How To Make Your Practice Stand Out From The Crowd

A question I get asked a lot is how to make a practice stand out on Social Media.

Well the first thing is the design, your social media needs to be branded across the board which is called cross branding. So from Facebook to Twitter to Instagram to YouTube to Google maps all your platforms should mirror your brand and ultimately so should your website. This is key to standing out from the crowd.

However, before you even look at cross branding you need to make sure all accounts are linked – business manager is set up and all platform services are live.

And as an IMPACT member we make sure that these are the first thing we do when you come onboard. 

Once your platforms are ready, we are ready to get creative with your content!

The Big Mistake

The biggest mistake that practices make is to post clinical content, this is great for a personal / professional account but for your brand / business we would strongly avoid this.

From years of experience we know that prospects and patients respond better to personal content and results. Here at IMPACT we have the perfect mix of clinical, sales and personal content to build the best online presence.

People Like People

This also refers back to clinical posts, while we would suggest ‘before and afters’ to be posted regularly to show results of your treatments (especially dramatic cases). It is important to see you and your team on your social media, people like and relate to people so are more likely to stop, look and engage if they see a familiar face. Introduce your team to your followers. Meet the team posts can humanise your business and add a face to the name.

Go behind the scenes, Show people a side of your practice that they don’t normally see, such as a behind-the-scenes look at what happens in the practice, maybe set up a time-lapse or photos of team meetings or stickers for the kids.

When you join us at IMPACT we send you resources, including checklists, posters and props to help you get great practice content. 

Think about it…. You’re a prospect looking for cosmetic treatment and you follow two practices on social media, 

One is posting – Offers, generic dental posts and some before and after cases, clinical posts

The other is posting – Meet the team photos, videos explaining treatments, video invites to smile consultations, dramatic before and afters, photos of the team in practice, photos of patients on completion of treatment, team celebrations / meeting and offers / generic dental posts. All with a direct call to action!

Which would you gravitate towards? 

We know that it is time consuming to build a social media presence like this but it’s as simple as taking a pic / video and sending it over to us, we will do the rest! So you have time to do what you are best at – DENTISTRY!

No “I” In TEAM

Your social media needs to show your team’s personality and the values of your practice.

So when setting up your social media it’s important to remember the goal. 

What are you using social media to do:

• Showcase your technical hand?
• Build your reputation in the dental community?
• Bring in more patients?

Whilst all of the above are important you need to pick which is your primary goal.

The correct answer for any dental practice is to bring in more patients and to do this you need to work as a team by showing all skills, all achievements and all results from all members of your team from award winning dentists to the front of house team and most importantly have fun.

Some dentists may disagree with this as they want to focus on showcasing their skills and building their reputation but this should be done on a personal page and I can’t stress this enough. You can still tag over content and cross brand to the practice page.

The work dentists do is phenomenal and I agree it should be seen. However, complicated dental work, implant placements, wide retracted photos and perfect composite detailing are better to be shown to peers not prospects as you will get more acknowledgement this way. 

Awards

The Connect team knows from experience what it takes to submit an award entry so when we speak to our members we are not shocked to hear that they don’t have time to submit but the reward from even a finalist nomination is gold! Not just social media gold but overall gold for your practice.

We have contacts at the FMC to help you prep for the awards making it that little bit easier to apply and once you have that badge you have stepped out of the crowd even further.

It’s not just dental awards content to think about, what about team member of the month or year and celebrating work anniversaries? They all show the dental team you are and as I mentioned before, people like people.

The Follow Up

This is the final step I will give you today and this is the close, the final step. You have done all the legwork and a prospect has contacted you “Yay”. Now what?

You need to make sure you have a follow up process or using our dashboard (recommended) to keep on top of these prospects. Some cases can take up to 6 months or longer to convert so it’s important to have touch points. This could be text, email, call and newsletters.

The final stage of follow up comes after the treatment is completed and this is normally a phone call from the TCO or Dentist but remember to ask for a Facebook / Google review.

If you would like more information on growing your social media presence then please contact me at jay@mpodteam.com

P.S To find out how we can help you grow your practice and your team get in touch today. ⁠ ⁠

Call the team on 0113 827 2249 or email Vicki@MpodTeam.Com⁠