Learning Center Topics: Dental Marketing

By now, most businesses have made the transfer to online communications. However, healthcare is one sector that is often still going through the process of learning how to communicate online. Patients will obviously eventually need to meet their dentist face-to-face, but their search for the right dentist starts online.

Email marketing is a highly effective digital marketing strategy, no matter what type of business you are. It is a very powerful tool that any business in any field and of any scale can use to acquire, engage and retain clientele. You need to understand, however, that there is an art to email marketing. With everyone being able to unsubscribe with the touch of a button, you need to find the fine line between marketing interesting, informative and insightful and bombarding and hassling your clientele. 

Email marketing helps you connect with your audience to promote your brand and increase traffic to your dental practice. You can actually do a lot of things with emails. Not only are they a great way to market your business, they are also a great way to sell products and drive traffic to your website and clients to your actual practice. 

Click here to read more about content writing for dentists.

Most people also try to fix their problems at home or attempt to avoid them and doing that also starts online. This is where quality content comes in. Your content needs to be good quality so that when you start your email marketing campaigns, your patients have good content to read when your emails direct them there. 

Email marketing for dentists helps practitioners to: 

• Provide quality and helpful content 
• Engage existing and potential patients 
• Increase revenue 
• Prove personalised experiences
• Advertise discounts, deals and promotions
• Increase brand awareness

Click here to read more about marketing a dental practice.

Does email marketing work?

While email marketing has a lot of competition in the marketing department, it is undoubtedly a marketing method that still works, while still being very cost effective. Companies that utilise email, and do it well, can reap the benefits that come from that market technique.

Sending mass emails to your marketing list can increase your brand awareness, keep existing patients engaged, help retain patients and promote your special offers. 

4 types of marketing emails 

We have outlined the main four types of popular email marketing campaigns and how you can use them effectively to help your business grow: 

Email newsletters

One of the most popular and common forms of email marketing are regular email newsletters. As a dental practice, you can use an email newsletter to provide your patients with helpful knowledge and updates. 

It is important to add value to all your patients’ inboxes. 

To do this, you must create engaging content, including new blogs, how-tos and announcements of new services or deals and prices. 

Send a few articles, blogs or videos out in a newsletter once a month. Maybe include a promotion or two. Behind-the-scenes stories of your team and the practice will also help build a relationship with your patients. 

Acquisition Emails

Acquisition emails can help your dental practice acquire more patients by reaching out to those who have opted to receive your emails but have not yet converted into consistent patients. 

By creating attractive offers, discounts and deals, as well as informative content, you can show all those in your email list that perhaps have missed their routine checkups or have been avoiding the dentist. Or, perhaps simply showing those who are unsure of which local dentist they should go to, the value of becoming an active patient at your dental practice. 

Acquisition emails are a great way to move all potential leads through the conversion funnel a lot faster and grow your patient base as well as drive additional revenue and target users who have expressed some interest at some point in what your practice has to offer. 

Promotional Emails 

Promotional emails are one of the greatest ways to drive new signups, sales and new service offerings for your dental practice. Promotional emails include offers that both entice and encourage your target clients to buy a new service. Use promotional emails to reward engaged subscribers with exclusive email only offers, drive new products you are selling or any new services you are offering. Cosmetic procedures that are hot and trending, such as Invisalign, are always procedures that many potential patients are always on the fence about. Therefore, offering promotions on services like this helps entice those patients into buying into that service.

Benefits of email marketing for dentists

Email marketing is a powerful tool that can be used to engage, acquire and retain patients for your dental practice. By implementing a successful email marketing campaign, your dental practice can benefit greatly. It is important to select the correct email marketing campaign to achieve your goals with this type of marketing. 

Build brand awareness

Before you email your patient list, take some time to design your email template. You need to make sure your emails are consistent in style, reflect your brand and look professional. A poorly formatted, plain email may be worse than no email at all.

Include your brand colours and logo, make your email reflect the design and look of your website. Create a consistent brand and get it out there via email.

Drive traffic to your website

Remember, when your target audience finds your email content interesting or valuable, they are a lot more likely to share it, forward it on or click on your links (make sure to always include your social media links and share buttons).

By emailing a blog, or even just a section of it, and encouraging audiences to click the link, you drive more traffic to your website. You can also increase your social media following and engagement by encouraging them to share and link them on your profiles.

Click here to read more about creating a website for dentists.

Build a relationship

As your business is a dental practice, it often means that interactions with your patients can be very limited in the sense that they will only ever see you for scheduled visits. However, this does not mean that you can’t build impactful and lasting relationships with these patients outside of these appointments.

Keep in touch 

Being a dental practice, is it quite easy to overlook the importance of keeping in touch with your patients when at best, you will only ever see them every 6-12 months. However, with the use of email marketing, you can fill the void in between those routine visits and build trust and relationships with your patients. 

In doing so, you are providing a bigger service than simply taking care of their teeth every appointment. Depending on your email campaign, you can provide patients with various helpful tricks tips, and information that is useful to them, which will make them want to stay subscribed to you. Email marketing will help you create a community of patients.

Top tips on email marketing for dentists and dental practices. 

Building a subscriber list 

The only way to make full use of email marketing is to have a subscriber list. You need to build a list of contacts that you can start sending emails to. 

Create a simple contact form on your homepage, called something like ‘Sign up to our newsletter’, or ‘Special offers’. Keep the form as simple as possible, all you need is a name and an email address. You will get more sign-ups that way. 

Include requests to sign up for marketing emails in your communication with new and existing patients. Add these to your email marketing list as well. 

Maintain relationships with current patients 

Now you have your patients emails, you are able to contact your patients and you are given an opportunity to build their trust. You need to prove that you are using their contact information to send them useful and insightful emails, not useless junk or constant emails bombarding them. To keep the patients you already have, you need to keep in frequent contact with them while establishing a regular and personal connection with them. 

It is an absolute game changer for your dental business if you begin to reach out to your customers and provide them with the relevant information they need before they even realise they need it. 

While it is imperative to make a routine for when your marketing emails go out to your patients, you need to make sure that you are not overwhelming your subscribers with too many emails. That’s when you will start to lose your following!

Keep your newsletters monthly, keep your promotions spaced out, don’t make yourself blend in with the other emails. 

Targeted and personalised emails 

The content of your emails are what matters the most. The way you choose to personalise them will help you build relationships with your existing and potential patients. Segmented emails work the best, so your emails appeal to both types of patients. This ensures that each patient on your subscribers list receives content that is both relevant and useful to them. 

A great example of this is age-appropriate content. This may not mean what you think it means. For example, patients over the age of 50 are less likely to be interested in receiving information about braces like Invsalign. They may be more interested in reading about how their gums change over time and your services on dental implants. 

Offering content to your patients of all ages will make each patient feel as if you as a business cares about all of them individually and you are working to build on that relationship and trust.

Sloppy or irrelevant content can have an adverse effect as this will push your patients to unsubscribe. If they are subscribed to your email listing, it needs to be because you are providing them with something of value to them. The last thing you want is for your emails to be marked as spam. 

Personalising your emails is a must. Feeling valued is what you want your patients to feel when they receive your emails. Your goal is to make your patients feel like they matter. Your second goal is for your emails to help build your name and dental practice as a brand. Make sure your content reflects you as a business. 

Personalising your emails can consist of small things such as addressing each contact by their name instead of the vague ‘sir/madam’, sending birthday messages with offers or seasonal offers. This can be done quite simply in all mass email platforms once you link it to your contact lists. 

You can even create automated emails to specific categories of patients. For instance, you could send information on children’s dentistry automatically to only patients with children. You could also send information on gum disease and dental care to all patients who have seen the hygienist. 

All these can make an immense difference to how your patients feel about your practice and also how they view their dentist (as many are terrified). 

What is the most important about the content of your emails and all other content that you post, is your tone. It is important that you convey the appropriate tone that reflects your practice while you are addressing your patients. These details are what can leave a lasting impression on your patients. 

Click here to listen to our podcast episode about marketing to millennials.

Keep patients up to date

Your emails can often consist of special events, offers or discounts you are offering at your practice. This is the main reason why many of your patients will be interested in your emails. Lets face it, dental work is not cheap and everyone loves a good discount!

Providing updates on anything new happening in your practice, such as new equipment, new services or any new staff, anything to get your patients attention and keep your patients informed. Newsletters are a great way of doing this. 

Let patients know about life events in the team as well. This creates a sense of community and will bring you closer to your patients. Birthdays, engagements, weddings, these are all great little additions to liven up an existing newsletter.

Educate your patients

You can use your email marketing to educate your subscribers. This can be through concisely worded emails or short descriptions with links to blogs and articles on your website. Linking your blog and website content can also be personalised to specific patients and you can align them to blog posts that are most relevant to them. 

For instance, send that blog you wrote on top tips for looking after your braces to all your orthodontic patients. 

Think about what questions you get asked a lot in the practice. What problems do you keep seeing in oral health? What are the little tips and tricks you know about brushing and flossing that patients probably don’t? Tell them about it!  

Optimise for all devices 

No matter what sector your business is, you need to be up-to-date with how you promote your services online. This includes ensuring that your email marketing campaign is optimised for mobile devices. Over half of emails that are sent are opened on mobile phones, therefore, it would make sense (and be in your best interest) to have the emails you send optimised for people that are accessing their emails from either a smartphone or tablet. 

The recipients are more likely to open and actually read the content of the email if the email is formatted in the right way for them to view it. 

While doing this, there are a few things to consider. Be sure to understand that the screen sizes are different. A laptop screen and a smartphone have very different screen sizes which is what you need to consider. You need to make sure that the content of your emails are clear and visible and not cut off around the screen. 

Include Call-to-actions (CTAs)

With any content that you write, at some point you need to encourage a call-to-action. A call-to-action (CTA) is simply a button like ‘call now’ or ‘further information’. Calls-to-action are a great way to create a relationship with your audience and get them to take an action you want. 

