How to be socially competitive!
Social media can be anything but social at times and can seem very much like a solitary endeavor when racking your brain for content ideas. After all, most dental practices have one person or one small team dedicated to producing content, making tweaks etc, but the reality is that Social media actually relies on a vast network of relationships for success.
Think about it; you rely on your social media followers to engage with your practice online and make your presence seem more valuable. You rely on those followers to click through to your site and to stay on your pages for longer than a few seconds, and not click “back,” resulting in a bounce.
However, there’s a fundamental piece of this network that most businesses often neglect: your competitors.
Social media is a competitive world. Your competitors are the reason you have to work so hard to build visibility. It seems crazy to think that you can use your competitors, and sometimes actively work with them to lead your Social media campaign to success, but this is the reality.
Here are a few of the strategies you can use to gain Social media momentum from your biggest competitors:
- Content Insights
Take a look at your competitors’ content strategies and gain new insights about your audience and new avenues for your own content. On a weekly or monthly basis, review the types of posts you see on your competitors’ pages. What topics are they choosing? How well are people reacting to them? Are they attracting lots of comments and shares?
Use these questions to guide you in your own content marketing strategy. For example, if you see a post on summer whitening on your competitor’s site getting hundreds of shares, consider writing an alternative – and better — version of your own. The key here is not to duplicate what’s working well, but to gain broad insights about your audience and customise your strategy to appeal to that audience. With better topics and more direct writing, you’ll be able to gain more engagement for your page.
- Location Specific Articles
One of the best ways to gain a following quickly, is to write about your industry in your geographic location. With this strategy, you’ll have two major limiting factors — your niche and your region — which will give you a perfect competitive opportunity. The key is to write objective, truly useful articles about dentistry. For example, you could write a piece titled “Ten top summer wedding tips in Hampshire,” writing briefly about your own dental practice and services available, such as hygiene and whitening. If your article is well-written, your social media page, website and your brand will have added exposure.
- Follower Mirroring
Take a look at the demographics that follow your competitors’ Facebook and Twitter profiles, and reach out to them on an individual level. On Twitter this is quite simple; head to your competitor’s follower list and start following some of their followers. Since they’re already predisposed to following profiles like yours, they’ll be likely to follow you back, giving you greater visibility and a greater audience on your social platforms. Alternatively, you can take a look at the types of people who follow your competitors and gain insights about your key audiences.
In the context of Social media, your competitors are critically important. They hold new information about your target audience. They allow you to build your authority in your geographic region. They give you a platform for more interactions, and more engagements. The end result is that you’ll have active pages with regular engagements, a better understanding of who your customers are and how to reach them.
If you would like further information about how social media could benefit your dental practice, give Dental Design a call on 01202 677 277.
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