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Dentists Social Media Guide
Dentists Social Media Guide
● Dental Practice Owners This guide has been produced by Unilever Oral Care
Professional specifically to help dental professionals
● Dental Teams like you take their Social Media marketing to the next
level. It draws on the extensive marketing expertise
● Dental Practice’s Social Media Partners within Unilever, coupled with invaluable input from
Social Media advocates within dentistry to help bring
some of the theory to life.
Before use, please review the Disclaimer at the back of this document.
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Our contributors
Dr Ben Atkins,
Owner of Revive Dental Care & President of the Oral Health Foundation
@Ben_Atkins @dentalben
Ben has built and sold 11 dental Practices. He has been Press and
Parliamentary Representative for the British Dental Association and
is currently President and media spokesperson for the Oral Health
Foundation. He is particularly active on Social Media to promote
positive oral health and to support the dental profession.
Anna Middleton
Owner of London Hygienist
@LondonHygienist @londonhygienist
• D
Anna is a passionate and award-winning Dental Hygienist in
London and an ambassador for several leading dental brands.
She’s a big advocate of Social Media and has seen first-hand how
it has helped her clinic grow.
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Why having a Social Media strategy is so important
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Why Social Media often falls by the wayside
GOVERNANCE AUDIENCES
The internal processes and tools of Defining your Social audience(s)
the trade to help you manage and and the respective needs you aim
measure your Social Media efforts to serve
ENGAGEMENT STRATEGY
Developing the creative assets and Investing in the right Social
paid media support to drive platforms for your audiences and
engagement devising a coherent content
strategy
At a glance
In this section you’ll learn:
Singing Dentist’s purpose is Dr Ben Atkins wants to give James Goolnik is on a mission
1 all about making dentistry fun 2 3 to help the world kick sugar
back to the dental profession
Toothbeary is dedicated to improving The Foodie Dentist champions Ask the Dentist’s mission is to help
4 5 6
your child’s oral health & care nutrition & Oral Health people understand the importance of
oral health to overall health
Only by establishing your objectives from the outset So decide what role your Social Media content
can you realistically determine how successful your should play in the patient journey and where you
Social Media efforts will be. feel it can drive the most impact.
BEHAVIOURAL
Tracking signals derived from their Social Media activity will
help you create behavioural segments which are more active,
engaged or loyal.
NEEDS BASED
Segmenting your audiences aligned to the dental category will
ensure your content connects with those in need of treatment.
ATTITUDINAL
Segmenting by attitudes, interests or passions will help you
contextualise your Social content to make it feel more relevant
and engaging.
DEMOGRAPHICS
This should form the building blocks to your segmentation
model. Your Practice is likely to serve several different
demographic profiles rather than one homogeneous group.
When choosing the right Social Media platforms, If you’re serious about giving it a go, check with
you might not automatically think of blogging. your web provider to see if your website has this
But in truth, blog platforms have similar capability built in. Alternatively, there are numerous
community attributes to the big Social networks off-the-shelf platforms with simple plug-ins that may .
in that people can follow, like, comment or share integrate into your existing website CMS.
your blog content.
Your web agency should be able to set this up for
There are several reasons why you may want to you, leaving you to focus on what you do best -
start a dental blog: producing quality blog articles which draw on your
extensive dental expertise.
• Interaction - your patients or peers can easily
interact with or share your content
• Search - significantly improves your website
search rankings
• Storytelling - allows you to unpack your
expertise, dental symptoms and treatments in
more depth
• Topical - keeps your site content fresh, topical
and culturally relevant
Developing content around these six content Each pillar is designed to instil trust and solicit a
pillars will ensure you remain patient centric different emotional or behavioural response.
and always adding value.
Just because dentistry is a respected profession doesn’t mean your content has to be dry.
Injecting wit or humour into an occasional post will not only raise a smile, it will also help add personality to your
Practice whilst making you appear more human, relatable and approachable. But more importantly, entertainment
is still the single best way to stop patients from scrolling.
According to Sprout Social, 33 percent of people say they are likely to engage with educational content. So draw
on your extensive experience and training to create content which genuinely enlightens them. They’ll not only
thank you for it but may even put your advice into practice.
Educational videos which teach Informative content to help Sharing highlights from recent
your patients how to maintain patients understand symptoms or research studies shows you’re abreast
their oral health. different treatment procedures. of the latest developments and have
your patients’ interests at heart.
Any dentist can tell prospective patients what they do but nothing is more powerful than letting the results of your
work do the talking. So celebrate your happy patients or recent awards. Demonstrate how you treat patients with
‘before & after’ shots. Showcase the cutting-edge tech you have which makes you stand out from the crowd.
Pictures before and after clearly Sharing static or video testimonials Awards are a great way of
demonstrate the quality of from happy patients builds trust and providing patient reassurance in
treatment you provide. provides important Social validation. your specific field.