They are also a great way of pushing traffic to your website.

The point of your email marketing campaigns are to get your subscribers to come to you in some way to get you more business. This is why calls to action are so important. It allows your message to be read, then it gives your clients a way to come to you and create some form of contact. In essence, it is a technique that can make your patients become more responsive and engaged with your practice. 

Calls-to-actions can be a very useful technique helping customers along the purchase process and it can also be helpful in attracting new patients to your practice. 

Having a CTA, like a referral system, in place alongside the emails that you send will be helpful in monitoring how well the emails are doing and how effectively they are working. 

Monitor progress

There are various ways to monitor and track the progress of your email campaigns. These powerful analytics are able to track how many of your patients are actually opening your emails and clicking through the links. 

Monitoring the progress of your email marketing allows you to make any necessary tweaks and changes if they are necessary. This ensures that you are getting the most that you can from using email marketing for marketing your dental practice. 

There are some great ways to measure the effectiveness of your newsletter. You need to analyse whether your content helps build a relationship with your patients and subscribers, increases retention and engagement and strengthens patient loyalty. 

Does your content (like blogs and videos) get shared or liked on social media? Does your engagement on social media or your website traffic see a noticeable uptick after sending out a newsletter? Are recipients opening the email and clicking the link within? 

You can check out our articles here samera learning centre.

Reviewed By:

The Dental Business Guide Podcast Episode | February 24th
George Bellamy, Nikita Kanda, Chris O’Shea

Unlocking the Millennial Market: Effective Marketing Strategies for Dentists in the UK

The millennial generation is a very important group of people in the UK who buy things. It’s becoming more and more important for all kinds of businesses, even dentists, to know how to advertise to them because they have a lot of money to spend. Dentists might find it hard to connect with millennials. So, we’re going to talk about some good ways that dentists in the UK can use to get millennials interested in their services. We’ll talk about things like using the internet to show fun ads, working with popular people and using modern technology. We want to help dentists get the attention of millennials and make their dental practices grow.

Understanding the Millennial Market: Who are the Millennials?

To market your dental services well to millennials in the UK, it’s important to know who they are first. Millennials, also known as Generation Y, are people born from the mid-1980s to the mid-2000s. They are now in their late teens to mid-40s and make up a big part of the population.

Millennials are different from older generations because of their unique qualities and likes. They grew up with technology and the internet, so they’re really good with gadgets and being online. Before they buy something, they look at reviews and suggestions online, and they use social media a lot.

For millennials, experiences and making things personal matter a lot. They care about taking care of themselves and being well. When it comes to dental care, they want it to be easy, affordable, and a good experience.

Also, millennials care about the environment and social issues. They like brands that have the same values as them, like being eco-friendly and doing good things for society. Dentists who show they care about these things can get millennials interested in what they offer.

But just knowing the age range isn’t enough. To really understand millennials, you need to know how they act, what they like, and why they do things. If dentists in the UK can figure this out, they can make their ads and marketing fit what millennials want. This way, they can really connect with this important group and make them happy, loyal customers.

The Importance of Targeting Millennials for Dentists in the UK

Millennials are a big part of the people in the UK and they have a big effect on many industries, including dentistry. Millennials are the largest group of people alive right now. They care a lot about taking care of themselves and being healthy. They also have a lot of money to spend.

For dentists in the UK, it’s really important to understand that focusing on millennials is crucial if they want to stay important and do well in today’s competitive world. Unlike older generations, millennials like to prevent dental problems and they’re more likely to go to the dentist even if they don’t have a problem yet. This is a great chance for dentists to show that they’re good at keeping teeth healthy, not just fixing problems.

Millennials are also really good with technology and they use the internet to make choices. Dentists can use online ads, virtual campaigns, and good websites to show millennials what they offer.

Millennials also want brands to be honest and clear. Dentists can build trust and make friends with millennials by talking to them online, answering their questions, and sharing useful information about teeth and dental stuff.

A lot of millennials care about the environment. Dentists who use eco-friendly materials, reduce waste, and use energy-saving things can get millennials’ attention because they like things that are good for the Earth.

So, in short, dentists in the UK really need to pay attention to millennials. If they understand what millennials like, use online ads, build good relationships, and care about the environment, they can get millennials interested and become the dentists that millennials like to go to.

Utilizing Digital Marketing Channels to Reach Millennials

Getting the attention of millennials using traditional advertising methods might not work as well nowadays because millennials are very connected to the internet and use it for everything. They look at social media, search engines, and online reviews when they want to decide something. If you’re a dentist in the UK, it’s really important to use the internet to reach and interest millennials.

Social media, like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, is a great way to talk to millennials. You can show what your dental practice is like, share helpful information, and talk to people who might want to be your patients. If you keep putting up cool and useful stuff on social media, millennials will start to trust you and think you’re good.

Also, you need to make sure your website shows up when millennials search for dental stuff. You can do this by using the right words on your website and writing blogs that tell people useful things. If other good websites talk about your website, it will show up more in searches, and that’s good.

Millennials also really care about what other people say online. If happy patients write nice reviews about your dental practice on Google, Yelp, or other places, more millennials might want to come see you.

You can also use online ads that are just for millennials. Google Ads and online entertainment ads help you show your stuff to the right people. You can choose who sees your ads based on things like what they like and what they do online. This can help you get more millennials interested in your dental practice.

Lastly, teaming up with famous people online who millennials like can be a big help. These people can tell their fans about your dental practice, and more millennials will know about you.

So, to wrap it up, dentists need to use the internet to talk to millennials in the UK. Use social media, make sure your website is good, get good reviews, use online ads, and work with popular online people. This way, you can get millennials to know and like your dental practice in the digital world.

You can read more articles about marketing your dental practice here.

Creating Engaging and Relevant Content for Millennials

Creating interesting and relevant stuff is super important when you want to get millennials interested. Millennials really like things that feel real, special, and like they’re talking directly to them. If you’re a dentist, you can do this by making content that millennials will like because they know a lot about technology and care about important things.

First, think about where millennials spend their time online. They really like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. You can use these places to show them things that teach them and make them smile. For example, you can make short videos that show how to take care of teeth, how to keep mouths clean, or what it’s like in your dental office.

You can read more about video marketing for dentists here.

Think about what millennials care about when it comes to their teeth. They really like taking care of themselves and being healthy. So, make content that shows how healthy teeth are important for the whole body. Talk about natural stuff for teeth, like how to make them whiter or how food affects teeth. Give them useful tips so they know you’re really good at what you do.

Stories are great for millennials. Share stories from people who liked coming to your dental office and had good experiences. Millennials like real stories that make them feel something. You can also talk about causes you care about or things you’re doing to help the community. This will show them that you’re a dentist who cares about important stuff.

Lastly, you should let millennials join in. They like to be part of things and tell their opinions. Ask them to share their dental stories, ask questions, and tell you what they think. You can do this on social media by having contests, asking questions, and having Q&A sessions. When you include them, they’ll feel like they belong and want to be your patient.

So, in short, if you want to get millennials interested, make content that’s real, special, and looks good. Share stories, talk about what they care about, and let them be part of the fun. If you do these things, you can make millennials want to come to your dental office and become your loyal patients.

You can read more about creating content for a dental practice here.

Leveraging Social Media Platforms to Connect with Millennials

Virtual entertainment has turned into a fundamental piece of our day to day routines, particularly for recent college grads. When it comes to connecting with this demographic and expanding your practice, harnessing the power of social media can be a game-changer for UK dentists.

Right off the bat, it’s fundamental to recognize which stages resound most with recent college grads. This generation is extremely fond of Instagram and TikTok because of their visually appealing content. Making outwardly engaging posts that exhibit your dental administrations, highlighting when pictures, patient tributes, and instructive substance, can enthrall recent college grads and arouse their curiosity in your training.

You can interact more interactively and authentically with millennials by making use of Instagram stories and reels. In the background film, back and forth discussions, and displaying the agreeable environment of your dental office can assist construct trust and experience with expected millennial patients.

Another powerful system is working together with powerhouses or miniature forces to be reckoned with who have serious areas of strength for a following. Find influencers with genuine ties to oral health and who share your brand’s values. By working with them to promote your dental services, you can increase your chances of getting new patients and increase your visibility among millennials.

Social media is all about engagement. Developing a rapport with millennials and demonstrating your dedication to providing excellent service are two outcomes of promptly responding to comments, direct messages, and inquiries. By offering a branded photo booth or hosting events or giveaways exclusively for your social media followers, you can encourage patients to share their experiences with social media.

Lastly, connecting with millennials can be made easier by utilizing user-generated content. Urge your patients to share their dental process, tributes, or even their stunning grins utilizing an assigned hashtag. This not only fosters a sense of community but also provides other millennials considering dental care with social proof.

In conclusion, dentists in the UK can connect with millennials in a variety of ways through social media. You can unlock the potential of the millennial market and take your dental practice to new heights by curating content that is appealing to the eye, collaborating with influencers, encouraging engagement, and utilizing user-generated content.

You can read more about using social media for dentists here.

Building Trust and Establishing Credibility with Millennials

For dentists in the UK who want to get involved with this group of people, it’s really important to make millennials trust and believe in you. Millennials are people born between the mid-1980s and late 1990s, and they really like when brands are honest and clear.

To connect well with millennials, dentists need to show that they know a lot and are really good at what they do. One good way to do this is by sharing helpful information about taking care of teeth. This could be in the form of blog posts, videos, or fun online posts that give useful tips.

Millennials like dentists who know a lot and keep up with new things in dental care. Dentists can show their knowledge through happy ads that make them look like trusted experts. Also, sharing stories from happy patients on websites and social media can make millennials trust them even more.

Making sure that going to the dentist is easy and personal is also important. This means letting people schedule appointments online, using email or texts to remind them, and making the dental office a nice and modern place.

Talking to millennials on social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook is also a must. Dentists can show pictures of their work, what goes on behind the scenes, and stories from patients. This way, they can show their skills and connect with younger people.

