Social Media Content for Dentists To Create Your Dental Social Media Campaigns

As a dental clinic you know that in order to stay relevant and to stay at the top of mind of your patient’s and prospective patients, you should at least have a dental clinic social media strategy.

But if you don’t understand what type of content will create engagement to help you get seen by more of your followers, then I get that you may not know what type of dental facebook post ideas to create. 

In this blog post, I am going to help you as the dentist, create your own dental social media campaigns, so you can get some inspiration for your dental Facebook and Instagram post ideas. 

I am also going to show you simple hacks on how to find inspiration for your dental social media campaigns, so you are never at a loss for what type of content to create on your social media, to keep your followers engaged. 

Here’s what you will learn: 

• Why social media is important for dental clinics
• What you should know about Facebook and Instagram before you create your dental clinic social media strategy
• Dental Facebook and Instagram post ideas 
• Dental clinic social media strategy for acquiring patients

Why Social Media is Important for Dental Clinics

Social media are channels that allow you to create and share content and information to users that interact and engage with the platform. Social channels are channels where people come together to network and meet virtually, like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, Snapchat. 

These channels are websites and they attract a large number of people to them every month. 

For example, Facebook.com is a website that has over 25 billion visitors to their website each month. 

Pinterest.com is a website that has over 1 billion visitors to their website each month.

Instagram.com is a website that has over 5 billions visitors to their website each month. 

With a website that has so many visitors where they are all interested in specific topics, it’s a haven for any business owner to create content and share it there and this is the reason why dentists as business owners, need to show up on these social media websites too. 

These social media channels, allow business owners to create dedicated pages and profiles for their own business and then engage with the people who spend time on the channel. 

As this is the case, if dental clinics want to have a presence on these social media channels, they should also create their own pages and profiles, so they can engage with people who interact with the social media channels. This is one way that dental clinics can use social media marketing to promote their products and services to the people that frequent these channels. 

If you do not have a social media presence as a dental clinic, then you are missing out on a huge share in the market since this is how most businesses are being found and staying relevant to people that matter to their business. 

What You Should Know About Facebook and Instagram Before You Create Your Dental Clinic Social Media Strategy

If you do already have a social media presence then you’ve taken the right step for your dental practice. 

Maybe you’ve decided to use Facebook and Instagram as the tools for your social media marketing strategy.

Many dental clinics create Facebook business pages and Instagram accounts but don’t quite know how to make the most out of them. 

Before you start posting content to these platforms here are a few things you should know, to help you manage your expectations about the effect they can have on your practice as well as understand how to use them. 

Posting frequency matters little

You might think to yourself that you should be posting as often as you can on Facebook to reach your followers. 

Well after looking at the stats, posting frequency matters very little since posting as many times as you can, actually has very little effect on your engagement. 

According to Buffer, an app for managing social media accounts, posting twice per day at most is best before likes and comments drop off dramatically.

Therefore it’s not so much how often you post that matters if you’re trying to reach as many of your followers, but rather what you post, that can drive the most engagement. 

Content types matter the most 

The type of content you create on Facebook is very important as a dental clinic. 

You should always be thinking about what the follower wants to see and what type of posts will help your followers engage and interact with your posts. 

According to Facebook, when you share content that is meaningful and relevant to people, they are more likely to share it and thus increase engagement on your Facebook page.

In this blog post I have shared some examples of Facebook and Instagram posts you can create for your dental clinic to help you improve your engagement. Before sure to check it out.

Live video is a must for your social media strategy

This might be a difficult one for you to accept since many people are nervous about using video as part of their marketing strategy. 

Whilst video is great for boosting engagement and helping people get to know more about you and your dental practice, Facebook has introduced Live Video which is an excellent way for your followers to interact with you live, helping you create a connection with them. 

You want to be memorable in your follower’s eyes. 

And to create that connection so you as a dental practice can build relationships and a community with your followers, Facebook wants you to use Live video more often. 

