Billions of people around the world use social media; if you’re a dental professional, there’s a good chance this includes quite a few of your patients. Whether you’re a frequent Instagrammer yourself or you’re not particularly familiar with how these platforms work, our team at Rosemont Media can work with you to develop a strong social presence. Social media has a special ability to increase your engagement with existing and potential patients, and we take great joy in helping our clients take full advantage of its power.
What Are the Benefits of Social Media for Dentists?
Along with content marketing and search engine optimization (SEO), social media plays a vital role in your website’s visibility. By creating and maintaining an active social media presence, you can reach a wider audience and attract potential patients who may not have otherwise discovered your services. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram allow you to share informative content, demonstrate expertise, and showcase patient testimonials. This kind of exposure can help build trust and credibility with patients, as they can see your skills and patient satisfaction firsthand.
What’s more, social media enables direct communication with patients. You can answer questions, respond to comments, and engage with your audience in real time, which can foster a sense of community and encourage patient engagement. In addition, sharing informative posts, videos, and infographics can serve to educate patients about the importance of oral health.
While several platforms can be utilized for dental social media marketing, we’ve found that Facebook and Instagram tend to be the most beneficial. Facebook offers robust targeting options, allowing you to reach highly specific demographics based on factors such as age, gender, location, interests, behavior, and more. The platform provides detailed analytics and insights into your page’s performance, helping you track the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.
Meanwhile, Instagram – a primarily visual platform – can be ideal for showcasing your brand through images and videos. The platform’s features, such as Stories and Carousel posts, allow you to tell compelling visual stories about your brand, products, or services. These can be used to create a narrative and connect with your audience. Additionally, consistent use of Instagram can increase recall among your target audience, helping you stay at the forefront of their awareness.
Our Dental Social Media Services
At Rosemont Media, we’ll tailor a comprehensive dental influencer marketing strategy that fits your needs and preferences. Our social media specialists are experienced with the many components needed to achieve ongoing success with your Facebook and Instagram marketing. Whether you want to play an active role in your social media strategy or would prefer we handle it all, you can take advantage of our winning services, which include:
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Setting up your profiles
Our expert team can build and optimize a social media profile that highlights your practice’s identity. We can write customized bios, help you choose professional profile photos, and – if you so choose – work with you to develop a unique theme or aesthetic.
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Producing custom content
There are several ways dental professionals can create engaging content with the help of social media. For instance, before-and-after photos, testimonials, and informative content (e.g. oral health tips or educational posts) can effectively grasp your patients’ attention.
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Monthly calendar development
Every month, our social media team will create a personalized calendar of posts for you to review. We’re always staying up to date on the latest social media trends for dentists, and we’ll strategically schedule posts to ensure consistency on your social platforms.
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Promoted posts
Allow our team to assist you with promoted posts, which can significantly amplify your visibility and potentially attract new patients. Utilizing Facebook and Instagram ads can greatly increase your reach as they allow you to strategically target your ideal demographics.
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Tracking and conversion
We will review and manage analytics to track the performance of your campaigns and encourage conversion. Our team is proficient in tracking using email leads, Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and many additional strategies.
The Best Social Media Platforms for Dentists
Social media sites allow dentists to connect with their patients in a more personal, easygoing way. By posting regularly and engaging with people on multiple platforms, dentists can reach a wide and diverse demographic. While it may not be necessary to have a presence on every platform available, there are certain social media sites that tend to have a higher impact on dentists’ social media marketing success.
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Facebook
Facebook is an excellent extension of a dentist’s website. The platform allows practices to share important information for current and prospective patients, such as business hours, practice news, and reviews. Being such a widely utilized social media site, it’s important for dentists to have a presence on Facebook and continue engagement and interactions.