Lastly, dentists should reply quickly and politely to millennials’ questions, comments, and reviews. This helps show that they’re trustworthy and care about their patients.

By doing all these things, dentists in the UK can make millennials believe in them and like them. This will make millennials want to keep coming back to them for dental care.

Embracing Convenience and Technology in Dental Services

In today’s fast-paced world, making things easy and using technology are really important. Millennials, who are young people now, like it a lot when businesses use technology to make things better. For dentists in the UK, using technology and making things easy can help them get and keep millennial patients.

One way to make things easy is by letting people schedule appointments online. Millennials like being able to pick the time that works for them without having to call or wait. Having a simple online system to book appointments not only saves time for everyone but also makes the whole experience better.

Technology like digital X-rays and electronic health records can also make things better. These things help dentists work faster and better. They can quickly find out what’s wrong and make a plan to fix it. This makes millennials like going to the dentist more.

Also, making the dental office comfortable and modern is important. Offering things like free Wi-Fi, comfortable waiting areas with places to charge devices, and even things to do like watch TV or use tablets can make millennials feel good when they come for a visit.

Using social media, like Instagram and Facebook, is a great way for dentists to show millennials what they do. They can share pictures of their work, give tips about teeth, and talk to people online. Letting patients write reviews and stories on these platforms can help make other millennials trust the dentist too.

So, to sum it up, dentists in the UK should make things easy and use technology to get millennials interested and make them want to come back. They can do this by letting people book appointments online, using social media, making the office nice, and using technology for better dental care.

You can read more about building a website for dentists here.

Tailoring Pricing and Payment Options for Millennial Preferences

If you want to do well as a dentist in the UK, it’s really important to know what millennials like and change how you charge them and let them pay. Millennials are young people, and they care a lot about money and being able to pay in ways that are easy for them. By making your prices and payment choices fit what they want, you can get millennials to come to you and keep coming back.

One big thing is to make sure your prices are fair. Many millennials look for deals and might not want to spend a lot of money on dental stuff. Giving them good prices or special discounts can make them think your services are good and worth it. You can also make plans or programs that let them pay less for regular dental care.

Having different ways to pay is also really important. Millennials like having choices, like paying online or in parts. If you let them pay in ways that work for them, it can help if they’re worried about money for their dental work. You could even work with companies that help people with medical bills or make your own payment plans.

Being clear about how much things cost is really important too. Millennials want to know exactly how much they need to pay for things like procedures or treatments. Make sure your website and ads show exactly what you charge, so millennials know what they’re getting into.

Using technology for payments is also a must. Millennials know a lot about technology and they like it when things are easy. If you let them make appointments and pay online, it makes things better for them and they’ll like coming to your office.

By changing how you charge and let millennials pay, you can make them think your dental office is modern and good. This will make them want to come and also tell their friends about you. So, fitting your prices and payments to what millennials like can help your dental practice do really well.

Encouraging and Leveraging Online Reviews and Testimonials

In today’s digital time, online reviews and stories from customers have a big impact on what people decide to do. This is true for dentists too. Especially millennials, who are young people, look at what others say online before they pick a dentist. So, if dentists want more millennials to come to their office, they should ask for good reviews and use them.

One good way to do this is by asking happy patients for their thoughts. After they come for a visit, send them a message to say thanks and ask if they can share how it went online. You can even give them direct links to popular review sites like Google, Yelp, or Facebook to make it easy.

Think about starting a program where patients who bring in new people and leave good reviews get a small discount, gift cards, or other rewards. This not only makes happy patients tell others but also helps make millennials who might come later trust you more.

When you get a bunch of good reviews, put them on your website and social media pages. Millennials really like real stories from real people, so showing what other patients said can make them trust you.

Another thing you can do is talk back to the people who leave reviews, whether they’re good or not so good. This shows that you care about what people think and want to make them happy. If you reply quickly and nicely, it can help fix bad reviews and make millennials like you more.

Remember, millennials like to talk about their experiences and listen to others. By asking for and using online reviews, you can make them want to come to your office and tell their friends about you. This can really help you get more millennials interested in your dental practice.

You can watch our webinar on marketing and patient care here.

Measuring and Analyzing Marketing Campaigns for Continuous Improvement

Checking and understanding how well marketing plans are working is really important for dentists in the UK who want to get millennials interested. To really connect with these smart young people, dentists need to know what’s working and what’s not in their advertising.

One of the most important things to look at is how much money a marketing campaign makes compared to how much it costs. This is called the return on investment (ROI). Dentists can see which campaigns bring in the most money and decide where to spend their resources.

Another important thing is the conversion rate. This shows how many people who visit the website or show interest actually become patients. By tracking this, dentists can find where things are going well and make changes to make things even better.

It’s also important to see if digital marketing campaigns are doing well. Dentists should look at things like how many people visit the website, how long they stay, and if they leave quickly. This helps them know if people like what they see and if they’re interested.

Listening to what patients say is also a must. Dentists can ask patients for their thoughts and reviews to know if their marketing is working. This helps them learn how to make their services better.

So, to wrap it up, dentists in the UK should look at and understand their marketing plans to keep getting millennials interested. By checking things like ROI, conversion rates, website numbers, and patient feedback, they can make smart choices and make their marketing work even better for them.

Reviewed By:

The Dental Business Guide Podcast Episode | February 11
George Bellamy, Nikita Kanda

George Bellamy: Welcome back to the Dental Business Guide. I’m George. And once again, we’re here with Nikita, and we’re gonna change things up. Nikita now wants to ask me questions, so fire away.

Nikita Kanda: Yes, I thought I would switch it up today and I would be the one asking George questions because today we’re going to talk about video content and George has a lot more knowledge on this topic than I do, so I thought it’d be fun to switch it around.

So my first question for you George is: If I have a dental practice, what sort of video content should I be putting out on my social media?

George Bellamy: So, for social media, you want small snippets of information. The thing is, people scroll through their feed and if you don’t capture someone with a video in the first five seconds, you’ve lost them.

So really, you want to get your point across as quickly as possible. No one wants to be watching a 15 minute video of you rambling on. So I think if you want to do an advert, if you want to do a walkthrough of your practice for example, then yes, definitely do that. But I think stick it around the 30 second mark, but make sure the first five seconds are punchy and are key, so people can actually engage with it. They want to continue viewing for the rest of that 30 seconds.

Nikita Kanda: Yeah, that’s a really good point and do you think I should be posting videos of my team? What sort of content should I be putting out, the team or more teeth related information? Or is it just those people, those practice owners should find out what their unique selling point is, and then post about that?

George Bellamy: More or less with video, you want to film and edit and upload everything and anything. So the way I put it is, video is photos 24 times a second. I find video more convincing. Because my background is real estate, I would do real estate films and my selling point with the films I create was that they’re true, they’re real.

With photos, real estate photography is great, but you have the big wide angle lens that distorts the room, it makes the room feel a lot bigger than it actually is. With video, sure I use a wide angle lens, but it creates a sense of depth that has a sense of reality to it and same thing with dental practices.

So if you just keep having photos, you might seem like that stock photo surgery or that stock photo practice, if you will. But the video is you showing the real patients, the real dentists, the real place in its correct lighting. It just has that sense of reality to it and personal touch.

Nikita Kanda: I totally agree with you that it’s all about real, especially with what we’re posting on social media. You don’t want it to look like that stock image practice that you said so, definitely you’d say make it authentic content? 

George Bellamy: Without a doubt, definitely. 

Nikita Kanda:  Okay. So how would that relate when I’m trying to make an ad for my practice? How would I go about making an ad? If I’ve never made an ad before, how would you help me with that?

George Bellamy: So I’m a videographer by trade, this is my livelihood, this is my living, I know what I’m doing. But to the average Joe, you probably have no idea where to start and you’ll probably buy some camera or just use your iPhone. Believe it or not, your phone is one of the best cameras you can use because it’s quick and easy.

For example, Nikita you’re on social media, doing small snippets of video is absolutely key. To go back on to your question with having an ad, at the end of the day you can make it how you want to make it. If you’re using your iPhone, as long as your audio is good, I think you’ll be fine. You can really tell the difference between an expensive camera with terrible audio and a cheap camera with great audio, they are two very different things.

Believe it or not, people have actually preferred the expensive audio. So if I was to say anything like that, I would say, to do an advert is, first of all, what do you want to have? What do you want your advert to do? What’s its purpose? Really, that’s the main thing.

If your purpose is to drive sales and gain more patients, then I personally would look into investing the money and to hiring a company to do an advert for you. For example, hiring a videographer just for the week, I don’t know what the going rate is but you can be looking at spending £500-£600 on a decent video and a decent advert, which as we mentioned in the previous podcast marketing and running adverts with that video, that’s the way Facebook works, it’s great.

You can run these adverts and these videos and the way you need to look at it is if you can get one sale out of that video, you probably made your money back in the long term. I think this is what you need to be looking at. Yes, you can make your own advert and I encourage you to. But, I think for big things like this, I would definitely suggest potentially looking into hiring a videographer for the day, and just filming a lot and go from there.

Nikita Kanda: No, that’s a great bit of advice. Actually, that was gonna be one of my next questions that should I hire a videographer but you’ve just answered that. I definitely think that people should definitely have a videographer on hand or on speed dial.

George Bellamy: Have someone in your phone book, that’s all. Someone that you can call and just say, hey, we need this, they’ll come, film it and edit it and then give it to you. But what I stress is, film as much as you can yourself, anything and everything. Film one of your dentists talking about who they are. It’s putting a voice mainly, and a face to the people.

Everyone has on their website, the ‘about me’ page where you have got the list of the dentists with all their qualifications and their little blurb about me, but you can’t convey personality through text or through one picture. So I think video is certainly key, just have a quick 30 second video just about who the dentist is.