It says, “Live videos often lead to discussion among viewers on Facebook – in fact, live videos on average get six times as many interactions as regular videos.” So if you are not using Live video as a dental practice, consider queuing this in your social media strategy and go Live from time to time. 

Facebook and Instagram organic reach is dead

You may be posting as many times as you can on Facebook and you might be losing encouragement to do so, because you’re not getting engagement as you thought you would. 

Don’t worry! It’s not your fault. Well not all of it. 

Facebook and Instagram’s organic reach has been in decline for a long time. In fact, less than 2% of your followers will actually see your posts on Facebook and Instagram which will explain why when you create a post, you get very little engagement (likes, comments or shares).

Many businesses have been feeling this pinch for a very long time and have adapted to this reality by using Facebook Ads instead to increase their visibility.

But if you’re not quite ready to use Facebook Ads, be sure to read my post ideas below, for ideas that you can implement on your dental business page to help you improve engagement. 

Remarketing is important 

If you create a promotional post on Facebook for dental implants or invisalign treatment and you create a single post, don’t expect that you will get a response. 

That’s because it takes someone 5-7 times of seeing something, for them to make up their mind that they want it. 

Which is why as a dental clinic and for anyone who manages your dental social media campaigns, you should adopt remarketing as a strategy for increasing patient enquiries. 

What is remarketing? Remarketing is the idea of putting a piece of content that you created for a promotion, back in front of someone who previously engaged with it. 

So if you created a piece of content for an Invisalign open day and they interacted or engaged with that piece of content, you can use your Facebook targeting criteria to tell Facebook to put another relevant piece of content in front of people who previously engaged with your post. 

This option is only available if you are advertising on Facebook, but it is something you should keep in mind when doing promotional campaigns. 

Analytics is there for a reason

Finally use your analytics. Not many dental practice Facebook business page owners and admins, study their page’s analytics. 

The purpose of your analytics is to help you understand how people engage and interact with your post, so you can create more of the same content that produced the highest engagement. 

Navigate to your business page’s analytics and study it to see what type of content people engaged with the most. Did the content give an instruction for people to take action? Was the content type a video, an image or a written post? Was it a story or an offer?

Your analytics stores important information that you should be using as a dental practice, if you intend to master and become successful with your dental social media campaigns.

Dental Facebook and Instagram Post Ideas

Ok, so let’s get to the good stuff. 

In the next few paragraphs I’m going to share with you some dental facebook post ideas and dental instagram post ideas that you can create and how other dental practices have done this on their own business page. 

Run a contest or giveaway 

These are great for engagement as it gets people involved since people love getting free things. 

When posting, you can be strategic about what you post, for example, you may tell people to invite their friends to take part in order to be part of the contest or you can even ask people questions so they can comment below the post. 

When people comment, like or share your post, it gives signals to Facebook that your post is relevant and the algorithm acts in your favour and makes your post more visible. 

Here is how Jamaica Cosmetic Dental Services uses contests and giveaways to boost their visibility in the Facebook newsfeed. 

You don’t need ads to get more visible. You just need to be a bit creative. 

If you are using contests or giveaways for your dental social media campaign, you should know that Facebook does not encourage business pages that repeatedly use these types of engagement tactics to boost engagement. 

So be careful how often you do it. You can read more about it here.

Pose a question

Encourage conversation by asking a question or creating a poll.

You can ask how your audience feels about the dentist or even about their weekend plans. When your audience relates to your question and you speak to their interests and needs, they feel encouraged to respond to your posts.

When they respond to your posts, that creates engagement causing your post to show up more on your followers’ newsfeed causing it to be seen more and having the potential to be shared more.

Share testimonials

Nothing is more exciting and uplifting when people share kind words about your dental practice. 

But the biggest mistake I see dental clinics make when they share patient testimonials is they do so with unsightly before and after photos. 

I get it, you want your audience to know the great job you do at fixing teeth, but not many people react well to seeing before photos of poor teeth and this is why they get so little engagement. 

