Managing your dental practice social media with HootSuite
A single administration interface to improve efficiency
In a recent blog post we discussed how dental practices who use social media most effectively, tend to have at least some involvement with the process. This is often a team effort whereby Dental Media assist with the technical infrastructure, some posting and support whilst the practice staff complement this with practice orientated material. It is these personalised posts that are proven to be the most effective for empathising with, and engaging, clients.
Whenever any new systems and procedures are introduced into an organisation, it’s vitally important to ensure that everything is planned to be as efficient as possible – this is equally the case for your dental social media activity. Facebook, Twitter and Google+ are the recommended baseline social channels and whilst these can all be managed via their own interfaces, there are tools available which allow you to manage all three (and more), extremely effectively through a single interface. The tool we recommend for this is called ‘HootSuite’.
HootSuite – an overview
HootSuite is a user-friendly, web-based system which integrates with numerous social media channels and allows you to post to all of them from a single administrative dashboard. The basic system, which is adequate for nearly all dental practices, is also free to use although a ‘power user’ version is available if you need to manage multiple accounts etc.
Getting started
HootSuite is quite user-friendly, intuitive and supported with a host of online video tutorials. So it’s relatively easy to set up an account and get moving. Following account set-up, the system will lead you through integration with your preferred social media accounts – as noted earlier, we recommend Twitter, Facebook and Google+ initially. HootSuite auto-updates regularly and reads-in the latest updates from your connected streams – it’s very quick to scan through and identify all of the useful material without having to log in to all of your accounts. As you might expect, you can carry out all the usual functions that are available in the stand-alone accounts, e.g. re-tweeting, commenting on posts etc, all from within the HootSuite dashboard.
So having given a very quick overview of how information arrives in HootSuite, lets take a quick look at its use for broadcasting your own information.
Sharing your own content and curated content from elsewhere
Using social media successfully relies on generation of unique, useful information about your own business and sharing useful information from other sources – the latter is loosely know as “curation” which we’ve also covered elsewhere in this blog. You can probably already see that HootSuite is an ideal way to curate useful content from authoritative sources that you follow.
HootSuite allows you to post to multiple social channels from its centralised admin. area. This is quite straightforward – basically you enter your post in a simple text box, provide a link to the content source as needed and select which channels you wish to post to. You can also generate a short url (shortened web address) and upload images to your post as needed. Quick and efficient!
Message scheduling
One of the really useful tools within HootSuite is the message scheduling function. This is another great way to save time in that it allows you to prepare a list of messages that you wish to broadcast together with a scheduled time – the system will then look after the posting for you and will even email you to tell you when it has finished; very nifty. So rather than nipping in and out of HootSuite, you may wish to assign set times to do it and then let the system do the leg-work. This is also great if your main social media guy is planning a holiday as they can simply load up before they go.
Summary
The use of social media is accepted as an important component of any on-line marketing strategy for dental practices who wish to use the web to best effect. HootSuite is a superb tool which helps to streamline this process and make it as efficient as possible.
If you would like assistance with setting up your dental social media infrastructure, including HootSuite, please call the Dental Media team on 01332 672548 and we’ll be pleased to help.