That’s all it is because when people are looking for a new dental practice, they’re not just going on the website. They’re not just talking to their friends, they’re also nowadays going through their social media. Would I choose a dental practice that doesn’t post anything on social media, but has good reviews on Google for example? Or will I go with the company that seems to be engaging with their patients, seems to be putting out information, making you feel more relaxed and at home while you’re at the dentist? I think that’s definitely the angle you should be going with it.

Nikita Kanda: For sure. I think as well, don’t underestimate the power of your iPhone or your phone or your camera because they’re so good nowadays. And like you said, as long as you’ve got good quality, good sound, that’s all you need and just be consistent with it. So one question I have for you; quality versus quantity, would you rather be putting out one quality video a week? Or is it quantity where you’re putting out a video a day, what do you prefer?

George Bellamy: That is a really good question because it’s two different arguments you have. So, as we’ve said before, with Instagram, you want to be posting every single day, the repetition, you want to have that presence, but then also you don’t want it to be just random things, you want it to be structured and well thought out.

So there are two arguments to it, there is; should you post multiple videos a week or should you just post one? That is the million dollar question. For me personally, I’m a perfectionist, I like things to be perfect. I like them to be the exact way I envisioned it. But Arun the managing director of Samera, has said ‘I just want to post things, I just want to get that content out there.’ We’ve had some arguments in the past about this, but we’re two different mindsets, Arun just wants to publicise his practice and his business and I just want to create content I’m proud of.

Nikita Kanda: It depends on what you’re posting. With social media like I’ve said before, I mix it up. So I will do one day pictures, one day video ads so mix it up. But when it comes to a video ad, you want to get that quality right but because that’s going to be going out and continuously played.

George Bellamy: Yes, you want it to be shareable, definitely an ad, you want that quality to be perfect. You don’t want a single thing gone wrong. Because like you’ve seen some videos where at the end of it they leave four seconds of black video, that black clip, you don’t want that. That’s giving off the wrong signals.

But then, if it’s a video about a walkthrough of the practice that’s on your Instagram feed, quantity is fine. It really depends on what you’re trying to do. I would say for me, personally I’m more of a quality over quantity. But maybe quantity is better in some sense and to be honest with you, it’s anyone’s guess really. It depends what it’s being used for. 

Nikita Kanda: Okay, you’ve already touched on how you would get people to watch your videos or your ads. You said before in the beginning that you need to capture a person’s attention straightaway, right?

George Bellamy: Yeah, that’s right straight away.

Nikita Kanda: What are the things would you say that people should put in their ads? Or what tips should they be using to capture patients’ attention?

George Bellamy: So being different and standing out, being that one shiny object in a sea of green, the key is to be different. The thing is to stand out in the 21st century especially in 2021 now, where everything is online, it’s very, very difficult.

To make a video go viral, for example, it is very, very difficult, and it’s hit or miss, sometimes you can think you’ve got the greatest idea for a viral video and it absolutely tanks. But other times you think you’re just going to post it even if it’s not that great and it gets millions and millions of views, it’s a very difficult thing to predict. So to get people to watch your videos, I mean realistically, you need to be engaging, you need it to be relatable, you need, as I’ve said before, to get them in the first five seconds.

More or less we now live in a society of bite sized information. People are too busy on their phones, they’re just scrolling, just absorbing information as quickly as they can. So if you have a video that is really informative, but you have the introduction to the video is just not adequate, you’re going to lose those viewers.

So to get people to watch your videos, I would say definitely quickly get them entertained. That’s usually either by comedy or by music or by text. That’s another thing, text – perhaps don’t use too much text because people will just look at a whole paragraph of text and go, ‘I don’t really have time to read all that’ and also, because it’s a video, you just want to be told the information. So more or less, I would say just make it as quirky and as different as possible, use bright colours etc.

Nikita Kanda: I think that’s a great point to make now that those are the things people should be looking out for. I would just like to add that when you said about people wanting to scroll quickly on their phones, definitely in terms of social media, I’d say if you’re going to make a video, or you’re going to post any videos, make it like 30 seconds to a minute, maximum a minute!

People don’t want to sit there and watch long videos anymore, they just want the quick information so that’s definitely a good piece of advice, make sure you’re making quick, informative videos that will keep people watching and keep them engaged because long videos are a thing of the past now, aren’t they?

George Bellamy: Even YouTube for example, five years ago, the goal was to create videos as long as possible and gain their attention throughout. Nowadays youtubers want to get to the ten minute mark, because they’re gonna have two or three adverts inside the video to basically make more money from it. I think quick bites of information are certainly becoming the norm. 

Nikita Kanda: That was gonna be one of my last questions to you about Youtube. So if I’m a dental practice owner do I need YouTube when I’m opening my practice? Is it something that I need at the beginning? Is it something that you would recommend?

George Bellamy: So I personally think YouTube is the second biggest search engine after Google and Google owns YouTube. So really, I would say yes but not for the reasons you’re thinking. I would say use YouTube to upload videos, that you can then use the embed code on your website personally, I would do that.

Nikita Kanda: And what does that mean, embed code for people that don’t understand what that is.

George Bellamy: When you have a video on your website, an embed code means instead of linking to the website, you can watch that video inside your page on your website. With social media videos, as I said before, you want it to be quick information. With YouTube, I think it’s not a game changer if you don’t have it but also it’s one of those things that is not expected of you yet, but it’s starting to become that norm. 

Nikita Kanda: Like you said and you can use that in your website, I think that looks nice. It’s really professional when people do that, when you can watch the video right in one space it looks amazing.

George Bellamy: Well, one thing I absolutely love is on the ‘About Me’ page, again it’s what I was saying about videos, making those personal touches and having that personality. On your website when you have the ‘about me’ page, you click on individual dentists or the associates or nurses, and you have a quick 30 second video hosted on YouTube, consisting of who that person is and giving them a quick brief description of where they studied, why they wanted to get into dentistry etc and I think that gives it that personal touch, it truly does.

Nikita Kanda: I totally agree with everything you said about not needing YouTube, but it’s a good tool to use when you are starting up. So it’s not something that you need to be regularly posting on but it’s something that you can definitely use. It’s great for your website but I think definitely with video content, like we’ve said, hire a videographer, if you can.

George Bellamy: If you can

Nikita Kanda: Just shoot as much content as you can in maybe one day, get simple ads made and as you said, get genuine, real content of your team. It will help patients see that you’re real on social media, not just trying to get the numbers up or just post loads of pictures. You’re actually showing the real side of your business. That’s definitely hit the nail on the head with all video content, anything you’ve got to add?

George Bellamy: One thing I just thought of is you’re doing videos of your patients especially, a release form is completely key because you don’t want to be five years down the line where your video then goes viral and the patient says I don’t actually want my face to be on the video anymore. And then you unfortunately have to take that out or take the video down because you haven’t got written permission to film them. You can get your free templates online and I highly recommend them. 

Nikita Kanda: That’s something that we do as well with Samera and The Neem Tree, we get written permission from all of our patients that have agreed to be on social media, it just makes things a lot easier and just covers your back as well.

George Bellamy: Yeah, it’s just hassle free for your future self really, because 99% of the time, the patient’s absolutely happy with it and won’t have a problem with it but it’s that 1% that can really more or less screw you over further down the line. 

Nikita Kanda: I’ve had an experience in the past that the patient is happy for you to use their face in the video but they might not want their name. So sometimes remember, if they don’t want their full name or just ask them beforehand, are you okay with us using your full name or if you’re not, they don’t even have to put a name there. Just put that ‘our patient at…’ whatever clinic you are, so just bear in mind these little tips and things to note for future videos.

George Bellamy: Well, thank you for helping me come out of my shell and answering questions about video making, I’ve always been the one interviewing…

Nikita Kanda: It was nice to be the interviewer. I know.

George Bellamy: I’m too complacent with it. Well, I hope that helps you understand everything about video, it’s one of those things that people overlook.. Many people think photos are the way forward and unfortunately I think it’s the other way around.

Nikita Kanda: Don’t be scared to put videos out. Do it. Try it. You’re not going to know unless you try it.

George Bellamy: Exactly. Also, you’re not going to gain traction overnight. It’s going to be something you’d have to have the repetition. 

George Bellamy: Yeah, well, anyway, thank you so much for listening and we’ll catch you on the next one.

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Dental Business Guide Podcast Episode | 2nd February 2021
George Bellamy and Nikita Kanda

George Bellamy: Welcome to the Samera podcast, I’m George and today I’m with our very own social media manager, you’re a social media manager or…

Nikita Kanda: Social media expert 

George Bellamy: Social media expert, Nikita Kanda. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

Nikita Kanda: Hello, George, How are you?

George Bellamy: I’m very good. Yes, right let’s just dive straight in. So we’re gonna be talking about social media, that’s your forte. So, I’ve been reading up on things you’ve written about social media and whatnot. And really, just to start off with, why should businesses use social media? Why should we even bother? Why not do things organically? 

People Want to See What is Real

Nikita Kanda: I think in this day and age, social media is such a big thing that I think if you’re not using it, you’re silly to be honest. I mean, it’s something that you grasp your audience, your viewers, or even you grab sales from it, any sort of business. It doesn’t matter what it is, obviously, we’re talking specifics like dentists and dental businesses, definitely people want to see what’s real nowadays.

So you know, if you’ve got before and after pictures, if you’ve got anything real, videos of your team members and everything, people want to see what’s real. They will straightaway go to search for you on Google.

So I know if I’ve ever wanted to look up a dentist or anything like that, I straightaway go on and look at their social media because I think that’s the time that we’re living in now. It’s just something that everyone is doing and I think you definitely need to have, you know?

George Bellamy: Because 5 or 10 years ago, social media really wasn’t a prominent thing. But as you say, nowadays, it’s just everywhere. You know, I read somewhere once, it’s one in three people in the world have Facebook, or something like that, it’s ridiculous.

Read our article on using social media to grow a dental practice.

