What are the best ways to get more patients? This is a question that many dentists, orthodontists, and specialty medical providers ask themselves every day. One of the most popular methods for attracting new patients is social media marketing.
Social media marketing can be used to promote your practice's services through various different social media accounts. Utilizing these social media platforms will allow you to not only post about your office or clinic but also interact with potential clients during their browsing time which in turn will increase lead conversion rates significantly.
The following blog post will discuss how you can utilize social media platforms for your dental practice or medical facility. We will teach you how best to use social media marketing to get more new patients by positioning your dental office as a thought leader.
First, let's take a look at the numbers.
According to some statistics, Facebook has more than 2.8 billion active users, and Twitter has more than 400 million. When you think that people spend an average of almost 145 minutes per day on social networking sites, you can understand that your social media presence is definitely something healthcare marketers should pay attention to.
Prospective Patients Want to See What You're All About
People will visit your social media channels to see what you're all about before they let you into their medical history and care.
Prospective patients need to know that you are competent, friendly, and have their best interest at heart. They also want to know that they won't be shamed for poor dental hygiene habits or some other silly reason.
By creating engaging social media content as part of your marketing strategy, you can help people get to know you better.
Your social media strategy should focus on creating engaging content. This is content that is liked or shared. A prospective patient who engages with your content instantly increases your brand awareness.
Use hashtags as a way to increase the visibility of your posts.
Proper hashtagging is a digital marketing strategy to help your practice get discovered by new patients.
It's not as simple as making up your own hash tag. It's best if you research popular tags that are appropriate for your post.
Healthcare marketers know that social media is all about posting in a timely manner, and social media topics can change quickly.
Don't Forget To Blog
We'll go further into the subject of blogging in other posts, but I want to mention that blogging is one of the best ways for potential patients to gain more insight into healthcare organizations.
Just don't start blogging about random subjects that will bore your readers. Instead, provide potential patients with useful information that's easy to digest. A healthcare marketing agency with an inbound mindset can help build you a blogging strategy that drives patient engagement and attracts new patients.
Just remember, the information you provide in your blog should always be patient-oriented, so that your readers can see that you are a thought leader that cares about them.
Marketing Your Medical Practice on Social Media
Social media is a powerful tool that can be used to your advantage. If you spend time finding out how it works and what its rules are, you'll find that social media marketing can be very effective for medical practices.
The purpose of social media is to help the practice increase brand awareness and connect with new patient prospects and customers.
However, if you want to get the most out of your efforts then it's crucial that you develop a detailed social media strategy that includes patient photos (before and after) and online reviews. Positive reviews are a social network signal that your healthcare practice is a good one.
The most important thing to remember about social media is that you need to show people who you are and what makes your healthcare practice special.
If they get a good impression of who you are after following/reading your posts, then there's a high chance that they will want to visit you for their healthcare needs.
Social Media Channels
Now that we've established that being present on social media is an important part of marketing your medical practice, let's talk about social media platforms. Every social media account has its own rules, and you'll need to know how to apply them in order to get the best results.
Which social media platforms should dentists be using?
If you are only going to use one social media platform, then it needs to be either Facebook or Instagram. Choose the one that you like the best, and that interests you the most.
If your budget and desire allow for more, then it makes sense to add in YouTube, and Google My Business. Wait, you think Google My Business isn't a social media platform? Think again.
Facebook is a great digital marketing tool for businesses because it allows medical professionals to interact with patients and prospects directly.
However, it can also be a very time consuming task. This is why the most successful medical practices have a team member who coordinates the their social media with a digital marketing agency.
The good news here is that you don't have to re-invent the wheel because a good marketing agency will have years of experience to draw on that can help you save time without sacrificing quality.
Here are some of my best tips for marketing your medical practice on Facebook:
- Create a Facebook page for your dental practice. You can use this page to post updates and the social media account can send messages directly to prospects and patients.
- Make sure your posts are relevant and interesting, so that people want to share them with their friends and followers.
- Monitor and engage with your audience in order to build up trust.
- Facebook also offers paid advertising, so you can promote special offers, upcoming events or new products/services.
- Use paid ads to increase the visibility of your posts and take advantage of organic reach when possible.
Instagram is a great visual platform that allows you to capture attention by posting pictures.
It's perfect if you want to promote the pretty side of your dental practice. Use it for sharing images of patients who are happy with their results, before/after photos and beautiful shots of your office/surroundings.
Another great feature that Instagram has is the ability to tag people in posts. You can use that strategy to get in touch with influential people and brands.
YouTube
YouTube is arguably the best choice for healthcare marketing on social media. It's a great place to showcase your skills or offer consultations, and it can even help you get a few new patients.
To get started, make sure that you have a profile page with videos on it. This is where your prospective patients can watch videos at their leisure before scheduling an appointment. Make sure that the videos are relevant and informative.
You can also use YouTube to make short clips of things like diagnosis and procedure details, which will allow your patients access to more information about what they might be going through, unlike many other platforms.
Also, never forget how great it is to post testimonials from satisfied customers!
Google My Business
Google My Business lets you reach a huge number of people in a way that's more targeted and visible than other platforms, and it's a great way to boost your local rankings on Google local SEO searches. These are searches using a city name, or location.
- First, make sure that you have a Google My Business account set up and active if you haven't already.
- Make sure that your profile includes all the information about your business, such as hours of operation and contact details.
- Make sure that you have an attractive, high-quality photo of your office.
- Use keywords in your posts, and link to your website whenever possible.
- Make sure you fill out the 'About' section so Google can understand what your business is all about.
- Make sure to add your services and products. This is a very important field for SEO
- When posting content, make sure it is educational content targeted towards your ideal patient.
- Upload photos of new employees, happy patients and all of the things that make you unique.
- Turn on messaging. Let your target audience message you directly in GMB.
Connect To Other Healthcare Providers
Social media platforms offer the healthcare industry a way to connect with other healthcare providers, and healthcare services. This has the benefit of expanding the network of medical services that you can refer people to if they need treatments that are outside of your scope.
When you connect with other healthcare providers it benefits both you and the patient because they receive better care from a provider who specializes in their particular need.
How would you like your own Social Media Team?
Social media is a powerful tool to get more new patients. It’s an opportunity for prospective patients to see what your practice has to offer and you can use it as a way of positioning yourself in the mind of potential clients as someone who is well-versed in their industry. But, social media marketing takes up valuable time that could be spent seeing actual patients or doing other important tasks like continuing education.
Let us help with our expert team getting your social media presence off the ground so you don't have to worry about all the hard work! Connect with us and share some ways you've seen people using social media successfully?
