Proven Strategies to Grow Your Dental Practice
Whether you're looking to gain new patients or engage with existing ones, digital marketing and social media are crucial for your dental practice.
Social media channels are where your patients spend a significant part of their daily time. Effective marketing for a dental practice in the digital era involves understanding your target audience, creating compelling messaging, and consistently sharing your message across social media channels.
If you think that’s easier said than done, you’re right. But with this article, we are determined to put you on the right track and equip you with the right tools to reap the benefits of dental social media marketing so you can acquire patients.
Why Dental Social Media Marketing is an Important Part of Digital Marketing for Dentists
Unlike your profession, which you received formal education to practice, social media marketing is a ‘learn as you go’ skill that has become integral for dentists to grow a practice. Let us look at how your practice can benefit from it.
Patient Acquisition: Before making any commitments, 41% of patients today check out healthcare practices on social media. You can receive a large chunk of your patient bookings from your social media pages as it acts as another avenue to advertise your practice.
Cost-Effective: Traditional forms of marketing such as TV, newspaper, and radio ads can consume your entire marketing budget compared to content put on social media, which is free and stays on your channel forever.
Visibility and Brand Reach: Since your audience spends more time on digital devices compared to any other form of media, that is where you are most likely to catch their attention. Unlike paper ads that are printed and distributed in certain areas, you can reach a much wider audience using social media.
Awareness: By and large you are not restricted by as many rules, length and formatting restrictions, or script to advertise your practice on social media when compared with traditional media channels. You can talk about your services, create learning content, or share success stories to inform your audience about why they should choose your practice over your competitors.
Engagement: Once your patients are out of your office, they have to be reminded about your exemplary care so that they keep coming back to you. By connecting with them via social media, you can foster engagement and top-of-the-mind recall with your content.
Virtual Introductions: Your social media channel acts as an online brochure to your services that your audience can browse through at any time, without having to interact with your staff, giving them an opportunity to decide for themselves.
Longer Shelf Life: Social media content consumption is dictated by your audience. They can take their time to watch, listen, or read your content multiple times or even save it for later, as opposed to TV viewership which is governed by scheduled programming.
More Impressions: Your social media handles add another avenue to building your online presence that will result in a better ranking on search engines. Interaction with your social media channels in turn boosts the authority of your website.
Social Media Channels for Dentists
Just like every dental problem has a specific treatment, every social media platform caters to a certain type of audience looking for relevant information that fills their needs. Let us understand what each platform has to offer that can help you build your content strategy.
1. Facebook
As one of the pioneers in dental social media marketing and a platform that boasts 1.84 billion daily active users, you must create a Facebook page for your practice. Advertising on Facebook has been steadily rising as businesses have successfully generated leads and built a niche following for their content.
Cost: Free | Pay to promote your content
Best for:
•Patient testimonials
•Information and sharing news about your practice
•Learning and educational posts (pictures and videos)
•Introducing your dental team
•Professional development news
•Recommending products and DIY tutorials
•Sharing information about participation in networking events
•Holiday or seasonal wishes
2. Instagram
Primarily a visual platform, Instagram is one of the most commonly used platforms by dental practices. With soaring engagement levels among Gen Z and Millennials (64% of Instagram users are under the age of 34), Instagram equips you with the best ingredients to create a perfect recipe for your audience to consume and walk into your office.
Cost: Free | Pay to promote your content
Best for:
•Patient testimonials
•Before and after photos
•Learning and educational posts (pictures and videos)
•Information and sharing news about your practice
•Brand films
•Introducing your dental team
•Professional development news
•Sharing information about participation in conferences, webinars, podcasts, and other networking events
•Recommending products and DIY tutorials
•Sneak peek into life outside the office like family, or other hobbies
•Connecting with other dental professionals
•Holiday or seasonal wishes
Largely used by businesses, content shared on Twitter has a higher focus on the text that may or may not be supported with a photo or a video. The audience on Twitter is more mature (76.3% of users are over 25 years), with people using the platform to keep themselves updated on the brands, political, and financial news. While Twitter may not help you gain new patients, it will certainly help you strengthen your brand image and increase your online presence.
Cost: Free | Pay to promote your content
3. YouTube
As a dental practice, you can find a number of opportunities to shoot videos that are not limited by time to reinforce your brand image and give your patients a preview of your services. On average, businesses publish 18 videos a month across industries, so if you haven’t jumped on the YouTube bandwagon yet, get on before it is too late!
Cost: Free | Pay to promote your content
Best for:
•Brand film
•Patient testimonials
•Dental office tour
•Participation in webinars, interviews, podcasts, and other networking events
•Learning and educational content for patients
•Details about a procedure
4. TikTok
TikTok appeals to a younger audience compared to other social platforms, as they tend to enjoy consuming short-form, entertaining content. There are a variety of content ideas that you can play with that speak to that audience while getting your brand name out there. You can find plenty of great content to begin your TikTok journey.
Cost: Free | Pay to promote your content
Best for:
•Learning and educational content
•Before and after photos
•Fun and entertaining videos
•Product recommendations or demos
•Short patient testimonials
•Dental office tour
•Holiday and seasonal video wishes
5. LinkedIn
Along with connecting with other dental professionals on LinkedIn, you can also create a page for your practice to improve your online presence. The purpose of getting yourself on LinkedIn is not to acquire new patients but to showcase how your education and background have shaped your ideals as a dental professional that reflect in your practice culture. Building your personal brand to emerge as a thought leader will very quickly magnify your audience’s trust in your practice.
Cost: Free | Pay to promote your content
Best for:
•Joining Dentistry discussion forums
•Connecting with other dental professionals
•Sharing professional development news
•Sharing participation in conferences, interviews, podcasts, webinars, and other networking events
•Sharing milestones about your practice
•Share links to your website blog or publication in prominent online publications
•Writing posts about your practice
6. Pinterest
Pinterest is a visual library for your practice to find dental social media marketing ideas to create engaging content. Since your profession is such that images speak louder than words, Pinterest serves as the ideal medium that not only allows you to share your photos, but is another medium to take your patients to your website. If you are just getting started on putting together a marketing plan for your dental practice, you can certainly jot down some easily executable ideas from Pinterest that can contribute to your other social media channels.
Cost: Free
Best for:
•Ideas to create content for dental marketing
•Social media marketing strategies for dentists
•Recycling content to share on your social media
•Building your online presence