Social Media Keeps Growing

Nikita Kanda: It’s just growing on another level, and especially Instagram, Facebook, the two main things, I think it’s just growing, especially for businesses there. I was speaking about this the other day, Instagram for businesses is such a big thing.

Now they actually have made a business account. So you can have a normal account in Instagram, or you can have a business account, which just unlocks so many other features for businesses and just helps you build up your revenue, make more money, get more clients, get more followers, it’s just so much more you can do.

George Bellamy: Right. Okay, so let’s say I’m a practice and I want to start making social media. I don’t have the resources to do all of them. Because I think there’s like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, is Myspace still a thing? No, there’s so many different social media platforms. So which one should I choose? And why, really?

Start With Facebook and Instagram

Nikita Kanda: So if you were to start a dental practice, I definitely think Instagram and Facebook are the two that you should definitely start. It’s just a no-brainer, especially these days. If you’re trying to reach that young market as well, then Instagram is 100%. I’m very, I’m like Instagram pro. I’m like “you have to get Instagram, It’s like the way to go”.

Watch our webinar on using Facebook and Instagram ads for dentists.

And of course, it’s not expensive, it’s free to sign up. So it’s not like you have to be spending money. If you don’t have the money to spend when you do start your business, then it’s something you can do for free. Yeah, I would just say start with a plan though, kind of know what goals you want, what do you want out of it? Start with it with a good business strategy. I would always say start first with: what are your goals? 

What Are Your Goals?

George Bellamy: So, which one would you choose? You’re an Instagram advocate so, would you always just use Instagram over everything else then?

Nikita Kanda: Yeah 100%. I think I’d use Instagram over any other social media apps.

George Bellamy: Right. What are the main differences between all three? Like I said, the three main ones are what? Instagram, Facebook and Twitter?

Nikita Kanda: Yeah, I would say that.

George Bellamy: What about snapchat? Do people use that still? 

You Don’t Need Snapchat

Nikita Kanda: Snapchat was more of a craze. I think it’s still used but with younger kids now. It’s just more for messaging and photos and just that it’s more about filters and it’s not really something that necessary. I mean, I guess if you’re like a really big brand or a celebrity, it’s good to have such because I guess your followers can watch you but you know, from a business point of view, I don’t really think you need Snapchat.

It’s something that more younger kids use to be honest, but at the moment, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, yeah, definitely. And also YouTube is another angle if you’re making content creating videos, you definitely would say but Instagram’s more visual.

I think it is great for growing businesses. I think Twitter’s more quick comments it’s like ‘newsworthy’ and then Facebook, I guess every kind of business probably has a Facebook page. So I definitely think it’s got the social aspect but definitely business features as well because Instagram and Facebook are linked now. So if you are setting up an Instagram business page, you will have to have a Facebook page already set up there.

George Bellamy: Right okay. Yeah, that’s interesting.

Which Platform Works For You?

Nikita Kanda: It’s important just to know which platform you think is best for you, and then what will reach your viewers or your followers or your clients.

George Bellamy: So, obviously there’s millions and millions and hundreds of millions, if not billions of Instagram accounts. Would you say that every practice probably has an Instagram? Whether or not they use it or not?

Nikita Kanda: Yeah, I think nowadays, everybody’s got a page, an Instagram page, whether they use it or not. And I mean, you know, some people have done this whole fake followers thing that makes them look like they’ve got thousands of followers. I mean, that’s a whole other episode probably.

But yeah, I wouldn’t recommend doing that because people won’t see you as being authentic. I think that’s one of the main things is definitely be true to yourself. Definitely be authentic, and be real with your followers and people watch it otherwise, they’re not going to trust you, and they’re not going to want to come to you for business.

George Bellamy: Right, so how would you stand out then between everything else? Because obviously, you know, we’re going along with a sense of every practice has an Instagram, how can we stand out? How can we be that one shining object in a sea of black really?

Be Yourself, Be Authentic

Nikita Kanda: Yeah, like I said, definitely be yourself, be authentic, but just see your goals, what you’re trying to achieve, look at your team members, what do your team bring to the table and people want to see that real aspect of it.

They want to see your team being bubbly, having fun and being happy. I think Instagram has also turned into this whole posey-posey lifestyle, show the fast cars and this and that, and this glamorous lifestyle. But I think if you show that you’re real, I definitely think you will stand out.

Engage With Your Followers

But make sure you engage with people, because that’s another thing that a lot of these big Instagram pages of people with thousands of followers don’t do. They don’t engage with their followers, they don’t reply back to them with comments, or they don’t, you know, they don’t talk to them.

So people will feel disconnected in that way and then they might unfollow you in the future because they’d be like, oh, you’re not engaging with us so why do I need to follow you so definitely, I think, get to know people that are following you.

George Bellamy: Right. So okay, so how often should I post an image or a video or something? Would you stick with a schedule? Or is it more or less a sense of just putting things on? Like, would it be good if I put on five photos in one day? And then don’t do anything the rest of the week? Or, you know, What, really? 

Commit Yourself Daily

Nikita Kanda: I definitely think it’s a daily thing, you have to commit yourself daily. So every day I would be posting, especially with a new business, every single day post something, even if it’s, you know, one video a day, one picture a day, one advert a day you need to be posting daily like, it is so important.

Because the more you post, the more engagement you’re going to get, the more followers you’re going to get. So I definitely would say start with a minimum, if it’s just you on your own or a small team, start with minimum one hour. But I would say spend a few hours and get a social media manager if you can to just manage all of the accounts, because it’s so important that it’s going out at certain times, certain days as well.

Test to See What Works

I’d say Monday to Friday, think about what you’re going to post there with, obviously Samera Dental Group, every Monday we do a poll, tips every Tuesday, videos on Wednesday, Thursday, live Q and A’s, there are so many things you can do.

But I would set a week where you do it every single day and then you kind of see afterwards, what days am I getting the most engagement, and then you kind of start to see what works. Once you start doing it daily, it really helps you with your insights, and you start gaining all this information of your followers and really helps you for your business to see okay, what’s going to work and what’s not.

Watch our webinar on using marketing to increase profits in a dental practice.

George Bellamy: Okay, that’s pretty cool. So really, it’s just making sure you stick to a schedule. Let me just say how Instagram’s got business pages. Does that come with analytics, so you can see where your posts are on hours of the day and that kind of thing?

Set Up an Instagram Business Page

Nikita Kanda: Yeah, exactly. So that’s really important and I really love this feature, because Instagram business page allows you to see your insights. It allows you to see where in the world and which countries your pictures or videos or content is reaching, how many males or many females it’s reaching. The age bracket is really important as well, because you want to be seeing where is your business and who is it reaching, the age bracket, is it the right age bracket? 

If not, then you need to do something about that and yes, it shows you all these minor details, which is really, really important and shows you who’s exited your story of who’s gone back to look at it or your website, who’s clicked on your profile and how many people, there’s so much information you can gain from just an Instagram insights – it’s really useful.

Yeah, it’s really, really good. So I do recommend that you switch to a business profile if you haven’t done so already.

George Bellamy: Yeah, that’s really interesting. So okay I’ve got my schedule sorted now, do I post just photos, just videos or sprinkle a bit of both? Or do I put on a video on like, a certain day of the week, or what really?

Mix Up Your Posts

Nikita Kanda: I’d say, yeah, you mix it up. So you do photos, videos and do some lives, Instagram stories. The stories are different to the actual posts, stories are something that just lasts 24 hours but you tend to get more viewers on a story because it’s a quick view and it comes up on the homepage, the people just always tend to click straight away on the story.

Okay. So I think that’s really important to make sure when you do, what I do is when I post on the actual page itself, I always go and post it on the story as well. So I’ll be like, ‘click this new post’ or ‘click this new blog’ it’s kind of like an ad for this for the page really. Then people that will see it on the story will be like, okay, cool they’ve got something new, a new blog post’s out, let me go on their page and read it. So it’s really, really important that you kind of sync the two.

George Bellamy: Okay, So with social media, I’ve found that people very much don’t want things being thrown in their face. So basically, try and keep things more or less organic, as we’re not trying to gain a following (but you can if you want). So you’re trying to say don’t push. Say ‘follow us’ and don’t push to go on our website because I think that could scare people off in that sense.

Be Smart With Your Response

Nikita Kanda: Yeah, no, definitely. I wouldn’t be pushy with it because again, like you just said it would definitely scare people away and they might follow you and then again they might unfollow you and you want to kind of keep those followers and you want to keep the authentic followers as well.

That’s why I was saying definitely engage with people if they do comment, or they do send you a direct message, I definitely would reply to that. Make sure you’re quite quick with the response as well.

And again, with Google reviews, I mean, that’s another whole podcast, but definitely reply straight away if you can, because it makes them feel that there is somebody there behind that screen that actually cares and takes time. Because a lot of these social media pages, like I said earlier, they’re all about the glitz and the glamour and they don’t respond to people. So I think if you actually have that response and engagement there they feel like okay, this is a trustworthy brand. There’s actually somebody there that takes the time to respond.

George Bellamy: Yeah. Awesome. Okay, what happens if I’m doing a schedule and do my photos, my stories, all that, I’ve got a colour scheme going, you know, the whole shebang. But I’m not getting the following. It’s not really picking up the traction, so what can someone do to try and change that up?

Keep Going – Stick To It!

Nikita Kanda: Yeah, I would say just keep going because the thing is, when you start off on any social media page, you’re not going to get the following straight away. It’s just how it is, you need to stick to it.

Stick to posting every single day, stick to your plan, stick to what you’re doing in your content, keep pushing out even if one person or two people see it. You know what, that one person or two people – in a month’s time it might be 20 people, then it might be 200 people.

So what I would say is just keep doing it because the more you do it, the repetition is key. And I think don’t get put off by, oh, I posted a video and it’s not getting 1000 views. The thing is, with social media, it takes its time, if you want real authentic followers, it definitely takes its time and that’s just what it is.

