Dental Relationship Marketing

Archive for the ‘Social Media Marketing for Dental’ Category

With traditional media like the Yellow Pages and newspapers waning, and online advertising clearly on the rise, many practices are wondering if social media marketing would be a good fit for their practice.

In this short program, I summarize the key reasons why your patients are on social media sites like Facebook (over 15 hours per month on average!) and how you can connect with them there, including:

• Why social media matters and how online behaviors are changing
• How social search may change Internet search
• If sites like Facebook are a good fit for your practice
• Where to focus your social media efforts to get results
• Ways social media marketing can fit into your overall marketing plans.

Is Social Media Right For Your Practice (25 minute audio)

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One of the primary indicators of Facebook marketing success is engagement.  In other words, how many interactions (likes, comments, etc.) you regularly receive.  If you notice that your Facebook community is a bit flat, check to see what your posts look like aesthetically.

Dentist and her two Stellas (Stella the Bernese Mountain Dog and Stella Scooter)

Are your posts plain text or simply accompanied by an automated feed symbol? Remember that every post you make is competing for attention with your audiences friend’s posts—those posts of friend’s Hawaii vacation photos, cute kids and pets, or announcements of engagements or pregnancies … This means that your posts often need a photo or interesting graphic image in order to garner attention.

In fact Harvard Business School research about understanding social networks found, “The biggest discovery: pictures. ‘People just love to look at pictures,’ says Piskorski. That’s the killer app of all online social networks. Seventy percent of all actions are related to viewing pictures or viewing other people’s profiles.”

You’ll often hear marketers recommend using a photo instead of a logo in profiles, which I agree with.  However equally important is being aware of what your posts look like before sharing.  Experiment with fun, unique photos and track the difference in attention you receive.

If you’ve already been posting with photos, test different types of pictures to see which motivate the most interaction.  Marketing successfully in social media requires one very important component—a new mindset.  Remember the “social” in social media (don’t post about dentistry constantly).  The “social” aspect is what allows you to build relationships with Facebook.  Explore which photos or images work best for you, have fun, and keep me posted on your progress!

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Twitter continues to spark the interest of dental and medical practices.  Are you actively tweeting?  If so, learn how to make the most of your tweets in my special DentalTown social media focus article. Here is an excerpt:

Be social. Once you have successfully completed your profile, you are ready to begin tweeting. Remember the “social” in social media… you don’t have to tweet about dentistry [or healthcare] all the time. Begin to “follow” others. Try following waves of 25 people at a time, rather than instantly following 500. Focus on quality [building relationships] rather than quantity.

Read the entire article.

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Many practices have already begun Facebook marketing.  If you are one of them,  have you considered how you will track your effectiveness? As with any marketing activity, social media efforts should be measured.  Below are several metrics you can use to determine how you are doing.

1.  Number of Quality Fans – note the word “quality”.  Huge numbers of people who like your practice Page are likely irrelevant if those fans live outside of your geographic area or if they are not genuinely interested in your practice (for example, people “liked” your Page as a favor to a friend, however they immediately hid you from their newsfeed).

A quality community consists of existing patients, family or friends of existing patients/potential new patients (people who live within reasonable traveling distance of your practice), alliances, referral partners, neighborhood friends or colleagues, and those with a genuine interest in you, your team, or your practice.

2.  Testimonials / Word of Mouth -  Facebook testimonials are more valuable than your average  testimonial.  For one, friends of friends may have witnessed the testimonial post via Facebook’s newsfeed.  Second, the patient’s testimonial rests adjacent to their profile photo—this gives life to testimonials in ways not possible in the past.

Avid Facebook users find Facebook a convenient—and meaningful—outlet to share both what they like and dislike about businesses.  I’m happy to report that I’ve already witnessed dozens upon dozens of highly complimentary patient comments and outright raving reviews about dentists and team members.  While you may not be able to put a dollar value on testimonials, they could be the deciding factor for a new patient weighing whether you are the best fit.

3.  Website Traffic – hopefully your practice is already using a tool like Google Analytics to determine where your website traffic is coming from.  This free tool can prove invaluable by informing you where web visit referrals are originating.  Talk to your webmaster about Google Analytics or a similar report that you can easily follow.

4.  Engagement / Interaction – a unique benefit of social media is the ability to interact and converse with your audience.  Many practices are successfully using creative programs to motivate interaction.  If your Facebook Page participation is low, consider what you can do differently to change this.  A huge benefit of social marketing is the flexibility it offers.  Explore various types of programs and posts to see what interests your community most.

5. New Patients – often times practices will say they are seeing the number of new patients “from the Internet” grow.  With the addition of Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube, it’s important to be able to distinguish exactly where on the internet you were found.

If you are actively marketing on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube, add these choices to your patient registration forms.  This gives patients a convenient option to specify exactly where they found you, and it also serves as a reminder of your presence in these platforms. In addition you may consider a specific phone number to track where phone calls are originating.

Remember that interaction, consistency, and patience play a key role in social marketing.  It is not managed, nor can it be judged as quickly as a traditional postcard campaign.  In fact, consider social marketing a long term program.  Similar to word of mouth marketing, the movement of social metrics may be slow.  However the quality of new patient referrals via social media (conversational, relationship-focused) will be far greater than those acquired via traditional media (one-to-many, sales-oriented).

Which metrics are you tracking to measure your social marketing efforts?

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