What is the Best Social Media for Your Dental Practice?

You know that your dental practice needs social media. You know that potential patients are most likely to find your practice online and that your various social media platforms are a vital tool for increasing your visibility, facilitating good patient communication, and projecting your quality of care to the world. But how do you go about it? What’s the best social media for your dental practice? In answering these questions, we’ll also explore some details of how social media affects your practice and the business of dentistry.

Let’s begin our exploration of the best social media for your dental practice by looking at the ways in which it adds value to your practice’s marketing efforts. While conventional marketing still plays a role, social media has some unique strengths which can benefit any dental practice if implemented properly:

• A good social media presence can establish credibility and trust between you and potential patients. A well-run and content-rich approach to social media foster confidence by projecting your services, expertise, and quality of care to your target audience in a timely fashion. 
• Social media is a primary tool for increasing online visibility, which in turn helps new patients find you and your practice. Potential patients under the age of 40 are most likely to find you on social media first, adding to its importance in engaging with a key demographic. 
• Boosting patient engagement and communication is another great strength of social media. Whether you’re sharing information about your practice, posting answers to frequently asked questions about dental health, or seeking to build good reviews and patient recommendations, both your practice and your patients can benefit from the tools social media brings to the table. 

Social media is a potent force in building and maintaining the connection between you and clients both potential and established. By projecting quality, creating trust and communication, and increasing engagement, social media enhances the overall experience that your dental practice offers.

So what social media platforms best fill the needs of your dental practice? While there’s no blanket answer–every practice is different, and has a unique set of needs–there are a few key social media networks that every practice should at least consider:

• Facebook is perhaps the premier social network currently in use. With an established user base of over 2 billion people, Facebook provides connectivity and communication in a way that’s impossible to ignore. Combined with their advertising options, these factors make Facebook a must for any dental practice. 
• Instagram is a visually oriented platform; thus, its great strength is showing photos and videos that project your practice and its quality of care to your potential audience. Popular and flexible, Instagram also offers a number of marketing and outreach options that make it a powerful tool in your social media arsenal. 
• YouTube is the most popular video-sharing and social media site. Like Instagram, its focus is on visual content–in this case, video. With the right video content, your practice can use YouTube to both engage and inform your prospective audience in a way that appeals to some key patient demographics. 
• LinkedIn is a social media network site for professionals, and in that mode, it offers a number of distinct opportunities when compared to other social media networks. LinkedIn allows you to connect with other professionals and peers in your industry, engage with industry-specific content, and create and share your own content. This in turn projects credibility and expertise in a way that builds your reputation and presence in the world of dentistry. 

Now that we’ve identified what social media does and which social media networks are most likely to benefit your dental practice, what’s the next step? The best approach to successful social media marketing involves the creation and execution of a professional quality marketing plan. Tailored to the unique needs of your practice, DentaMarketing’s approach to social media will connect you with the audience you need, project your services and quality of care, and enhance your standing among your peers in a sustainable and scalable manner. Turn your social media into a tool for your practice’s success by getting in touch with DentaMarketing today.