Give yourself time, don’t just think this isn’t working because one person or nobody’s seen it, it really does take a while. Don’t go by what you see on Instagram, sometimes you’ll see people with 50,000 followers. But if you really look at what I’ve noticed, if I see a dental practice of 50,000 followers, I look on their photos or their content, and they’ve got about, I don’t know 16 to 20 likes, those numbers don’t add up to me. So then they’ve obviously paid for followers. So really don’t believe everything you see is what I’m saying, because it does take time.

Read out article on 5 reasons to use Facebook ads.

George Bellamy: Don’t judge a book by its cover.

Nikita Kanda: Yeah, because Exactly. Because half those followers would be fake and then again, what they’re doing, they’ve probably bought the followers and thought okay, we look cool, because we’ve got 50,000 followers, but really, you’re not getting the engagement and the engagement is key.

I definitely wouldn’t go down that route, I think be authentic. Take your time. Keep repeating, keep posting stuff every single day, spend time on it and it will come, it will definitely come like it just takes a while. 

George Bellamy: Yeah. Okay, so how do I gain that following then? Obviously, Instagram and Facebook have those hashtags and that lot? How should I use them? Because obviously some hashtags have got hundreds of millions of uses others have got a couple you know, do I go with the small like the smaller niche type hashtags? Or do I go with the whole filled up wider fetch ones? 

Use Smaller Traffic Hashtags

Nikita Kanda: I would say mix them up, definitely hashtag whatever is relevant to your business. So – ‘dental practice’, ‘dental’, ‘dental hygienists’, ‘dental nurse’, ‘dental business’ all about everything dental, hashtag it and anything else you can think of. Say you did dentistry, visit #dentalbusinesstips.

Okay, it might not have that many posts on it or, you know, it might be like a lower end of the hashtags, but somebody might actually type that in one day and be like, okay, I need some dental business tips, let me type that in and it will come up with yours. It will be the first to come up with because they haven’t been used that much.

So mix it up, use the ones that are quite common, but also make up your own. Also use the ones that you think people wouldn’t use much because somebody will use it. Yeah, it’s just good to mix it all up. And then you will get followers that way with the hashtags.

Also, again, like I said, the more you’re posting, you’re reaching different people, because there’s an explore page on Instagram. So say I’ve been all day clicking on different dental businesses, then in my explore page, it’s going to come up with other dentists or other things that relate to that, what I’ve been clicking on, right kind of relatable posts if you will.

So you know what, you will be seen in loads of different ways. And also ads as well sponsored, and get yourself sponsored on Instagram or ads again, it’s like Facebook ads. That’s a whole other podcast but yeah, that’s definitely something to go with it.

George Bellamy: Okay, amazing. Well, thank you so much for the insight. I’m sure everyone is very appreciative because I am a complete novice when it comes to Instagram. So I have my own Instagram for my Landrover defender has not got the following whatsoever but I might actually start using these tips now so thank you very much.

Read our article on 5 reasons you should use Google Ads.

Nikita Kanda: Oh, I definitely have a quick tip I’ll give is definitely get people that you know, friends, family, whoever to post about your page because the more people that post about it, whoever it is, friends, family, whatever, the more people that post about it, it will get more views, more followers and their followers will want to follow you because they’re seeing it through their page and it just kind of goes in a spiral basis.

George Bellamy: Whole full circle thing really.

Nikita Kanda: Yeah, word of mouth. definitely get people to push it for you, your friends and what not. So definitely, that’s another great tip.

George Bellamy: Superb. Well, that’s right, wrap it up there. Thanks very much for listening everyone and we’ll catch you on the next one.

Nikita Kanda: Thank you.

With millions of articles and blogs being written and published on the internet daily, you need yours to stand out. For your business to succeed, you need your written content to have these three key aspects. You need to write the type of copy that is readable, relatable, and shareable. 

Why is content writing so important? 

Content writing is an essential part of the web design process. Consistency with creating content is key to determine the growth as well as success of your business. Unfortunately, simply writing a few short blogs about foods that are bad for your teeth will not gain you the exposure or traffic you need for your business. 

Quality matters when it comes to content writing. With search engines like Google always only one click away from blacklisting your site for keyword stuffing, quality content is absolutely imperative. It isn’t as easy as stringing a few hundred words together, throwing a few keywords in there and hoping for the best. Coming up with SEO driven, insightful and riveting copy can often be quite a challenge. 

Content writing allows your brand to create cohesive pieces of information. It’s quite simple, if your content is not up to standards, then it will not bring in the patients you need through the door. The content you provide has to reflect your company as a brand. The more engaging, reliable and consistent your content is, the more likely it is that someone reading your blogs is likely to book an appointment at your dental practice. 

Here are five things that will make your content writing stand out:

Study other writers

If you are going to create good content you need to begin with being aware of what kind of content is already out there. The more you read, the better you will know what kind of content you should and should not write. Keep a special eye out on the type of articles that personally hook you. Doing this also works as a bonus as it may inspire your writing and will also help teach you even more about the topic at hand.

The best thing about doing this is that it will inspire you in more ways than you know, reading good writers will help you become a better one. What draws you in? Pay attention to the way the writer draws you in with their voice and style. 

Looking at someone else’s ideas and improving on it will help your website significantly. You should also keep an eye out for what websites rank highly on Google. These are the websites that pop up first after the ads, whatever they are doing, they are doing it right!

Optimising SEO

Search engine optimization is a very big topic and can be the absolute bane of many copywriters and content writers everywhere. The algorithms are always changing and this article will not be a deep dive into all the specifics you will need to know about SEO practices however, it does not have to be a mystery. The most important part of SEO is keywords. SEO best practices are something any content producer should study. Here are a few basics:

Fresh content is critical: Copying another website’s content that is already doing well will never work for you. Original, well written content is what will work best. Be sure to keep all your articles and blogs updated. This includes updating old blogs as well as writing new ones.

Structure is pivotal: The flood of information on the internet has retrained all of us into scanners rather than deep readers. You have probably noticed that yourself, the art of a well curated article is one that is skimmable. Not only that, but placement of subheadings are important for placing SEO-friendly keywords.

Titles will make you: The title of your article is key to attracting people and getting your article seen, read and shared. You want to aim to create a good title with competitive keywords.

You can find out more about SEO for dentists here.

Mix up your words and your jargon

Mixing up your words is hard for any content writer. You won’t realise it but every writer has words they like to use over and over. When we edit our own words, it’s hard to see what your overused words are, but when we use them too often, our writing sounds redundant and the words that you overuse, although you may not notice, Google does and it does not like it. 

Using the same words is a habit and is one that is really hard to break out of. We all have our habits, but when it comes to keeping visitors and you audiences interested, vocabulary variety is key! 

The web is for everyone, not just dental experts or adults, you don’t know who will come across your content, so make sure your information is easily understandable. Avoid insider language, spell out acronyms on first reference and be sure to explain complex or niche terms. Also provide hyperlinks to other articles to rank higher for SEO, Doing this will also allow readers to get more background information on the topic at hand.

Incorporate multimedia

As previously mentioned, your website visitors are unlikely to stay on your page and read the entirety of your article. So, it helps to throw in some pictures or videos that will help explain your article or give the audience more information. It is shown that 90 percent of the information transmitted to the human brain is visual and more people process this visual information 60,000 times faster than text. 

When it comes to online blogs and articles, heavy text is usually not what your audience is looking for. Images will help break up the text, making your page easier to read. It is also great for SEO, we recommend having at least one image on each page of your website.  

Leave them wanting more

For content writing, good websites tend to end each page with a strong call-to-action. It could be either a way for the reader to contact your business or subscribe. Maybe even an interesting video they should watch? A link to another related blog? This strategy is integral to direct readers to your business and other areas of your website. It also encourages readers to promote your content to their friends, family or social media.

Keep these calls to action succinct, they should all start with action verbs such as ‘share’, ‘sign up’, ‘join’, ‘download’ or ‘watch’. And do not forget to include a hyperlink that will actually allow readers to follow through the action you are asking them to take. 

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Should You Use Social Media in a Dental Practice?

The internet, especially social media, is a great way for businesses worldwide to talk to their customers and make their brand more popular. But some dentists still aren’t sure if using social media is a good idea. Well, it is! Social media helps dentists spread their brand awareness, talk to their current patients and attract new ones. Dentists can use social media to show how good they are, give helpful dental advice, and even talk to patients online. Since many people (especially the younger generations) use social media, dentists can reach lots of people and get closer to them.

Like any business, if you are running a dental practice then you cannot afford to ignore the strength of social media marketing. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn provide you with the opportunity to connect with current patients, new patients and other dental professionals. This connection allows you to promote and help to grow your dental practice with social media.

In this post, we’ll explain why social media is good for dentists and give some tips on how to do it right.

The Power of Social Media in a Digital Age

In today’s digital world, social media has changed the way people connect and find information. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn are a big part of our daily lives, connecting lots of people worldwide.

For dentists, using social media has many benefits. It lets them talk to their current patients, get new ones and show off their dental skills, which builds trust and spreads their practice’s brand. Social media can reach a huge audience, making it easy to share dental advice and updates with both current patients and people looking for dental care.

It also lets patients ask questions and share their experiences, making existing relationships stronger. Plus, it’s a cheap way to advertise and reach specific groups of people, getting more for your money. Social media also gives dentists info about how well their online presence is working. So, in short, social media is a must-have for dentists in the digital age. It helps them connect, engage, and look good online.

Benefits of Social Media for Dentists 

It’s important to note that you cannot just rely on social media. Using social media platforms should form a significant part of your marketing strategy, but not all of it. Having said this, you can get some impressive benefits from using channels such as Facebook, if you do so in the right way. These benefits include:

• Making it easy for people to find your practice.
• Telling people what you can help them with.
• Targeting your presence at local people.
• Maintaining relationships with current patients, to keep them engaged.
• Allowing you to build positive relationships with other professionals.
• Giving audiences the chance to contact you easily.