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Instagram
Since social media use has evolved into being very image- and video-based, Instagram can provide a great way to communicate with followers in this visual way. Hashtags can help expand the reach of a post or video, while engaging content like infographics, dental tips, and office photos can help draw viewers in. With Instagram Stories, content can be shared in a more personal and informal fashion, disappearing after 24 hours.
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TikTok
TikTok has quickly become one of the most popular social media apps, especially among young adults. This platform offers a trendy space to create fun and eye-catching videos. For dentists, that may include flossing how-to’s, practice staff introductions, or funny TikTok trends. These types of videos showcase a dentist’s and practice’s personality, which can be highly appealing for prospective patients.
How Can I Grow My Dental Practice’s Social Media Following?
There are multiple ways to expand your practice’s reach and online exposure. To grow your dental practice’s social media following, you can:
- Encourage patients to follow your practice’s social media account(s) when they check in at your office.
- Focus on creating engaging and educational content that addresses common dental concerns and promotes oral health.
- Share before-and-after photos of your treatments, patient testimonials, and fun facts about dentistry to capture interest.
- Utilize hashtags relevant to dental health and local tags to increase visibility in your local area.
- Regularly interact with followers by responding to comments and messages to build a loyal community.
Remaining active on social media by sharing quality, informative content, implementing strong marketing strategies, and engaging with your audience helps build trust and create a foundational following.
Paid Advertising on Social Media
Paid post campaigns are among the top strategies for dental social media promotion. Since you have control over how much you invest into your ads, you can start with as small or as large of a contribution as your budget allows. Our clients frequently find this to be a very cost-effective component of their social media marketing, providing a noticeable return on investment (ROI).
Types of Social Media Ads
We provide clients with numerous choices for social media ads, each with its own unique format, purpose, and advantages. The choice between which types to use depends on your marketing goals, target audience, and the platform you’re using. Our team will adjust a client’s ad creatives based on the placement type, ensuring they stand out and get your practice noticed. Here are some common social media ad types available on both Facebook and Instagram:
- Image ads: These are simple ads that consist of a single image along with a caption or headline. They’re commonly used for brand awareness and engagement campaigns.
- Video ads: Our video ads are compelling and highly engaging. They can be used for various purposes, including product demonstrations and storytelling.
- Carousel ads: Carousel ads allow you to showcase multiple images or videos within a single ad unit. Users can swipe or click through the carousel to view different pieces of content.
- Reels ads: Reels are an extremely popular area where Facebook and Instagram users spend their time. These vertical videos can significantly expand your reach.
- Stories ads: As users are watching Stories in their social media feed, your photo or video ad can become front and center, increasing your brand awareness and traffic.
Types of Ad Campaigns
Not only can dedicating a portion of your marketing budget to social media advertising dramatically boost your visibility, but paid ad campaigns can allow you to define specific audience demographics, interests, behaviors, and preferences. Depending on the social media package you choose at Rosemont Media, the following ad campaign types are available for your dental practice:
- Traffic: If you want to get more visitors to your website, blog, or other landing page, we can design a traffic-focused ad campaign. This can include retargeting ads to those who have interacted with your page, posts, and website.
- Engagement: To connect with current and prospective patients of your practice, consider an engagement campaign, which is ideal for increasing followers, post reactions or comments, and event sign ups.
- Lead generation: Learn about prospective patients with the goal of growing your practice through our lead generation campaigns. From retargeting ads to convenient contact forms within ads, help your target demographics find you and get in touch.
- Messages: Messenger ads allow you to directly communicate with a potential new patient or returning patient. People can chat with you directly, or you can set up an auto-response to ask them to call or email your office.
The Ethical Use of Social Media for Dentists
As a leader in the dental marketing industry, Rosemont Media understands the importance of healthcare and privacy regulations, including Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) laws. While sharing stories about patient experiences can be an excellent way to engage with new clientele on social media, there’s a fine line between a detailed account and a violation of privacy. For this reason, we maintain strict professional standards when sharing your patients’ stories or photos on social media.