Instead get your patients to leave reviews and then either screenshot it or create it as your own post. 

Just like Smiles4Oregon did in the below post and they got many more praise when they shared a bit of education on the dental industry. This is an excellent way at building trust with your audience. 

Plus look at the engagement and how many shares they received. Do you think they got a bit more new people to know about them from all those shares? And they didn’t have to use paid ads. 

Another way you can leave testimonials without the before photos of poor smiles is through live video reviews and recommendations. If you’re wary about asking for patient reviews, you can give an incentive to the patient to encourage them to want to take part. 

Celebrate a holiday

Here’s an opportunity to celebrate with your audience by creating posts that celebrate holidays. Whether it’s a national holiday or a trending holiday like Dentists Day or Happy Smiles Day, they are light-hearted ways to share common interests with your audience which can prompt your audience to celebrate and interact with you.

Announce news

What better way to make your followers feel like part of your community than announcing important news about your practice. 

People love congratulating others for achievements or keeping up to date with dental practice developments since it strikes an emotional chord when they can relate and resonate with the post’s story. 

Here is how Riveredge Cosmetic Dentistry used an announcement that one of their employees had qualified as a dental nurse to boost engagement and interaction with their post. 

Here’s another example of where they used a more personal post to announce the news of the birth of the baby of one of their dental nurses.

Look at the engagement received. This goes to show that dental practices do not only need to share before and after photos of treatment to encourage their followers to engage with them. 

Use posts that draw emotion and help your followers connect with you. When you do that, you create engagement which will give you more visibility in the newsfeed without paid ads. 

Share jokes or entertainment

Yes I get it. You’re a dental practice so you should only share dental posts. Wrong!

People are people. They also want to interact with other human beings and see the human side of you. 

Switch off your dentist cap for a moment and think of entertaining posts that you can share that will help people connect with you.

Show off your personality. 

Here is how Guelph Family Dentistry lightened the mood with a bit of entertainment. 

Share a story

You can also share a story of how you started your practice or the history of your practice. This helps to inform your audience about your background so they can get to know you a little better. 

Other stories you can share are charitable or community stories to share your mission and values with your audience. 

Here is an example community post by Winn Smiles Dental Office who created an excellent post to share their values about charity.

Dental Clinic Social Media Strategy for Acquiring Patients

By now you have a few ideas for your organic social media posts to create engagement and get your dental business page found by more people. 

But that’s not all social media is great for. 

Social media is a marketing tool that allows dental clinics the opportunity to reach more people quickly and actually turn them into patients of yours. 

One thing though. You may not be able to do this on a large scale through organic posts and that’s why you can use Facebook and Instagram’s advertising platform to get in front of new potential patients who may not have heard about you before. 

For dental clinics looking to acquire more patients, here’s what you can do. 

Create an ad using Facebook Ads Manager (do not boost a post) and target people within a mile radius from your practice. 

Next, create an ad that educates that audience on the benefits of the treatment you are seeking to offer (eg. a video on teeth whitening and how to use it safely). 

Once you have created that ad, create a follow up ad that will target people who have engaged with your first ad and this time create a call to action to invite them to a free consultation for the treatment. 

In my free case study I break down this strategy further with examples, so you can see for yourself how to put one together. 

But it’s important that when you create an ad strategy, that you lead with nurturing and valuable education first as opposed to asking for a direct response to booking a consultation. 

Social media ads are completely different from search engine ads like Google and Microsoft, so you must adopt a different angle altogether. 

Wrapping Up

There you have it. Dental social media posts to help you create your dental social media campaign. 

I showed you some examples of how other dental practices were successfully creating engagement by creating the right posts, which means they were getting more visibility to their business page. 

I also shared a strategy for your social media ad campaigns. 

If you would like to know how cosmetic dentists are getting more patients in the chair using Facebook and Instagram ads, you can go here to check it out now or if you’d like to jump on a no-obligation strategy call where I share some ideas with you for your dental practice, click here.