Which Platforms Can Grow Your Dental Practice 

In order to make sure that your practice benefits as much as possible, you need to plan your social media activity carefully. You need to think about who you are trying to reach. This list will usually include current patients, new patients and other dental professionals.

Once you have this information, it’s time to look at which platforms these people use and what type of content they are most likely to engage with. People are continuously scrolling on their phones for hours per day, with the right type of marketing, you’re going to get some people’s attention. There are some specific options you can consider, depending on which platforms you choose to use.

Facebook

Facebook is often first on the list when it comes to using social media for dentists. This is because more than 3 billion people use Facebook globally; in the UK around 78% of Internet users use Facebook. Quite simply, it’s a potential market place that you cannot ignore. If you are wondering what to post on Facebook; here are some tips:

• Advice about oral hygiene routines.
• Comments and advice about new dental techniques.
• Community announcements, especially details of any community work you are doing.
• Special offers; although this type of content should not be used too often as you do not want your Facebook page to look too sales orientated.
• Videos and images that allow people to have a better connection with your practice.
• Team videos and profiles – audiences want to know the people behind the business.

Aside from posting on your regular Facebook page, you may also want to consider Facebook PPC (paid advertising). You can target your Facebook ads at people in your local area or based on their interests, demographics or even simply by uploading your contacts’ emails addresses.

This means you are likely to get engagement from people who are actually looking for a dentist locally to you. Your Facebook Page will quite often be the first thing people find when they search for you. So make sure you keep it up-to-date and interesting!

Instagram

Instagram is a hugely influential social media channel, with hundreds of millions of users worldwide. It’s a great way of helping people to see inside your business, using images and videos. Connecting with people in this way helps them to see your practice as friendly and reliable. These are positive attributes that are sought by people looking for a dentist.

Set up an Instagram account for your practice and post video clips and images regularly. Instagram has a much younger audience on average than Facebook so take this into account when you post. 

The best kind of posts for Instagram are your more fun behind-the-scenes clips, team videos and your best photos. Instagram is all about image and aesthetics! Show off your successes and make sure you tell the story of your practice through your videos and images.

Twitter

You should think outside the box when you are using Twitter to help your practice to grow. It’s fine to tweet about the latest goings on at the practice and include the occasional promotion. However, using Twitter should be more about displaying your expertise. Tweet about the latest developments in the industry, or local charity events, and include your educated comments. You may also want to think about setting up a Twitter Q&A session, when you can communicate with people in real time.

LinkedIn

Social media for dentists is not just about communicating with patients and potential patients. You can use LinkedIn to publish articles and show your expertise. You can also use it to develop relationships with other dental practices which can be mutually beneficial. For instance, if you do not provide orthodontic services, you can find a local specialist to refer your patients to. This helps you to provide a better service and provides more patients for the orthodontist, for whom you may receive a referral fee. 

Building a Strong Online Presence Through Social Media

With the younger, tech-savvy generations beginning to make financial decisions, it is essential for dentists to have a good online presence through social media. Nowadays, when people need a dentist, they look for one online to read reviews and get recommendations, this is known as social proof. Social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter help dentists connect with the people they want to reach, and it lets them create a professional and interesting online presence.

This means they can show how good they are, share useful information, and even offer virtual appointments, which makes them look trustworthy and builds a personal connection with patients. The best thing about social media is that it can reach a lot of people organically, and they can choose who sees their messages through targeted ads. So, it’s easier to get the right message to the right people. If patients sing your praises on social media, it adds credibility to your brand. Additionally, social media lets dentists keep up with what’s new in their field and connect with other professionals, adding to their trust, authority and expertise.

But to do well on social media, dentists need a plan, regular posts, interesting content, and a way to answer patient questions and feedback. Being consistent and responsive is vital to keep up a strong online presence.

In short, social media is a great tool for dentists to improve their online presence, talk to patients, and grow their practice. By using social media, dentists can show how good they are, get new patients, and be seen as experts in their field. So, the answer to whether social media is good for dentists is a big “yes!”.

How to Get More Patients With Social Media

Using social media for marketing properly can transform your business. Social media is a place where billions of users spend hours a day scrolling and engaging with friends, brands and companies alike. These billions of users are not just users to your business, they are all potential customers.

If you haven’t done so already, get on every social media platform you can with a simple profile to start. It is then imperative to understand which platform is most likely to have your target audience. Social media is one of the most inexpensive ways of marketing a dental practice and can actually have a huge impact, if used correctly. Decide who your target audiences are (families, teenagers, people interested in health or cosmetics etc) and then figure out which platforms they are more likely to use and what they expect to see there.

Pick one platform to begin with 

It can be a lot to try to gain a following on so many platforms at once, try tackling one social media platform to start with, whether that be Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Instagram or Linked in. Whichever one you choose, try to gain some momentum in that channel first before moving on to other ones.

In this day and age it often seems like all social media platforms are more or less all the same. They all differ though, which is why it is important to learn about the social media channels before choosing which one is best for you and your business. They all offer different features. Linked In is more popular in the business world but as the platforms are all evolving, Instagram has become a great way to promote businesses and also shop around on various different businesses on the app.

To begin your social media journey, our experts advise that you begin by making a business profile or a business account page on your chosen social media platform. Making this type of account will unlock many more features that will be useful when it comes to your business, ads, reach, engagement and most importantly, checking your audience insights, we highly recommend this especially if you are using Instagram.

Include as many options for contacting your practice as possible on your social media channels – website, email, phone numbers, WhatsApp, direct messaging (like Facebook messenger), your address.

You need to build your brand name, but the idea is not to plaster your name everywhere. You need to post consistently but you need posts with substance. People follow and like to engage with posts that they are genuinely interested in or keep them entertained. It is a great idea to place online ads on Google as well as social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, they get a lot of reach. 

Let’s take Facebook for example. A car mechanic will surely see more visits and clicks on a platform like Facebook where there are people from every walk of life and every age range. But doing the same on Instagram or Snapchat often won’t net you the same result as the majority of the users are young teens that either just don’t own a car or simply aren’t interested in seeing anything related to your business.

That’s why although it’s a good idea to be present on every platform, focusing the majority of your efforts on one or two platforms that are going to be most beneficial and responsive to your efforts might be the better option, at least to begin with. We focus mainly on Facebook and Instagram, but you might find a different combination works for you.

Start with a social media plan

Just like your business plan, your social media plan should bear the same importance. Like any good business strategy, using social media for business success needs to start with a well laid out plan. Without a plan you will have no clear goal for what you are trying to achieve, which means your team (if you have one) won’t have any specific goals either – which results in no way to measure your results and sometimes no results at all.

Take some time to create a social media plan. Social media may seem less pressing in the list of tasks that you need to do for your business, but it is more important and harder to master than you may think. Creating an effective plan will ensure that all your social efforts support your specific business goals. 

Your social media plan needs to include all of the content you intend to produce for your platforms. This means planning the blogs and articles you’ll write, what kind of photos you need to take and what videos you need to create. You also need to specify which team members will be in charge of producing this content.

Be authentic when you post

With social media being as overcrowded as it is, the need to stand out is exponential. It sounds overrated and overused but be yourself, that is who you are selling. Don’t try and be what you think others may want you to be, in the long run that will not work in favour for your company. Dont work too hard to make everything perfect or seem perfect; if you do, you will either never put up anything or worse you will break trust with your clientele. 

Whether it is Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, people on social media are bombarded with posts that seem to emit perfection, people really just want to follow pages that are ‘real’. Uploading posts and stories that are real and truthful that your audience can relate to and understand is what will get you those loyal followers that you aim to have. 

Remember that social media is all about trends. Keeping up with relevant trends, topics and hashtags to engage a wider audience is pivotal to growing your social media network. Make sure anything you post fits your brand.

ENGAGE, ENGAGE, ENGAGE with your audiences

The primary goal for any business on social media is to build relationships and add value. This is the part where most people fall in their social media triumphant attempts. They work so hard to create content and will continuously protrude said content, but they then fail to actually engage with their audience. 

It’s anywhere from 5 to 20 times more expensive to acquire new clients than it is to keep old ones. That’s why focusing efforts to retain clients by increasing customer engagement through any number of techniques is advised at every stage.

Knowing who your target audience is great even if your target audience is a very niche group of people and thanks to the extensive targeting selections on social media, you are able to target people based on purchasing behaviours, interests and demographics.

If you know exactly who and what type of people are going to see your ads, you can cater the ads to that specific audience. The key is to make ads that resonate with your audience, rather than throwing a general ad up hoping it appeals to someone who randomly comes across it. 

The more you start using social media for marketing, the more data you will gather about your target audience. It is important to collect and learn from this data in order to streamline your target audience and spend ad budget where it makes the most sense. Don’t just focus on that streamlined audience, you can use tools within social media advertising that allow you to expand that audience. 

Simply looking at the number of likes on your post is not as strong of an indicator of its performance as you think it is. Today, businesses need to look further into their performance metric. This includes tracking comments, amount to saves, shares and story views to understand how their content performs. Talk with people and really engage with your followers, it is what will keep them interested.

Respond to comments and reviews and jump into communities, especially ones that are in the same industry as your business. Share your perspectives and point of view, if anything, it will gain you a lot more attention than you may think, especially if you are slightly controversial or especially contemporary. 

With a shift in how we measure engagement, it’s only natural that we also change how we try to improve audience/ follower engagement on our feeds. Trust us it’s not as hard as you may think. 

Engaging honestly should be just for that aim, do not dominate the conversation or push for sales. Simply getting involved with the conversation, trends or your chosen community, you will get the following you need naturally and organically. Giving advice and offering suggestions will make you seem helpful, knowledgeable and trustworthy. No one wants false claims with the congested roads of pretending on social media, most people really engage when they see something they believe is genuine, use that aspect of yourself and your business to your advantage.