Want to learn more? Read our blog on how to protect patient privacy on social media.
How to Measure Social Media ROI for Dentists
Measuring social media ROI (return on investment) for dental practices involves the tracking of key performance indicators (KPIs). These may include website visits, appointment requests, contact form submissions, social media engagement (likes, shares, comments), and new patient acquisitions. In any case, our team is well-versed in measuring social media ROI to monitor progress and help our clients make data-driven decisions.
The methods we use include Google Analytics, a powerful tool that can help you analyze the impact of your social media efforts on your website’s performance and overall ROI. With GA, you can add specialized codes to the URLs of your website links to track the performance of your marketing campaigns, including their ROI. These codes – referred to in the industry as “UTM parameters” – provide valuable insight into how users interact with your site after clicking on a specific link from your marketing efforts.
Our team also regularly utilizes Google Search Console, Facebook Business Manager, Facebook Ads Manager, Instagram Business Profiles, and Meta Insights to track content performance.
Frequently Asked Questions About Social Media for Dentists
Can I Use My Personal Social Media Profiles for My Dental Practice?
Dentists should generally maintain separate social media accounts for their practice to keep content focused and professional. This separation ensures patient privacy, adheres to ethical and advertising guidelines, and builds a targeted audience interested in dental services. Patients are able to explore more details about your practice, interact with you or your team in a more secure way, and find community among other patients. Professional business accounts can showcase dental expertise, share health tips, and promote services, enhancing your practice’s reputation without blending personal life details, which might dilute the professional message and brand consistency.
How Often Should I Post on Social Media?
Dentists should aim to post on their social media pages between three to five times per week to maintain engagement and visibility. Regular posts keep the practice at the forefront of patients' minds and encourage interaction. Content can vary from educational articles and dental tips to patient testimonials and office updates. This frequency helps build a consistent presence, fostering trust and loyalty among followers while attracting potential new patients.
By posting more often on platforms such as Threads or X (formerly Twitter), the algorithms recognize that you are using the platform regularly, thus making your content more likely to appear on feeds. However, other platforms such as Instagram and TikTok may punish or penalize your account if you post more than once a day, as the algorithms may see your account as spam.What Type of Content Should I Post on My Dental Practice’s Social Media?
Social media users respond well to authentic and helpful content. To accomplish this, dentists should post a mix of educational content, such as oral health tips and explanations of dental procedures, alongside patient testimonials and before-and-after photos, with patient permission, to showcase their work. Videos are currently one of the leading types of content across all social media platforms and can be highly beneficial for attracting followers. Engaging content can also help drive appointments, making social media a dynamic tool for practice growth.
Fun and effective content ideas include:- Creating interactive posts such as quizzes or polls about dental health.
- Offering behind-the-scenes glimpses of your practice, including team bonding and birthday celebrations, that can engage followers.
- Partaking in social media trends with your team that make sense for your business.
- Hosting a Q&A from user comments or common dental questions.
- Sharing updates on the latest dental technologies.
- Promoting seasonal promotions and check-up reminders.
Do I Need to Use Hashtags?
Hashtags can be helpful for dentists on social media, depending on the platform, because they can increase the visibility of posts to a broader audience. By using relevant hashtags such as #OralHealth or #TeethWhitening on sites including Instagram and TikTok, dentists can reach potential patients who are searching for specific dental services. Hashtags can also help categorize content, making it easier for users to find information related to their dental needs. Effective hashtag use can significantly enhance engagement and attract new followers to a dental practice’s social media pages.
On platforms that do not utilize hashtags as much, like LinkedIn and Facebook, it is not as necessary to employ this strategy. Instead, consider tagging businesses you partner with or brands/products you regularly use at your practice.
Social Media Success Stories from Our Dentists
Below, you’ll find just a few examples of our successful dental social media marketing campaigns. Our clients appreciate our hands-on, personalized approach and trust us to work with them every step of the way.