Marketers for dentists sometimes take for granted that their clients know all of the basics when it comes to promoting dental practices. Of course this isn\u2019t always the case and we have to be sure that the key elements and principles are explained in detail so that informed decisions can be made.<\/p>\n
This was brought home again to me earlier this week when I was explaining the differences between paid and organic social media to a dentist who was interested in the topic and getting moving with a social marketing initiative for his own practice. What quickly became clear was that he had very little knowledge of how Facebook works and indeed why he needed to \u201cpay to play\u201d to gain any real exposure on the channel.<\/p>\n
With that in mind, I think it\u2019s worth a quick recap on the types of social media marketing you can use for dental practice promotion<\/a>, in this case primarily looking at Facebook and Instagram.<\/p>\n For clarity, I will used the terms \u201cpaid\u201d and \u201corganic\u201d in this blog to indicate the two main ways of gaining exposure on Facebook (and Instagram). Paid is exactly as it sounds and primarily refers to paying for ads which are displayed on the channel, whereas as I will use the ‘organic’ term to illustrate how you can publish content free of charge.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This is where you simply open a free account on the respective platforms and publish content without having to pay additional charges. However, whilst your content if free for everyone to view and there to provide an opportunity for them to interact with your business, there is no guarantee that anyone will actually see it! \u201cBuild it and they will come\u201d definitely doesn\u2019t apply here unfortunately.<\/p>\n Several years ago businesses strived earnestly to gain \u201clikes\u201d for their Facebook business pages as this gave a reasonable guarantee that most people who \u201cliked\u201d your page would then see your future content in their own feeds. This was excellent to get your messages across and great for promotional purposes. This gave rise to phrases such as \u201clike, share and comment\u201d as dental businesses thronged to Facebook and tried to build their profiles. Some were very successful and continue to be so.<\/p>\n However, what happened next was rather dismal but also quite predictable as Facebook curtailed the \u201corganic reach\u201d of the free content and over a few years, severely restricted the number of people who saw it, whether they\u2019d liked your page or not! This curtailment has reached the point where only a few percent of people who like your page, now see your content. Facebook did this to force users to pay for ads on their platform, so now it\u2019s effectively \u201cpay to play\u201d.<\/p>\n So is it worthwhile still posting content to Facebook and Instagram? The answer is an unequivocal \u201cyes\u201d. This is because more and more users are checking across to business social media profiles to build a picture before they interact with that business \u2013 if they see vibrant activity it is hugely encouraging, whereas if they see a barren wasteland, expect them to have second thoughts.<\/p>\nOrganic content published to Facebook and Instagram<\/h3>\n
Paid content \u2013 the role of social media ads<\/h3>\n