You need to commit and monitor 

Signing up to any social media platform is absolutely free. In a few minutes you can be up and running but to build your business as a brand on social media it is mandatory that you commit to staying active on that platform. In the beginning at least, spend a minimum of one hour per day during your launch of your page or business engaging with the community. Use this time to not only focus on your own page but to catch a glimpse of some businesses that are similar to yours and take inspiration for what they are doing and how you can do better. 

For some, it may be easy to spend hours a day on social media, but to run a business or build a brand on social media needs commitment and it is a lot easier said than done. Effective social media branding takes time and practice, in many cases it is worthwhile to hire someone who specialises in social media to help you. 

Writing down a strategy is a good place to start and having clear goals will set you a track to go on, but actually sticking to it is a whole different story. Your social media plans will always be changing. At the least you should have a good idea of the thing you would like to post daily. Strategy is key. If you are not committing to posting on a regular basis and creating new content then you will always struggle to hook your audience or build an engaged following. 

During one hour a day, at no expense out of your pocket at all, you can build a community in no time. Committing to spending time on your social media accounts is step 1, step 2 is mentoring these accounts in the most effective way. Monitor other sites, feed and pages that discuss the industry your business is in, your products or services. Look for posts that mention your company, mentoring you growth will help you reach specific goals you have.

Your social media accounts are also the best place to respond to any comments or complaints, using them as opportunities to engage with your followers, grow your brand and collect market research. If you pay attention to the right aspects of your social media platform, you can get ahead of potential problems. 

Many may think that continuously pouring out content will get you more followers, unfortunately it is not that easy. Looking at social media and posting once a day should suffice enough to engage your audience, educate and potentially entertain you from other posts within your given industry and hopefully inspire you to make more content. 

You should definitely monitor your insights but what will help you a lot will be finding out what days and times most people visit to engage with your pages. This will help notify you when is the best time to post yourself to get the most engagement from your followers. Always check your insights!

Establish a team and get expert help 

Having a marketing team in place can prove invaluable, eleven if you own a small business. Having a small team can enable you to establish a strategy with the necessary specialities for social media management. Having a team can help you keep afloat all your media marketing. Keeping up with social media posts as well as website posts and blogs can be tiresome while you are also managing other important aspects of your business. This is where your team will prove to be beneficial. 

Hiring someone who will be able to manage your content for marketing will make it a lot easier for you and their expertise will allow you to rely on someone to do what they know will work and help you reach your goals. 

This isn’t an option for everyone, sometimes it’s employing the necessary help in only certain aspects. Samera has an expert marketing team from website developers, social media specialists to content writers. Employing third party specialists to help you when you need it can prove to be more helpful than you know. They are aware of what is necessary to get you recognition and can do it effectively without having to impose any stress onto you.

Tell them how to reach you 

This seems like such an easy one but it is often overlooked. Make sure your followers know how to get hold of you. Plaster your contact details such as your web address, email address, phone numbers and social media handles. If it is possible, have them hyperlinked on any web content such as emails or newsletters and everywhere on your captions, having those details at the bottom or in the corner of web pages so it is easy for people to find you and remind them that you are available on various platforms. 

Social media ideas for dentists to engage audiences

Contests

Online contests are a great way to boost your following without opting for paid advertisements. You will have to fork out a bit for the final prize but that’s still cheaper than buying clicks and views.

Use simple, cheap treatments such as a free tooth whitening session, a dental care kit or a treatment voucher as your prizes to encourage winners to have to come to your location. 

This not only directly promotes your own product/service but also saves you from spending on another item. It’s basically free publicity. As long as your customer service is handled well, you should be able to convert the prize winner into a long-term patient once they are in the practice.

Create Partnerships

No one can do everything by themselves. Sooner or later you will need help and teaming up with another business that is in the same field can help create a symbiotic relationship where both parties benefit greatly.

Creating strategic partnerships has many advantages while doesn’t require as much work on your part. Your business is able to receive twice as much notice and partnering with an industry-relevant business will also introduce you to an entirely new audience that is looking for something in your area of specialties.

Continuing from the previous example once again, a car mechanic can partner with a car dealership and have access to an exclusive audience that would usually be out of reach. And you can even go a step further and give discounts or offer special pricing to the customers that are referred to you by the partner.

Certain businesses in the dental industry, like equipment suppliers and dental tech companies, are always happy to team up with practitioners to help grow their patient base (as this often translates into more revenue for them too). Reach out, share posts and see what opportunities are out there.

Referral Programs

Speaking of referral programs, they should not only be limited to your partnerships. Under normal circumstances even if customers like what you have to offer, they still often wouldn’t just refer to your services without a reason. So why not give them one?

You have a lot of freedom when it comes to designing referral programs, but the one thing that should be kept in mind is the reward. It has to be enticing enough for your customers to consider actively referring new clients. What you’re looking for is someone that will stick around, even after the initial purchase.

Studies have shown that referred customers have much higher brand loyalty from the get-go and larger profit margins without much work from your side. Not only this, but it would also increase the loyalty of your existing customers once they have a more vested interest in your brand.

Plus, with the dozens of different kinds of software out there that are designed for the sole purpose of setting up and maintaining such referral programs, there really is no reason for you to not at least try it out.

Measuring the Success of Social Media Efforts for Dental Practices

It’s essential for dental practices to monitor their online efforts to figure out what works, and what doesn’t and to direct their efforts. You can do this by looking at a few important things:

1. Growth of Your Online Community: See if more people are following or liking your pages on social media.

2. Website Traffic from Social Media: Check if social media is sending more people to your website.

3. Likes, Comments, and Shares: Look at how much people are liking, commenting, and sharing your posts.

4. Follower Demographics: Find out what kind of people are following you and use that info to make content they like.

5. Clicks and Conversions: See if people are clicking on your links and taking action, like making appointments.

6. Inquiries and Appointments: Check if people are getting in touch or booking appointments because of what they see on social media.

By keeping an eye on these things, you can tailor your social media strategy to what works best for you. Remember, not all strategies will work the same for all practices, you need to figure out what works best for you.

Tips on How to Effectively Manage Your Social Media Accounts

Here are some easy tips for dentists to handle their social media accounts well:

1. Set Clear Goals: Decide what you want from social media, like getting more people to know your brand or bringing them to your website. This will help you plan what to post and how to interact.

1. Choose the Right Platforms: Not all social media is the same. Pick the ones where your audience hangs out. Facebook and Instagram are good choices for dentists because you can share pictures and useful info.
2. Share Helpful Stuff: People like content that teaches them something or makes them interested. Share tips for taking care of your teeth, facts about oral health, photos showing changes, what patients say about you, and sneak peeks of your practice. This helps you become a trusted expert.
3. Be Regular: To stay active, post new things often. Make a schedule for what to post and when. This keeps you organized and seen by your audience.
4. Talk to Your Audience: Social media isn’t just for talking at people. Answer comments, messages, and reviews quickly and nicely. This helps you connect with people and gain their trust.
5. Reach Local People: Since most of your patients are probably local, use social media to talk to them. You can use features like location tags, local hashtags, or targeted ads to make sure your content reaches the right people in your area.
6. Work with Influencers: Team up with important people in your community or field. Find local influencers or dental experts to work together on content or host events.

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If you own a dental practice, great marketing is essential to your survival and growth, just like it is for any business. You need people to know what you can provide for them. One of the best ways to make this happen is to use video marketing. Video is definitely king, when it comes to online content in the world today. Globally, we watch as many as 1 billion hours of video each day on YouTube alone.

You can begin to see why video marketing for dentists is so important. It should form a big part of any digital marketing strategy. There are several ways in which video content can be useful for helping to grow your business.

The benefits of video marketing

According to this article posted on Entrepreneur.com, “Videos are processed by the brain 60,000 times faster than text.” This is why people love to watch videos. It takes less time and effort than it does to read text online.

Video is also an excellent means of providing an accurate picture without having to use a lot of words to explain what is going on. Put simply, it’s an entertaining and informative way of connecting with people that is more likely to gain their attention and encourage them to engage with your business. It’s also a means of you competing for online viewers with your competitors. There are several ways in which video marketing makes these things happen.

Informing the viewer.

There is so much competition out there that it’s no longer good enough for you to simply pitch your services to potential patients. You need to inform them about how certain services work and about how the treatments that you offer can help them. It’s all about adding something valuable to the viewer experience, rather than going for the hard sell.

Helping with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

Good quality video content is regarded highly when it comes to getting that high search engine ranking that you want for your business. Video marketing should be used in conjunction with high quality text content, for the best results. Do not forget to provide a solid meta description and a good heading for each video.

Not getting left behind from the crowd.

According to Hubspot, 87% of businesses use video marketing as a tool. This means that if you do not use good quality video content as part of your digital marketing strategy, you risk getting left behind. You cannot afford for this to happen, as the dental market in the UK is currently a very competitive one.

Connecting with patients on a personal level.

One of the biggest benefits of video marketing is that it allows patients, and prospective patients, to see you and your practice in a more personal way. Seeing members of the practice on video enables this to happen in a way that text does not.

Bearing these benefits in mind, there are several different types of video that you can use, to make sure that you get the best return on your investment.

Types of video that you can use

You may be thinking that one video is pretty much the same as the next, but that is not true. Videos are made for different reasons, and with various aims in mind. You need to think about this carefully when you are creating video content for your business. Here are some of the different types of video that you may want to consider using.

Explainer videos

Make a great explainer video to educate people about your services and you can gain a lot of new fans. This type of video can also help people who are nervous of dentists to get a better understanding, making them more likely to register at your practice.

Interviews

Using interviews as part of your video marketing is an excellent way to connect with potential patients as they can see various members of the practice team answering questions, and get to know them.

Reviews by brand ambassadors.

If you can get people to provide a review of your businesses and services on camera, this can be an excellent way of encouraging people to engage with your business. They can see how you have helped others which gives them a better understanding of how you can help them.

You can see why video is such a vital part of any digital marketing strategy. It can help your business to better communicate with people and also means that they are more likely to engage with your marketing and your business.

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