SOCIAL MEDIA FOR ORTHODONTISTS

[drmithila]

FIVE SOCIAL MEDIA SITES FOR ORTHODONTIC
PRACTICES
Since there are hundreds of social media services on
the Internet, where should we begin? Developing and
maintaining a successful online presence requires time
and effort, so we want to limit our effort to a few of
the best services. To help you get started, I have selected
five that I believe will give you the best return for your
time investment. A case could be made for a different order or five different sites altogether, but as of 2011 here
are my recommendations.
Twitter
Twitter is my choice for the fifth best social media site
for your orthodontic practice; it is a microblogging site.
Think of Twitter as a way to text message all of your patients at the exactly the same time.
One major advantage of Twitter is that it is quick and
easy to use. Twitter users love this venue because it is
succinct (140-character limit) and well suited for use
on a mobile phone. The service is free and easy to set
up. Websites associated with active Twitter accounts
also fare better in Google searches (SEO). Google assumes that a website associated with a 2000-follower
Twitter account has more relevancy than a site with
only 20 followers.
The biggest weakness for Twitter is that only 10% of
Americans have Twitter accounts, and it is estimated
that less than 3% actually use them.
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Another weakness
of Twitter is that the 140-character limit does not allow
much content (although this can be overcome in several
ways).
The Twitter platform provides an additional way of
communicating with your current patients. Some ideas
for useful Tweets include announcements about
available appointments, practice events, contests, and
bad weather. Using Twitter successfully in this manner
requires that your patients are aware of the service.
This can be promoted at patient registration, on all practice correspondence, with a link on your website, and
with specific Twitter registration contests or promotions.
Users of Twitter expect frequent updates from the
people whom they follow. If you begin a campaign
and then fail to keep it up to date, your followers will
lose confidence and will not use the service as you would
like. On the other hand, if you or a staff member gets carried away with tweeting, it can become a drain on your
time. Because of the small percentage of your patients
who are actually using Twitter regularly, it should only
be used as an adjunct to a much larger social media
campaign.
YouTube
YouTube is my choice for the fourth best social media
site for your orthodontic practice. YouTube is a videosharing site that is now owned by Google.
YouTube is huge. More than 13 million hours of
video were uploaded in 2010, and 48 hours are uploaded
every minute. Over 3 billion videos are viewed each day.
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YouTube is free and easy to set up. Making videos with
today’s video cameras and uploading them to your
“channel” can easily be done by any of your current staff.
YouTube’s integrated search engine is used more than
any other on the web except Google, and your video
content can provide information that could lead
prospective patients to your practice.
YouTube’s greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. With such an enormous number of videos available
on YouTube, getting yours found by prospective patients
in your community is difficult. As with website SEO, selecting the best key words and appropriate descriptions
is important in helping the right people find your content.
YouTube can perform two important functions in
your social media campaign. First, it can provide searchable content that can attract new patients directly to
your practice. Your instructional videos might come up
in searches by prospective patients. Fun videos of practice events might also pull new patients your way. Second, YouTube can serve as a video “server” or hub for
your main website, Facebook, Twitter, blog posts,
e-mails, and other practice correspondence.
Patient privacy laws (HIPAA) are easily violated by
practices that innocently post videos of their patients
without their consent. Practices should also be careful
to make sure that the content they post on their site is
legal and that they have obtained appropriate consent
to post videos showing any patients.
512 Jorgensen
April 2012
Vol 141
Issue 4 American Journal of Orthodontics and Dentofacial OrthopedicsPractice blog
A practice blog is my choice for the third best social
media service for your orthodontic practice. A blog is
a chronologic journal or log of content that is of interest
to your current and prospective patients.
Search engines love new content. Google’s search algorithm has two major objectives: 1) return the most relevant search result, and 2) block as many irrelevant
results as possible. Google considers a dynamic, constantly updated website to be more relevant than one
that went online a year ago and has not been updated
since. Properly configured, each new blog post is seen
by Google as updated content, and your site will gain
credibility in search results.
Unlike other easy-to-use web-based social media
services, an onsite blog will require setup expertise
(with the associated costs). Configured incorrectly,
your blogging effort will only benefit the credibility of
the site hosting your blog. Additionally, a well-done
blog requires much time and effort. Topics must be selected that will be of interest to patients and written in
language that they can understand.
In addition to the search engine optimization credit
that you will accumulate by systematically adding new
content to your site, blogging provides useful content
for your current and prospective patients. It gives you
a venue to explain your treatment philosophies and
“park” answers to frequently asked questions. In time,
the volume and scope of your online content will
make you an expert in the eyes of those who read your
posts.
As with YouTube, you must be vigilant about the
content that you post on your blog. Make sure that it
is original or that you give credit to the original authors
if you are using their work.
Facebook
My recommendation for the second best media site is
the social-network giant Facebook. Facebook is an online community of family, friends, coworkers, fellow
church goers, former classmates, and almost every other
type of relationship that you can imagine. When people
think of social media, they think of Facebook.
An old marketing slogan says “fish where the fish
are.” Facebook is where the fish are! Facebook is far
and away the biggest and most popular social media
site in the world. As of August 2011, there were an estimated 750 million users worldwide, 50% of whom log
on daily.
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It has been estimated that 65% of our patients
have Facebook accounts.
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Facebook is easy to use and
