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How Dentists Can Target the Right Patients with Social Media

Do you often find yourself wishing you would attract the “right” patient? Maybe you’re looking for patients that require more complicated dental work over general cleanings, or maybe you want to attract more new patient sign-ups.

If you find yourself asking, “Why am I not getting the people I really want?” then this blog post is for you. The first step in any dental marketing strategy implementation is figuring out who you want to communicate with. What do they look like? Where do they live? What are their pain points? Use that information to define who your primary target audience is. Once you have your audience defined, you can use that information to inform your strategy for social media.

Targeting your desired audience on social media largely consists of knowing where your audience is and posting content related dentistry that you believe your audience would be interested in.

Being active on social media, particularly Facebook, is half the battle. Research over the last 5 years revealed that at least “16% to nearly 25% of [internet users’] online time on [is spent] social networks.” That number is expected to grow well into 2017. Facebook users, in particular, spend an estimated 7 hours each month on the platform. Facebook’s advantage is that users signing up for a profile can range drastically in demographics. While Facebook’s primary users are largely young adults, more and more adults over the age of 65 are joining the platform. In fact, out of the estimated 65% of Americans using Facebook, 62% of those adults are over the age of 65. Needless to say, the excuse ‘older people don’t join social media’ is quickly becoming irrelevant.

Creating content that resonates with your audience is the other half of the battle. Posting about topics that interest your audience makes them more likely to engage with your posts. For example, a family dental practice targeting young families may post about baby bottle decay or research on the effects of pacifiers on teeth. They may also emphasize whether a pediatric dentist is available for appointments with young children. Alternatively, your family dental practice may target an older demographic, in which case you would simply posts about dental problems and pain points a senior may be facing with their own dental health.

When you post about particular topics that resonate with your audience, and they’ll be more likely to share, comment and engage. While topics are important when creating your social media content strategy, remember that the “how” is just important as the “what.” In other words, how you choose to post your content (either as an image or video vs. text) is just important as the topic that post is addressing. Know that video and image content largely out-performs simple text posts. Therefore, you’ll want to create videos of your practice and find engaging images to increase the impact of your posts.

To learn more about marketing your practice on social media, download the free whitepaper, Running a Dental Practice in the Age of Social Media.

To learn more or to get a free demo on ProSites’ social media solutions, call (888) 932-3644.