How to Market your practice via Facebook, Twitter etc ?

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Upcoming “Dental Economics” article about social media.

by Jason on December 3, 2009

Dental Economics Article
by Dr. Jason Lipscomb D.D.S

Welcome to the Internet land rush of 2009. In the late 90’s the dental practice website was the “you have to do this” item dujour. Now almost everyone has a website, and there is a mad dash to have the best SEO (search engine optimization) and highest Google ranking, but having a Social Media profile is quickly rising on the “you gotta have it scale”. For those of you who have been living under a rock, social media is a broad term that encompasses the use of the Internet for social purposes i.e. Facebook and Twitter.

I recently gave a short presentation in North Carolina about social media and was very surprised about the response I received. Many people had heard of social media, Facebook and Twitter but did not know how it would be useful to their practice.
Many were worried about privacy, and many were concerned with the amount of time it would take. The most common comment was that they did not have time for social media.

The wonderful thing about social media is that you have a lot of choices out there. You don’t have to worry about being in every platform. You don’t have to have to manage 5 profiles to be out there in the social media marketplace. You can easily find a niche. Some locales aren’t good for social media. I have two offices in two different cities. Facebook gets a wonderful response in one city and not in the other. On the other hand, it is the reverse for Twitter. So I focus more on Twitter in one area than the other. You may find this to be true in your town. Different social media platforms can be synergistic if you try, but don’t over extend yourself and get burned out.

Here are some of the most common questions/concerns with starting a social media marketing plan.

I don’t have time for Twitter.

Twitter is one of the simplest forms of social media, but so few people “get” it. People often think Twitter is a forum where Ashton Kutcher can muse about things, but used in the correct way it can be a very powerful marketing tool. You are restricted to postings of 140 letters or less. This is the perfect solution for those who don’t have “time” to do social media. A gentleman once asked how much time per day does it take to be involved in social media. I responded “I don’t know. How long does it take you to type 140 letters?”. The biggest mistake you can make in social media is to not be out there. SEO is great, but there are only 10 spots available on the first page of Google. What happens when everyone has SEO? Not everyone is going to be on the first page no matter how hard you try. Why not make a personal connection with patients and potential patients. Why not position yourself as expert in the community? But I digress. Start out on Twitter the easy way. Upload a smiling picture of your face. People will be more likely to connect with a human face than a logo. Which dentist should I go to? This nice looking fellow, or the one with silhouettes of ducks? Your Twitter background is valuable real estate. It may look cool to have a picture of your office in the background, but it does not convey any information. Have a background designed that has your website, telephone #, and a brief description. A good general rule for Twitter postings is 95% personal or fun stuff, 5% dentistry. Don’t talk about dentistry all the time, it will keep your followers from getting burned out. Post one or two things a day, but at the end type #dentist and #(name of your town). “#” makes the following word a searchable item. Make sure to use lots of keywords when you post. Search engines like Bing and Google are starting to include content from tweets in their search results.

Social Media is only For Teenagers —>Facebook

Many of you think Social Media is only for teenagers to send those text message things. This is one of the biggest misconceptions out there. Facebook releases stats about its users all the time. Some of the most recent stats state that the biggest growing demographic on Facebook is females over the age of 35 who make more than 25K a year. Think about it, who makes the majority of dental appointments in the household? Who is usually responsible for making dental appointments for children? You guessed it, Moms. Moms who are on Facebook. Heck over 60 percent of the entire population of the U.S. have a Facebook account. The average user on Facebook has over 130 friends connected to their account, and are on Facebook an average of 19 minutes a day. You would have to have some pretty great content on your website to keep someone’s attention for 19 minutes a day. Facebook is the second most visited website just below Google. There must be a lot of teenagers in the country! The truth is when you use Facebook correctly, you can tap into the viral power of a great platform. When you provide great content to one person with 130 friend connections, who can then share it with their 130 friends, and so on, you have the potential to reach thousands. The great thing is this viral capacity is built into the program. Facebook wants you to share the information. Do yellow page ads have a share button?

I don’t feel like social media is secure, and it is too complicated—>LinkedIn

The more business minded, more secure, older brother of Twitter and Facebook is LinkedIn. While an all business attitude is usually frowned upon in Twitter and Facebook, it is the lifeblood of LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a stripped down version of Facebook, but it has growing power. The average age of a LinkedIn user is above 30. 66%of LinkedIn users earn more than 65K a year. 72% of users are college grads. A lot of talk about the effectiveness of social media focuses on the qualified patient. I think many of us would be happy to have patients with this type of background. LinkedIn has come into its own with the passing of the 50 million user mark. LinkedIn is very easy to use and caters to those who are not very tech savvy. It is a great jumping off place for those new to social media. Connections between users is strictly regulated, so those concerned with privacy will feel quite at home here. Since it is a business based platform your resume and work experience play greatly into your profile. You will not be able to market to the average Joe, but you can search by company of employment, and connect with the human resource manager of the company next door. Fill your profile out to the max using many keywords about your practice. Make as many connections as possible and join all of the local relevant groups. Start discussions within the group and answer as many questions as possible. Position yourself as the local dental expert. Give and request recommendations from other users to generate word of mouth.

I don’t use Social Media, but I will use YouTube!

Many of you use YouTube to post videos and get your word out there. YouTube is actually considered social media. Some of you who swear by YouTube and shun Facebook will be thrilled to know that the average YouTube visitor is in their mid teens. Posting on YouTube has a lot of functionality and can be shared almost anywhere. Be sure that your website address is overlaid in all of your videos. Put it in the bottom right hand corner and out of the way of the main content. Request comments and views wherever you can. Be sure to comment on your own videos. When you do comment use many keywords and provide links to your website. Be aware that viewing other videos while you are signed in to YouTube will create connections to your videos. Be sure to use caution when you are watching these other videos, and use these connections to your advantage. The more viewing you drive to your video the higher it will be ranked.

Once again you don’t have to be a master of all the social media outlets. Find one that really works for you and run with it. When you hit your stride start branching out to other platforms. Use one platform to build another. Many cross platform applications are now built in i.e. the Twitter/LinkedIn sync. Social media will not replace all of your marketing efforts, but it will make you look like a person and not just another name in the phone book or Google search. The best reason of all to use social media is it is FREE and it allows you to express all of that knowledge you have gained over the years. Take control of your destiny. Get started in social media today.

Dr. Jason Lipscomb is a general dentist working in Fredericksburg and Richmond, VA. Dr. Lipscomb founded Social Media for Dentists with web specialist Stephen Knight. Dr. Lipscomb is the author of the book “Social Media for Dentist” due to be released December 10th. Dr. Lipscomb and Mr. Knight will start a Social Media educational tour on Jan 9-10 in Durham, NC. http://socialmediadentist.com

        

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