At Dental Design, we’re always striving to be industry leaders in marketing for dental practices. In order to do this our team regularly attend courses to increase their knowledge. This week, Faye and Lucy attended an advanced social media course, so that we can stay on top of the ever changing nature of social media. Here are a few of the top take-aways from the day.
Create a strategy:
There’s no point in posting without a purpose. Each status update, pin or tweet must have a predetermined purpose in order to meet your social media objectives. Whether those objectives are to increase website traffic, increase attendance at an event or for patients to fill in a contact form for a consultation for example.
Do your research!
If you have been posting for a while already, there is a plethora of analytics available on all of the most popular platforms which can give you an insight into the audience who are following you. This can then inform you whether you should be posting at a particular time of day to gain the most reach, your follower’s interests and your most popular posts. All of this information can help you to write engaging updates, tailored to a specific network; as what may work well on twitter may not work so well on Facebook!
Use a content calendar:
It’s a good idea to get organised and create a calendar around events at the practice and in the industry so that you never run out of things to say and you can pre-schedule some posts for more optimal times of day.
Risk management:
It’s important to have a social media policy in place so that your staff members are aware of what is and is not acceptable on social media. It’s also a good idea to create some pre-agreed responses if ever you receive any negative comments or reviews.
Track your results:
As already mentioned, each network has some great analytical tools, as does Google analytics. Use this information to test and refine your posts- do certain pictures or hashtags work better than others?
SEO for social media:
Ensure that the about section of all of your networks are fully updated and contain your domain name and links to your other social networks. Create a vanity URL for all networks and try to make them similar on each if possible.
Make sure that your website has links pointing to each of your social networks so that search engines make the link that you own each particular social media page.
Try and create keyword rich updates wherever possible so that you can be found in search- but be careful not to be spammy!
If you would like further information about social media for your dental practice. Give Dental Design a call on 01202 677 277 and a member of our team will be happy to help you.