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Point/Counterpoint: Social Media by Jason Lipscomb, DDS

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Many of you have heard about using social media for your office, and even more of you might be feeling the pressure to get started with social media. My partner and I created the company “Social Media for Dentists” in 2009 to help dentists get started with social media (www.facebook.com/socialmediadentist). This might not seem that long ago, but a lot has changed since then. Social media has quickly grown from a novelty into a full-blown marketing juggernaut. Major brands have embraced the use of social media and the membership numbers have grown. The major players in social media have changed and grown many times over. The consensus is still quite clear that social media can be an effective marketing tool.

Let me first preface this article with the fact that I love SEO! I am not here to doubt the effectiveness of getting your Web site to the top of Google, but it is this love of SEO that drives my social media passion even further. I also know that SEO is not the only way to online success and it isn’t always the easiest goal to obtain. Those who disagree with that statement, please explain how to fit 100 dentists into the 10 spots available on the first page of Google. SEO is very competitive in some areas. Google has even begun to sabotage the SEO efforts of successful dentists. They are now placing display ads in and around your Google Places listing.

In this day and age, you need the diversification that social media provides. You need the ability to produce content quickly and have a large library of alternative content when Google changes its mind. A successful online plan will result from creating a large online footprint spread across many facets of the Internet. There are so many benefits to social media. Here are 10.

It’s Free!
Many of you will probably object to the fact that social media marketing is free, but at its core it is. It doesn’t cost a thing to start a Facebook page, a Twitter account, a Flickr page or a YouTube page. You can get rolling in a matter of minutes. It might take some time to manage, but a well-run social media campaign should only take minutes a day. Many of you probably say, “Time is money!” That is very true, but how many dentists have attended social events only for the networking capabilities? That takes time too. In this case, you are spending that time in an online social forum instead.

One of my favorite free and easy social media platforms is Flickr. It is as simple as it gets. You can create a great online library of content just by uploading photos with great keyword titles and descriptions. I have seen many businesses that have a great number of quality links to their Web site directed from Flickr. You can get great links, which are a big part of SEO, from social media sites.

To be Successful in SEO, You Need Social Media Accounts.
Google and Bing have said time and time again that social media chatter is a part of how they decide who reaches the top. The new Google+ platform is a glaring example of this idea. As an active Google+ member, my search results vary greatly when I am signed into Google and when I am not. This placement is all based on my activity on the Google+ platform. Google can see the things that I have indicated “Like” or “+1” so it thinks they are important to me. They then present these listings because Google wants to give me personalized results. Someone who has paid for SEO efforts can be trumped simply because I have clicked the +1 button on a listing.

Try it. Do a search for a local dentist or business. Sign in and out of Google and watch the changes. Find a business that you like on a distant Google page, say page four or five, and “+1” it. Wait and then do that search again while signed in. You will see that page rise in rank because you have put your stamp on it. I have seen listings that were on page five or six rise to page two within minutes.

Google SEO has Two Divisions.
One is SEO for the Web site and the other is for local optimization. In most cities, the top of Google is dominated by a joined listing which is a combination of a Google Places listing and a Web site listing. The local search element is driven by diversification and the citation system. Citations are mentions of your “brick and mortar” business information across the Web. These mentions are usually made up of four things: name of your business, address of your business, phone number for your business and reviews. Every time Google finds a piece of information that matches your Google listing it builds a citation, and the more citations the better.

Social media is perfect for building upon the citation system. You have control over your user name, page name and posts. This is the perfect opportunity to build a free library of citations. This is why I always tell our clients to make sure that the name of their Facebook page and the listed information matches their Google Places listing, because it all counts as a citation. Your posts should also reflect the knowledge of the citation system by including the elements listed above – name, address and phone.

You Have an “In” to Manage Your Reputation.
During the past few years, dentists have become aware of the need for reputation management for the dental office. These days what is said about your business online can make or break you. Bad reviews can happen to good people and they can be very damaging. The best approach I have found to manage your reputation is to generate as much good content as possible to drown out any bad. I try to avoid any nasty confrontations or legal wrangling, if possible. This is not only important on Web reviews, but it is also very important on Facebook. Many of you have heard the story of a pediatric dentist in California who gained national attention because an unhappy parent started a very prolific anti-doctor Facebook page. The poor doctor did not realize how pervasive Facebook could be.

The truth is Facebook has a quasi-SEO feature in and of itself. Content is ranked based on several factors and this can work for or against you, just like regular SEO. Someone with bad intentions can easily create content besmirching your name on Facebook and without any competition, that content can become your online reputation. If this were happening to you, wouldn’t you want to know about it as soon as possible? That is why it is a necessity to generate content under your brand and keep it active. By asking patients to write positive reviews on your Facebook and other review sites, the good content will help dilute any possible malfeasance toward you or your business. It will steal the thunder of any wrongdoers. The continued work of building content will also push you up in the Facebook-contained “search engine” and make your office more likely to be found.

A Social Media Presence Makes You Approachable.
SEO is not only getting you to the top, it is what people find there. There is no purpose of pushing to the top if consumers don’t like what they see when they get there. Consumers are investigating deeper and deeper into their choices. You have to present a well-rounded choice for them. A Facebook page is part of that process. Many decisions are based on reviews and real-world interactions from other consumers. In a dental office, being a real person can go a long way. Presenting your office as an approachable entity will help ‘sell’ your office once they find you.

Facebook Ads Work if Done Right.
Paid advertising on sites like Facebook can be very effective, but odds are you probably aren’t using paid Facebook ads correctly. Think about all the information that the average person gives Facebook when they sign up. Name, phone number, address, job, education, e-mail, friends, family, shopping habits, music choices and even a person’s exact location! Now think of what information you give Google... not very much. This wealth of information can be a great marketing tool.

