sharing their social media marketing tools with your team to bring success to your practice.