has tools that make promoting an orthodontic practice
simple. It provides a place to post information about
the practice, events, pictures, anThere are few downsides to Facebook. One issue,
however, is that Facebook users do not want to be interrupted by solicitations while they are socializing (outbound marketing). Practices need to be careful not to
be blatant in their marketing campaign in either content
or frequency of posts. Facebook is a community of
friends who did not join to be inundated with sales
pitches. Appropriate posts should provide interesting
content and be relationship builders (inbound marketing). Practices that get too aggressive will see the number of users who “like” their practice start to shrink if
posts are too frequent or are just obvious solicitations.
A Facebook presence for your practice allows you to
interact and become friendlier with your patients. It is
a chance for them to stay informed about things happening at the office between visits. It is also a chance for you
to congratulate patients when you catch them doing
something right. Like all social media, you can use this
venue to enhance relationships between you and your patients and solidify their loyalty to your practice.
The biggest threat posed by Facebook or any social
network is the loss of privacy. Depending upon how
you set your privacy preferences, your “friends” will learn
things about you. Every consultant who speaks about
Facebook has a different opinion about how much information should be shared and with whom. Some encourage accepting all patients and parents as friends. Others
are adamantly against it. This is a matter of personal
preference. Regardless of which side you support, just
remember that whatever you post can end up all over
the Internet. Never share or post something you
wouldn’t want to be posted on the wall of your office.
Other Facebook threats have to do with your staff.
Before implementing a Facebook site in your office, be
sure to have a Facebook policy in place for your practice.
Social networking can be addictive. There should be specific policies about whether staff members can access
their personal accounts from the office or during work
hours. There should be specific instructions about HIPAA
and slandering patients, coworks do not have to be your friends or
have an account to see your Places listing. It pops up
when anyone searches for your office. Once verified
and edited, your Places listing has a wealth of information that complements your practice website and Facebook profile. There are pictures, videos, your logo,
maps, directions to your office, links to your website,
and descriptions of the products and services you offer.
Google Places qualifies as social media because one of
the most prominent features is the inclusion of reviews
from customers (patients).
Although you can do many things to improve your
Places listings’ position in a local search, there are some
things you cannot change. One is distance to your “city
center.” A practice located closer to the physical center
of town will search higher than one farther away.
9,10
Another weakness is that Google favors the Places
listings of practices actually located in the searched
municipality. So, although your practice might be
located just over the border of a city where most of
your patients reside, Google will give preference to
practices with addresses actually located in that city.
Lastly, Google sometimes creates multiple Places
listings for the same business. This is a problem
because reviews, citations, and other SEO factors are
then diluted between the multiple listings. If you
discover that you have several listings for your
business, you should take steps to merge them into one.
Your Google Places listing gives your practice yet another opportunity to be found by prospective patients.
The information on your Places listing can distinguish
you from other practices in your area. Additionally, patients who are happy with you can share their experiences with potential patients right there in the results
of their Google search. Positive reviews are what social
media are all about, and the reviews on Google Places
are front and center.
Unfortunately, Google Places posts bad reviews
along with the good ones. These reviews can come
from anyone, including disgruntled patients, employees,
or competitors. Because anyone with an e-mail account
can create a Google account (whether or not they’ve actually been a patient), fake reviews are also possible. For
this reason, practices must verify and monitor their
Places listing so that they are aware of what is being
said about them.
GETTING STARTED
As with any other new office procedure, developing
a successful social media campaign will require planning
and effort. Start by updating your current website so
that it is easy to find and has links to and from all of
your social media sites. Verify your Google Places listing
and check it for accuracy. Add additional information
such as pictures, logos, and descriptions. Set up your remaining social media profiles and link them back to your
main website. Make an update calendar that includes
who in your practice will be responsible for each site.
YouTube and your blog should be updated at least
monthly. Facebook should be updated weekly. Twitter
can be updated several times each day. You should
also assign one staff member to monitor the reviews
that appear on your Places listing once every week.
You don’t need to have everything perfect before you
start creating content. You can update your Facebook
status right away and post some practice pictures. You
can start jotting down ideas for topics and write some
posts even before your IT people have your blog configured on your website. You probably already have some
videos that you can post to your newly created YouTube
channel. You can send out your first tweet in less than
a minute. Don’t feel that you have to do it all yourself.
Assign staff members to take pictures and videos. Consider hiring technologically savvy patients to help you.
They are naturals!
Finally, get the word out. After you’ve got your sites
all up and have started creating content, let your patients know. Incorporate social media icons into your
website, blog, practice correspondence, and marketing.
Use one form of social media to promote another (ie, announce your latest blog post on Twitter and Facebook).
Set up a kiosk computer in your reception area to encourage parents to “like” you on Facebook or “follow”
on Twitter while they’re still in the office.
CONCLUSIONS
Social media is already affecting our practices
whether or not we choose to participate. Patients are
talking about us. They always have. Now they just have
a more efficient way of doing so via the Internet. Incorporating social media into your current marketing campaign will allow you to participate in the discussion
and will eventually mean more patients for your practice.

        

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