Social Media Marketing Ideas for Orthodontic Offices

Marketing an orthodontic office is different from marketing any other kind of business. This is because your target demographic is very specific. While some might perceive this as a negative, it is actually a good thing because you are sure about who needs your specialist services. Have you ever considered social media marketing for your orthodontics office?

There are about  2.8 billion social media users today. Out of these about 80 percent usually search for health information while about half of them regularly seek out specific doctors. Additionally, over 90 percent of individuals revealed that they trust medical information shared on their social media feeds, while 42 percent of the people searching for health info do this by looking at consumer reviews on social media.

So, what do these statistics imply for your orthodontic office? A strong social media presence will help you attract new clients while building stronger relationships with your current ones.

Social networks offer you a platform to let your target audience know what is unique about your practice – team culture, strong relationships with the patients, and informative content. Social networks not only provide a cheaper and easier way of marketing your practice, but they also help turn the existing patients into your brand’s advocates. The key lies in creating informative content for your social media pages. Also, everything you share doesn’t have to be a special offer; it just needs to add value to their lives.

As such, regardless of the size of your practice, if you are not tapping into the power of social media, you are missing out on vital growth opportunities.

Here is how Social Media Impacts Your Orthodontic Practice:

1. Gaining Visibility and Attracting New Patients

In today’s digital world, if your orthodontic office does not have a robust online presence, it just doesn’t exist to your potential clients. Same as you wouldn’t want your office location to be hard to find or at a place that is rarely frequented by your target clients, is the same way you wouldn’t want to compromise your online presence. As such, you should have an updated website and ensure that there are links between it and your social media pages. More traffic to your website from your social media profiles implies new patient opportunities.

2. Building Credibility and Improving Your Online Reputation

Potential clients utilize different methods while searching for healthcare providers online. Most, however, use Google to look for the specific practices then head over to their websites as well as online reviews to weigh their options.

When a potential patient finds your practice online, they’ll check the activity on your Facebook page as well as look for other patients’ reviews. Thus, during their decision-making process, ensure that you utilize every reinforcement you have. That means your website and social media page should enhance your appeal and make a good case as to why they should choose your practice over your competitors.

3. Strengthening Existing Patient Relationships

Demands from patients are continually changing. To stay at the top, you need to be meeting these changing preferences. This implies always being informed about what your patients are looking for, what they like, and what they dislike. The benefit of social media marketing for orthodontists is that it offers you an engagement platform where you can interact with your clients and gain valuable insight into their preferences. This is going to help you create a better marketing plan.

Getting Started

When you decide to utilize social media as part of your orthodontic office’s marketing plan, the first thing you must decide on is whether you are going to do this task yourself, or you are going to outsource.

The next will be to identify which networks work best for your practice, not all social networks are equal! You are better off focusing on creating quality content to be posted on a few sites, rather than creating below-standard content to be posted across all sites.

Nevertheless, here are some pointers to help you with creating social media posts for your practice:

Be Personal But Not Pushy

At posts aimed at your patients, be personal and friendly. Create posts that are engaging and encourage patient interaction in the form of comments, shares, and likes.

Additionally, you should be prompt at responding to messages and comments from your followers.

However, it is important that you do not sell in each post you create. When every post is about selling services or products, your audience may stop following you. It is imperative that you find a balance between sharing content to engage and ‘add value’ to your patients and sharing content to sell products.

Be Active

Do not let your social media accounts to stagnate as this will reflect poorly on your office. Therefore, try and post at least two or three times a week.

Five Social Media Marketing Ideas for Orthodontic Offices

1. Reveal Your Practice’s Culture by Sharing Photos of Your Team

One of the most effective ways of encouraging engagement from your social media followers is through sharing team photos on Instagram. So, which is the best time to take these photos? Anytime that the team does stuff together. For instance, when celebrating holidays, a birthday or even when going out to lunch.

2. Make Orthodontic Treatment Sound like Fun

Starting orthodontic treatment is usually stressful, especially for children. Orthodontic treatments, just like dental procedures, have a fear-inducing element. It might be due to the appearance of the appliances, or simply because of the changes in diet and speech that they bring with them. To ease this nervousness, you could celebrate the start of every treatment with a goodie bag, photo, or even a gift certificate for something such as a smoothie.

3. Embark on a ‘Flossing Challenge’ Campaign

One of the best ways to get your entire team actively involved in your social media efforts is through practice campaigns. They are also meant to promote good habits in your patients as well. You could do this by having some of your patients agree on taking on a 30-day flossing pledge for example. Take a photo with them and post it on your page while inviting them to share so they can win a prize.

Campaigns allow your patients to have fun while sharing your page to their feeds. This increases your brand awareness as well as enhancing your patient loyalty.

4. Celebrate Events in Team Members and Patients Lives

Showing interest and appreciation in the lives of those that allow your practice to thrive is a great way of building brand loyalty as well as building strong relationships. The other benefit is that you get good content for your social media profiles. As such, make it a point to celebrate key events such as birthdays, work anniversaries, patient or team member of the day, and so forth.

Appreciating your patients and team members will show that your practice is people-focused.

5. Create Sharing Opportunities

In fact, the social media posts that will be most effective at marketing your practice shall not come from you, but from your patients. For instance, when a patient takes a photo at your practice and then shares it with their friends on social media, it will show what a great experience your office offers. Still remember that over 90 percent of individuals willingly trust medical information that has been shared by their friends on social media feeds? Use this to your advantage.

Social media isn’t the holy grail of marketing your office but it can be an effective marketing tool especially for practices with specific targets of engagement. Utilizing the above tips should help broaden your reach and as a result, is a good branding exercise.

If you are considering building your brand and continually attracting more patients via your website and social media networks, contact us today for a complimentary consultation.

Social Media Marketing Ideas for Orthodontic Offices