Social media is not a passive environment but a thriving, interactive community. So look for ways to encourage
your audience to interact with your content. Think competitions, challenges, polls, community fundraising, tagging a
friend, requesting reviews or posting open-ended questions to spark the conversation...
Your Social content plan should include lower funnel assets to make your Practice more bookable. Here are just a
few examples from offering virtual appointments to more promotionally driven content.
Offering virtual consultations via Letting them know you have slots Occasional offers can be used
FaceTime or WhatsApp can make free this month may prompt your to reach new audiences or
your Practice more accessible. followers to book an appointment. retarget existing patients.
• Exclusive promotions
• Sample giveaways SA FRE
MP E
• Patient referral schemes LE
S
• Priority bookings
• Complimentary benefits
• Feedback acknowledgement
• Patient-focused memes
When it comes to developing your content plan, it’s prudent to plan for different eventualities.
Spend most of your budget and resources on the planned stories you want to tell but try to have content in your
back pocket for those common scenarios you know will come up from time to time. There will also be occasions
where you can’t predict what’s going to happen. The important thing in that scenario is to ensure your team fully
understand the escalation procedures to nip it in the bud or to know when to jump on a new, exciting opportunity.
When it comes to paid media, there are a number of useful tips you can apply to make your Social content
more visible or make your budget go further.
The days of relying on If they don’t live or work in Most Social platforms have Adding hashtags can be
organic reach have long close proximity to your the capability of building an effective means of
gone, particularly when it Practice you’ll be wasting Lookalike Profiles. By expanding reach
comes to Facebook or money. So always ensure uploading your patient organically. Try local
Instagram. Nowadays, the you apply a geotargeting email addresses to create hashtags (eg #Richmond
only way to ensure new filter on any ad media buy. Custom Audiences you #Amiens #Mumbai) or
patients will see your posts can effectively extend the these popular industry
is by putting paid media reach of your Social posts hashtags (#dentistry
behind them. to prospects who share a #dentist #dental #smile
similar profile. #teeth #braces #hygienist
#orthodontics #oralhealth
#cosmeticdentistry
#teethwhitening
PROMOTE | HOW TO PROMOTE YOUR CONTENT THROUGH PAID MEDIA
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Paid media tips to become more ‘bookable’
For lower funnel ads designed to drive footfall or appointments, keep these useful tips in mind.
You will generate higher If you’re on a drive to To avoid high drop out Check out Facebook’s Life
conversions by retargeting recruit new patients, rates use Facebook “Call” Events to target
those patients who have upload your patient data buttons in your Facebook prospective patients who
previously engaged with as a Custom Audience ads. This powerful feature have an important event
your website or Social and suppress them from allows mobile users to call on the horizon.
posts. Make sure your your media buy. That way, your clinic directly from Eg Anyone who has just
web agency has pixels you’re not discounting their feed, simply by become engaged is a
from your chosen your services to patients clicking your Facebook ad prime candidate for teeth
platforms installed on your already on your books. – no landing pages, no whitening before their big
website. slow load times, no lost day.
leads.
DENTAL NURSE DN
PRACTICE MANAGER PM
Make sure everyone in the team understands their role and TREATMENT CO-ORDINATOR TC
responsibilities at each step of the process like this example below. SOCIAL MEDIA AGENCY SMA
Social Media marketing can be a struggle if you The good news is that there is no shortage of free or
don’t have the right tools in place, particularly if subscription based tools available. Try out some of
you run more than one Social platform. these popular tools below.
It’s important to measure your activity to see what Whatever metrics you decide to track, make sure
worked and how you might optimise for the future. they link back to your original Social objectives.
GOVERNANCE AUDIENCES
The internal processes and tools of Defining your Social audience(s)
the trade to help you manage and and the respective needs you aim
measure your Social Media efforts to serve
ENGAGEMENT STRATEGY
Developing the creative assets and Investing in the right Social
paid media support to drive platforms for your audiences and
engagement devising a coherent content
strategy
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DISCLAIMER
The information provided in the “How to make Social Media work for your Practice” guide (the “Guide”) is an opinion and provided “as is” for
guidance purposes only. While Unilever Oral Care Professional strives to make the information in this document accurate, Unilever Oral Care
Professional makes no claims or guarantees about the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of the contents of the Guide and expressly disclaims
liability for errors and omissions in the content. Unilever Oral Care Professional does not endorse or guarantee software, information, products or
services provided by or at a third-party website and disclaims any and all liability for the acts, omissions or conduct of any third party resource. You
assume total responsibility for your use related to the document and your sole remedy against Unilever Oral Care Professional in the case of
dissatisfaction is to stop using such content. All content is subject to copyright and may not be reproduced in any form without express written
consent of Unilever Oral Care Professional.