One of the biggest growth opportunities for your practice is through active social media pages that engage current and potential patients with content that is current, creative, and shareable. Social media is proven to have a positive, measurable effect on new patient conversions. Researchers have found that people spend up to an hour every day on Facebook (an average of 53 minutes on Instagram) — influencing everything from how they vote to what local businesses they support.  

To boost your exposure on social media and to reach more of the people you want to convert into new patients, you must implement strategies that will encourage current patients, as well as visitors, to share your content with their own network of friends and family who might be looking to join your practice. The big question is how do you get them to engage? Below, Dr. Leon Klempner and Amy Epstein, MBA*, founders of People & Practice, LLC outline a few simple strategies you can employ right now to increase your reach on social to convert more new patients. 

Encourage Selfies 

People love to post selfies. Almost every experience or milestone today is captured with a selfie to mark the occasion. Your practice should be encouraging selfies so patients can show off their beautiful smiles inside your office. Encourage patients to tag your practice when taking photos and make sure there are key locations around your office that strategically encourage selfie-taking, especially on big days like when braces go on or come off. When possible, an excellent location choice is one that shows your practice name or logo in the background. This way, the friends and family of the selfie-taker will see their improved smiles and know exactly where they got them. A picture on social media can be worth a thousand likes! 

Create Shareable Content

Your social media content doesn’t have to be boring, nor should it be. Instead, make it fun. Use original content when possible, and spice up your posts with humor, history, or interesting educational or trivia items that patients will want to share with their friends and family. Always add an image to every post and keep them short and to the point. People tend to skim online when reading, so we recommend no more than 500 words per post—or, break up your posts into lists or small sections. The idea is to make everything bite sized so people can get to the point fast, “like” it, then share it on their own social media pages. 

Provide a Call-to-Action 

Patients should be directed to share after viewing your online content. Include a specific call to action at the end encouraging them to share. Use a service like ShareThis or AddThis on your Facebook, Instagram, and website posts. When you post on social media, always ask for likes and shares! 

Engage with Active Patients 

After you‘ve taken the steps above, you should start seeing patients come back more often to see what’s new. Make sure you engage with your most active users and tag them in posts. Empower a staff member to be your social media coordinator. Have them monitor your accounts for activity so when anyone comments on your page they can respond in a timely manner. 

When a patient takes the time to tag your practice in a post (like a selfie), make sure you share it on your page, comment on it, and thank them. Social media is a two-way street. To be successful with social, you need to do much more than just post an occasional announcement. For the best results—make it interactive and make it fun!

* Dr. Leon Klempner and Amy Epstein, MBA are founders of People & Practice, LLC, a digital marketing firm exclusively for the dental profession. For more information and a free marketing analysis, contact them at 888.866.DOCS or email hello@pplpractice.com.