Many of you who have tried Facebook ads probably subscribe to the shotgun approach. Send an ad out to as many people as possible in the hopes that large numbers will come into your office. This doesn’t work when you consider the rules of presentation marketing. You need saturation! Your ad needs to be seen by the same person multiple times to be effective. Facebook ads presented to a large group will probably be seen only once by the target, if at all. The large target audience can burn up your pay-per-click budget quickly with no one seeing the ad more than twice. This can get expensive quickly and nothing hurts more than an expensive failure.

Facebook ads work best when targeted to small groups. An ad targeted to 100 people will be seen by the same people over and over again. Facebook ads also have fantastic targeting features. Can you target Google ads based on a consumer’s workplace? No. But Facebook can target ads based on multiple factors including workplace, gender and location.

Recently a local company near my office was going to relocate the personnel from its Connecticut office to the nearby Richmond location. I read about it in the paper and heard it from a patient who worked there. I was able to target a Facebook ad to those who worked at the location in Connecticut and tell them to come to my office in Richmond after they moved. In the end, the ad was targeted to around 100 people. The ad was very inexpensive because I was targeting to such a small group. My ad was seen over and over due to the small target audience and $20 spent resulted in seven new patients. Those seven have since resulted in more patients through word of mouth. The small target audience keeps costs down while improving effectiveness.

Twitter Can Help You Make Valuable Connections.
Who wants to be on TV? Would you believe Twitter could get you there? It did for me. I was able to be seen on the local news more than five times because of Twitter. The popular belief about Twitter is that you have to get thousands and thousands of followers to be successful – maybe for Ashton Kutcher, but not us dentists. Don’t worry about numbers! Make connections with influencers and decision-makers around town.

In my Twitter efforts, I made connections with local TV news anchors and personalities. I was sure to comment on their posts and give them compliments. I made sure they knew I was there. During some of my normal posting, one of the local news anchors became interested in what I had to say. She contacted me through Twitter and said she would like me to appear on the Monday Medical Minute. When she arrived to film the story I gave her some other story ideas. From there I appeared on the program three times and have an open invitation to return. I had three quality TV appearances for a Tweet that took all of 10 seconds to compose. I chose to connect with the right people around town and it paid off. You can do this as well! Many news anchors and journalists are active on Twitter. They are always looking for new content, so be there to provide it for them!

YouTube Videos Often Rank High on SEO.
YouTube is a no-brainer! This social media platform is the darling of its parent company, Google. Even though it is considered a social media platform, it is a very valuable SEO tool as well. Google will try to present a YouTube video in search results whenever possible. A well-optimized YouTube video can go a long way toward building your online footprint and it isn’t hard! Your YouTube videos can be a smashing success, but you have to remember a couple of things. First, create content for the topic of which you would like to rank well. If I want to rank well for the search of dental implants, I will create a series of videos about implants. If I want to rank well for orthodontics, I will make a series about orthodontics. Second, you must remember to name the videos using keywords to match the search terms. Before long you can have quite a collection of videos! They don’t need to be long. Google looks at how many people actually watch your videos all the way through. You want them to be short enough that someone will watch the whole thing.

Blogs are One More Avenue to Your Web site.
Blogs are another useful part of social media. Much like YouTube, you can cater your blog post to coincide with your search desires. Write a blog post about implants if you want to show up for the Google search of local implants. The great thing about a blog is you can create tons of great content that will inform your patients and present to Google at the same time! Blogging allows you to create great content for your Web site without having to be a Web designer. You can’t expect patients to hang on your every blogging word or to subscribe to your RSS feed, but it’s one more social media platform that allows you to create some of the best SEO elements, links, Web copy and keywords.

A blog should be a mix of several things. It should be interesting enough to share on Facebook. Titles should be catchy and the content should be informative but not preachy. The content should be fairly short and easily digestible by the general public. The blog should eventually pull users back to your main Web site where you can seal the deal. The blog should contain links and use keyword-optimized anchor text in moderation. Always remember your local search basics (name, address and phone number). Your blog should contain these items so Google can build a citation for your local listing.

Blogs can help you be algorithm-proof. A well-constructed blog post is the ideal piece of Web property. It offers a good amount of written context in which to reference the keyword it describes. It is meant to be informative and well explained. Google loves this type of content. The panda update openly penalized Web sites that did not follow this plan. Newer updates to the Google algorithm, such as Caffeine and Freshness, reward sites that have recurring new content. This doesn’t mean you should change the main text on your Web site every month, but it does mean that an active blog can help you. The freshness of your implant-themed blog post might help it rise to the top of Google when someone does an implant search.

Google Uses Your Information From Facebook.
Did you know that Google and other search engines actually index the content on Facebook? Google even announced recently that it could now read Facebook comments, so Google can see almost everything on Facebook.

Now that we know that Google can see your Facebook page, always be conscious of what you post. Name your page to match the name of your business exactly as it is listed in Google Places. Make sure that your address and phone number listed on your Facebook page match your Google Places so you can generate every citation.

Conclusion
These are just a few of the benefits social media can provide for your office. Be sure to follow “Social Media for Dentists” on Facebook to monitor up-to-date social media news for your office.
Author's Bio
Dr. Jason Lipscomb is a general dentist who operates two practices in Virginia. He specializes in helping dentists expand their practices through the use of social media. Jason started Social Media for Dentists to help dentists master social media and attract new patients by gaining exposure online. To learn more about creating successful social media and Internet marketing strategies for your practice, visit Jason’s Web site, www.socialmediadentist.com, and on Twitter at @socialmediadent.
Dentaltown Magazine
September 2025
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