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social media

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Using Video to Promote Your Dental Practice

by Naomi Cooper December 4, 2012

Using Video to Promote Your Dental PracticeYouTube is now the Internet’s second-largest search engine. More than sixty hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, and over four billion videos are viewed each day! Dentists around the globe are realizing that offering short videos on their websites and YouTube channels can be an effective part of an overall search engine optimization strategy.

Google bought YouTube in 2006, and therefore has a vested interest in promoting online video and increasing the importance of video in search engine results. Online videos play into Google’s algorithmic preference for fresh, relevant content so your practice is listed higher on Google searches. And the videos posted directly on YouTube drive YouTube search traffic to the practice website as well.

If you want to use video but are not sure what to talk about in the videos, here are a few ideas to get you started:

  • A welcome message from the dentist(s)
  • Introductions to each of the team members
  • A tour of the practice
  • Before and After videos or interviewing satisfied patients upon treatment completion
  • Answers to any frequently asked questions of the dentists or front desk team

Also, check out this informative blog Time to Become a Videographer from Fred Joyal, co-founder and CEO of 1-800-Dentist, and learn some other helpful tricks to help you get started.

Video is increasingly important for dentists to promote their practices online, and it is a great way for potential patients to get to know you before making their first appointment.

Have you posted videos of your practice online? What advice would you have for beginners? If you haven’t used video yet, what is stopping you from getting started?

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Utilize Your Audience and Enhance Your Online Presence

by Naomi Cooper November 30, 2012

Utilize Your Audience and Enhance Your Online PresenceSocial media and online marketing are big topics here on our blog. Whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, or promoting your dental practice blog, we often talk about getting your message out there in the online world. Social media is about engaging, and let’s face it, being SOCIAL!

For dental practices (and other businesses), there is a fine line between engaging online and being too pushy. The goal is to interact with your patients and colleagues, to be authentic and honest, while keeping your dental practice on the tops of their minds. It’s important to remember that it is sometimes okay to leverage your contacts and friends and ask for their support. Here are just a few situations where it’s a good idea to ask for help:

  • Launching a new website: spread the word to your contacts through an email encouraging them to check out the new site
  • Asking patients, friends, and colleagues to like your Facebook business page, follow you on Twitter, or subscribe to your YouTube Channel
  • Implementing a practice e-newsletter and requesting your patients opt-in to automatically receive it

Recently, Facebook announced a new feature where they’re allowing users to sign up to automatically receive all updates from the users favorite business pages. For more information on this new development, and how you can make it work for your dental practice business page, check out this great blog on the topic from My Social Practice.

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6 Reasons You Need a Social Media Calendar for Your Practice

by Naomi Cooper October 23, 2012

6 Reasons You Need a Social Media Calendar for Your PracticeTaking part in social media is becoming an increasingly vital aspect of dental practice marketing. However, engaging in social media can be overwhelming, especially if you are just getting started. There are numerous sites for dentists to choose from (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest to name just a few), and I often hear from my clients that they don’t know on which sites they should engage, and what they should be doing on each of the sites. Not to mention, finding the time to consistently log on and interact can be difficult to fit in an already busy schedule.

To help streamline your social media activity, I recommend implementing a social media calendar. It is a strategic tool that will help you in the following 6 ways:

  1. Plan your communication – For most dentists, engaging in social media is a new habit you need to form. If you don’t take the time to develop a plan for your social media posts, it will most likely fall to the bottom of your to-do list.
  2. Keep you organized – If your social media is organized, it will be easier for you to implement on a consistent basis.
  3. Personalize your content – Planning your social media ahead of time allows you to personalize your posts, instead of relying on generic content you may randomly come across.
  4. Simplify social media – Social media shouldn’t take a lot of your time, so the easier it is to implement, the more likely you will continue to use it.
  5. Create accountability – When you have a plan down on paper, the likelihood of getting it done increases exponentially. Having the calendar is a great way to hold yourself, and your team, accountable.
  6. Build momentum – This is one of the most important results of the social media calendar. When you have a plan to post relevant information to your audience on an ongoing basis, you will increase your audience and reach more and more people.

Creating and using a social media calendar will help you to build a strong online presence for your practice. Remember – marketing is a process, not an event! Take the time to develop a strategy for your social media and integrate it into your existing marketing plan.

If you would like more in-depth information on creating your social media calendar, click here for my free webinar to learn step-by-step on how to implement one in your practice.

Do you currently plan your social media strategy? How do you believe a social media calendar would impact your practice? Please share your thoughts below.

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Adding Social Media to Your Must-Do List

by Naomi Cooper September 12, 2012

Adding Social Media to Your Must-Do ListFriending – Tweeting – YouTubing…do you know what these terms mean? Do you think 5 years ago these terms had any relevancy to you? They are, of course, referencing the social media sites Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Social media is a hot topic in dental marketing these days, and it seems like everyone wants to “be on social media”.

However, it is not enough to simply have a presence. Engagement is the name of the game if you want social media to work for your dental practice. No longer is it good enough to just have a website. In fact, it is bad practice to have a Facebook page for your business if you never update it or engage. Times have changed, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get on board.

Here are a few key ideas to keep in mind:

Social media is not an event – it’s not something you should do once in awhile. To really utilize social media effectively, it should be integrated into your marketing plan. Just as you have your front desk ask every new patient how they heard about your practice, you should also have a dedicated team member updating and interacting online via Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social media sites.

As with anything, developing a strong following on social media takes time and effort. We like to tell our clients social media is not a sprint – it’s a marathon. Building a Facebook page alone will not generate results. Encouraging your patients to Like your page, consistently updating your page regularly with informative and relevant status updates, and interacting with patients and colleagues online – these are the tricks of the trade that will boost your following and turn social media into a relatively easy – and fun! – marketing effort for your practice.

Here’s a great article from My Social Practice offering some questions to ask yourself as you dive into this social media world.

There are countless ways to get involved in social media. As long as you view it as another important piece of your marketing plan, and dedicate time and effort toward engaging, social media can be a fun and rewarding way to increase the awareness of your practice throughout your community.

Does your practice utilize social media? How has it worked for you? Please share your thoughts and comments with us!

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Getting Your Practice Online and Engaged in Social Media

by Naomi Cooper July 31, 2012

Getting Your Practice Online and Engaged in Social MediaHave you been thinking of increasing your practice’s online presence, but not sure how to get started? An increasing number of dentists have become familiar with using social media in their personal lives, but may not be comfortable or know where to begin incorporating social media into the practice’s marketing plan.

Here are a few ideas to consider when beginning your social media campaign:

– What sites are you already familiar with? This will help ease you into social media if you are using a site that you are comfortable with.

– What sites do your patients use? If you do not know, have your staff begin asking patients each day and keep track of the responses. Particularly pay attention to the sites used by patients who are most similar your “target patient”.

There are endless ways to participate in social media online. The most popular sites include Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Google+. It’s important to remember that, with social media, quality is more important than quantity. So if you feel you only have time to engage on one of these sites, it is better to actively participate in just one site and build your audience with thoughtful and timely posts. Once you have mastered one site, you can then think about expanding into more.

Social media is the biggest buzzword to hit the dental profession in decades. Having a presence on social media sites serves to increase the traffic to your practice website and helps new customers to find your information when searching online for a dentist.

Is your practice online? What sites have you found to be most useful for your practice? Did you have any hesitations while getting started? Please share your thoughts below.

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