Social Media For Dentists: Everything You Need To Know

Master Social Media For Dentistry

Social media is a huge part of today’s information landscape - and it’s only getting bigger. Facebook has nearly 2.5 billion users, Instagram has over 1 billion users, and Youtube has over 5 billion video views a day. Your dental patients spend large portions of their days on social media.  That’s why it’s important for your dental practice to be authentic, active, and accessible on social media.

Benefits Of Social Media Marketing For Dentistry

Marketing a dental practice can be simple with social media. Up to 80% of Americans have some anxiety about dental treatment. COVID-19 has placed extra pressure on dental practices.  Social media gives you the opportunity to present a warm, friendly, engaging and safe side of your practice. This builds trust with your most anxious patients - and builds quality relationships with your current patients.

Social media marketing gives you the chance to get in front of new patients who can otherwise be challenging to reach. Patient retention offers can include promotions or giveaways to keep loyal and satisfied patients returning back to your office.

Look at the comments on Teeth Talk Girl’s youtube video about what to expect at a dental visit. Building trust through video and social media breaks the barrier of the dreaded dental visit.

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Social Media Marketing Strategy For Dental Practice Growth

Be specific about your goals for using social media marketing strategy. You want to be strategic by targeting potential patients in your area and remembering to think of which demographic you’re trying to attract. It’s better to pick one social channel and do it well than to spread yourself thin on too many channels.

Developing your social media marketing strategy is just as important as creating content for your dental practice. When it comes to creating dental social media posts, it's important create both paid and organic posts.

The types of content are important too - there are two main kinds. Organic content means you create a post and your audience finds it naturally. Paid content is, of course, content you’re paying to promote on social media - it’s a different kind of ad. Your dental practice needs to master both.

Organic content:

Organic content is less expensive - you can create and post it yourself, no advertising budget needed. But you’ll need to put in months of work at a minimum before you start to see results. Your social profile needs to be a billboard of what your brand and practice represents.

As social media grows, it’s becoming a bigger business than ever, which limits the reach of your organic content.  Facebook will only show your posts to about 10% of your audience unless you pay them for ads. Your social media strategy need to capture that other 90% with paid posts.

Paid content:

Paid content, on the other hand, creates very quick results. It requires lots of fine-tuning to get it right. After all, if you’re reaching 2.5 billion people but none of them live in your area, your practice is not going to see new prospective patients coming in from those ads. Both methods require real work to get real results - they just move at different speeds and come at different costs.

Find Your Social Media Audience

Building your social media audience takes time. Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram are so saturated that it takes work to stand out from the crowd. Paid ads are usually necessary to be even remotely competitive at first. But, building an audience isn’t just about getting a lot of likes or followers.

You need to figure out what, exactly, your target audience is - How old are they? What do they do for a living? From there, you can investigate what your audience wants to hear about. Maybe they’re looking for oral health tips, or dental anxiety relief, or more personal content from your practice.

Tip: If your dental office is just starting out, pick one social media platform and be consistent with it.

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For example, TeethTalkGirl has hundreds of videos & articles on dental-related topics and has created a reach of 40 million people a month.

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You need to have an audience that’s interested in what you have to say - otherwise, you’re spending your time and money for nothing.

How To Use Facebook For Business

Your Facebook business page should act as your second website, provide dental clinic information, business hours, and review of your practice. Facebook business pages can reach a very wide audience and here’s how to get them interested:

Organic efforts:

Create content around the office showcasing your employees to build trust. That way, potential patients can get the chance to see you as people, not just as dental care providers. That builds trust. Patient retention efforts are also very effective, such as creating giveaways or seasonal offers and promoting them on your page.

Paid efforts:

This is the place to entice potential patients with deals and specials they will remember. Paid ads will pay off for you when they bring in new patients through raising your profile to people who haven’t heard of you yet. Use our Facebook Ad guide to get your first campaign up and running.

Building Your Dental Practice’s Instagram

Finding success on Instagram follows many of the same basic principals as Facebook - but with a few twists. Instagram is a primarily visual platform, meaning you need to put more effort into creating beautiful and shareable content here. Instagram is a critical part of your social media marketing plan since patients can see your practice.

Organic efforts:

Your dental practice's Instagram profile should be a representation of your office. Instagram can be a great place to share relatable human moments around the office - such as a smiling patient (with their written permission, of course), or the cozy waiting room you’ve thoughtfully designed. Like Facebook, this is a great place to promote giveaways or special offers to your loyal patients.

Paid efforts:

Ads on Instagram appear in the image feed itself, so you want to have top-notch visuals for this platform. Ads are a great place to reach local people who haven’t heard of you yet and need a nudge (like a great promotion) to get them in the door.

Youtube For Dentist

More than two billion people watch Youtube every month. Youtube just on mobile phones reaches more people in the US than any television network. Video can seem like a challenging medium, especially for medical professionals.

TeethTalkGirl’s audience has watched more than 30.5 years of oral health content on Youtube in 2019. Companies, such as Crest and Waterpik, have put ads in front of her videos because they know there’s a concentrated and engaged audience watching because they care about their oral health. So how can you join in?

Below, look how this dental practice is utilizing TeethTalkGirl’s audience and is advertising on a video with half a million views.

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Organic efforts:

Introduce the dentists and staff at your dental practice, and give a few fun facts about them as well as professional credentials. Do an office tour so patients know what to expect. Showcase your success stories - such as patients who responded well to treatment and are willing to be featured.

Paid efforts:

Film a short (less than one minute) commercial for your practice or create skippable video ads, and target consumers who are already interested in dental health on YouTube. For example: TeethTalkGirl’s youtube channel.

Which Social Media Platform To Start With?

Social media has become an integral part of our lives. It’s how we communicate, share information, and connect with others. Social media marketing for dentist is a great way to connect with people interested in your dental practice. So which social media sites should you use for your dental practice?

Instagram

If you’re looking to start social media marketing for dentist, then Instagram might be the right choice for you. This photo-sharing app allows users to post photos and videos up to 15 seconds long. You can post photos and videos of your dental office allowing potential patients to get familiar with the dentist and dental staff. Instagram is also the easiest to use social media platform with a low barrier of entry.

Dental Social Media Marketing Campaigns 

For dental social media, it's important to focus on the performance part of marketing. Attract new patients with social media ads. Dental practices should focus on paid social campaigns to drive new patients and organic posts to ease dental fears or anxiety.

Working with a social media management company can help with paid social if you are not comfortable with managing ads. Social media management companies can help you with both paid and organic posts to craft the perfect message to help amplify word of mouth.

Top Tips For Social Media Marketing

Although each social media platform is different, they have many elements in common. A few last tips to improve your social media marketing strategies and become a dental social media guru for your practice:

• Use video content. It’s the fastest-growing medium and not just limited to Youtube - it’s very effective on Instagram and Facebook too. It can be intimidating to start, but remember that shorter is usually better.

• Use social media as a way to promote patient retention. Social media posts can remind patients of how much they enjoy your services. Also, it’s a great place to share giveaways and special offers.

• Get your practice and employees involved in your social content. Social media is most effective when you’re featuring people in an authentic way - and your people are the backbone of your practice.

• Be personal. Remember your audience - you’re talking to people who don’t live and breathe dental talk. Keep the jargon out of posts and use clear, concise language everyone can understand.

• Showcase before and after cases. This is a powerful motivator for new customers - share what great improvements patients had after visiting your office.

Mastering social media marketing for your dental practice isn’t easy - but it’s important. Social media for dentist can completely change your dental practice. With a little time and some thoughtful content, you’ll be well on your way to dental social media success.