The Most-Ignored Secret to Kickstarting Your Dental Practice’s Social Media Growth

Getting consistent engagement is crucial to helping new patients find you on social media, but it can be difficult for practices just starting out on Facebook or Instagram. Don’t ignore your greatest resource in this situation — your team members.

We talk a lot about turning patients into advocates for your dental practice, but just about all the same principles can and should be applied to turning team members into advocates for your practice.

Your team members are likely connected on social media to thousands of ideal potential patients in your area, and if you’re not leveraging those connections, you may be missing out on reaching hundreds of people that would have a high chance of scheduling an appointment with you.

We say “leverage your team members’ connections,” but don’t read that the wrong way. We’re not saying to encourage your team members to sell dentistry to their friends on social media. The smarter approach is to encourage your team members to simply interact with your practice’s posts — sparking some engagement and helping more people see them.

3 Simple Things Your Team Members Should Do When Your Practice Posts

First off, remember that team member participation in your social media efforts needs to be strictly voluntary. People are protective of what they choose to post and endorse on their personal social media accounts, and you need to respect that. But, when done correctly, team social media engagement builds unity and relationships.

Here’s what your team members should do when you post to your practice’s social media pages:

1. Read the post and mention it to patients in the practice. Social media marketing becomes much more effective when your entire team is involved. Encourage your team members to check your practice’s pages often to stay up-to-date on giveaways, campaigns, and other fun things that patients would want to know about.

2. Like the post or leave a comment. A main factor in how Facebook’s algorithm decides what content to show users is how much engagement a post is getting. By simply Liking your posts, or better yet, leaving short comments such as “I love working with this team!” or “We’re always happy to see our awesome patients!”, your team members can increase the reach and visibility of your practice’s posts.

3. Share the post to their personal accounts. The best thing a team member could do is share your practice’s post to their own personal page so their friends and family can see it. This puts your practice’s name in front of the people most likely to become new patients themselves. However, not everything you post will be a great fit for sharing by team members. Encourage team members to share your practice’s most fun, people-centric posts, and start small — perhaps just once per week.

Make Social Media a Team Effort

Dental practices new to social media marketing sometimes find it difficult to get the ball rolling, but involving the entire team makes it so much easier. Bring these items up in your next staff meeting, and work together on creating social media content that your team would be proud to share!

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