The True Power of Social Media by Hayley Irons

A marketing director offers her top tips for social media marketing success

by Hayley Irons

When I mention marketing to most dentists, their eyes almost visibly mist over with boredom, and I can understand why—you guys get to do all the cool stuff!

You trained hard to be able to provide the incredible service that you do. You give your patients increased confidence with smile transformations, and in some cases you even save lives with early mouth cancer detection.

In comparison, marketing really can be boring. However, for any business to reach its maximum potential, marketing is crucial. With so much competition around, if you don’t shout about what you do, patients will simply find somewhere else to go.

If that’s caught your attention, here are my top tips on making the most out of social media for your dental business.

Know your competition
Pinpoint your direct competition and find them on various social media platforms. Keep an eye on what they’re doing and see what types of posts are working for them. These are the businesses that are targeting the same type of patient as you, so using this information can help you gauge what kind of posts you should be creating to gain some traction. The rule is not to copy content —use this as a basis to form your own social media campaign.

Portray your personality
People buy from people, and I firmly believe that personalities are vital for encouraging others to buy into whatever you’re selling. Just being you, with no pretence or facade, will help to show potential patients what they can expect when they visit your practice. A good agency can do this for you by spending time understanding you and your business.

Use images
Posts with eye-catching pictures or videos make us stop scrolling. There’s nothing wrong with using stock images, but I recommend mixing it up with as many ‘real’ pictures as possible. Photographs of the practice and the team are great for building a great visual of your dental business before someone has even visited. Dentistry really lends itself to some excellent imagery; sharing a before-and-after image of someone’s smile can truly say a thousand words in one picture. Be sure that you’ve gained the correct consent from the patients first.

Use hashtags
Hashtags allow users to discover content based on particular subjects they’re interested in. If you’re using hashtags like #toothwhitening or #smilemakeover, your post will be more discoverable than if you didn’t use hashtags.

I highly recommend hashtagging your location to help attract patients in your area. Exercise some restraint, though—using too many hashtags in one post will simply look like spam, and cause many users to carry on scrolling.

Use the analytics
Once you get going and it all starts to feel more natural, you can begin to look at the insights on each social media platform. These are great tools for helping you understand which posts are working for you and which ones aren’t. With this information, you’ll be able to tweak your campaign to make it more effective and target your audience better.

Opting out isn’t an option
Like it or loathe it, social media has changed our lives. From the way we interact with each other to the way we search for a new product or service, having this medium literally at our fingertips has brought the world closer, making it easier to find what we’re looking for.

In such a fast-paced arena, you can’t afford to sit back and let people find you; instead, you need to create content that people want and ensure that it’s searchable—all while building up a persona that shows off who you are and what your business is all about.

Only then will you see the true power of social media!