Around users use social media. That’s about 3.48 billion people. If your dental practice isn’t embracing Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and other social media, then you’re missing out on the market where use social media to find things they need.
Is your dental practice still waiting for a good reason to jump into the social media game? Let’s take a look at how social media could get you more dental patients.
1. Patient Engagement Gets Patients In Your Office
Dental practices that have embraced social media continue to reap many rewards while strengthening patient loyalty and reaching the right patients at just the right time.
The more you know about your current and prospective patients, the more power you have over what they learn about your practice. Social media, more than any other medium, gives your dental practice the ability to learn about your patients, and it allows you to target specific demographics of patients.
Dentists often think their target audience is everyone, but it’s not in the eyes of social media. If you want to tap into the market of the millions of people in your community, you need to try targeting a niche or specific group on social media.
Here’s an example of slimming down your audience from everyone to a niche group:
Everyone → People over 40 → People missing 1 or 2 teeth → working professionals → people who don’t want gold teeth = Adults who want a professional image despite missing teeth
From this, you now have keywords you can expand on to create targeted social media ads, so when a working professional over 40 scrolls through Facebook, they’ll see your ad that explains how you can get them the smile they want.
This type of social media engagement is just the tip of the iceberg. As a dental marketing company, we have years of experience in creating finely tuned dental Facebook ads to help our clients reach the patients they need.
2. Social Media Is Data For Dentists
Social media, more than any other medium, gives your dental practice the ability to learn about your patients even before they become your patients. By targeting your message to the correct audience through , you gain precise control over your advertising dollar and the direction of your brand image, too.
With social media, you can also look at video insights and analytics to learn more about who is engaging with your content.
What makes social media so unique is that it encourages individuals to open up and be honest about their experiences, wants, needs, preferences, and spending habits. Whether your patients are on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, or other popular social media sites, gaining access to this useful information gives you the power to react to trends and refine your branding strategies.
If you notice your ads do really well with 25–30-year-olds, you can start tailoring your next round of ads to speak to them more and grow that audience.
Your patient base can also help you connect to other potential patients that share their likes and dislikes and who can be influenced by others within their social circle.
For tech-savvy dental practices, your social media can provide a useful stream of data to help you adapt to current trends and subtle changes in your potential patients’ preferences as well.
3. Social Media Creates Brand Awareness and Can Set You Apart
Every dental practice should have a dental brand, and connected to that is a dental brand identity.
By , people will be able to recognize your practice more often. This sort of recognition won’t get them in the doors right away, but it puts you in the back of peoples’ minds.
Being in the back of someone’s mind is a powerful tool because when a dental emergency or need comes up, you move to the front immediately.
People don’t often think about researching dental needs in advance, but if they notice you’re a practice that constantly shares content, then when they do need something, you may become their new dentist.
Social media will then also remind your patients of your quality dental services and encourage them to continue coming to your office for years to come.
4. Valuable Patient Feedback Is Right at Your Fingertips.
Every practice can appreciate—and benefit from—. Social media is the ultimate patient survey where individuals open up and tell you how they really feel.
Whether these reactions are positive or negative, your reaction can mean the difference between losing a patient to your competition or winning someone over and strengthening loyalty.
If you have ever been curious about what your patients want, social media can help you run a more patient-oriented practice.
5. Social Media Helps Your Content Show Up
If you’re not using social media, your dental website might not even show up on Google’s first page of search results. Increasing your web presence not only increases your SEO, but can also get you in touch with future patients.
Anytime , Google takes notice. The more people checking out your content, the higher you’ll rank in Google’s search results.
Advertising on social media won’t get you millions of website visitors. But it can help you get a few dozen, or a few hundred, which down the road can help convert into getting more and more patients in your dental office.
Need Help With Dental Social Media Ads?
If social media advertisement sounds like something your practice doesn’t have the time or expertise for, we’re here to help. As a , we know dental marketing like you know healthy brushing practices. Feel free to reach out and contact PMAX Dental online or by phone at (888) 292-2158. We’ll set you up with a free social media analysis to help get your dental practice moving in the right direction.
