“Social media is not just an activity; it is an investment of valuable time and resources. Surround yourself with people who don’t just support you and stay with you, but inform your thinking about ways to WOW your online presence” – Sean Gardner
Are you ready to grow your social media audience in 2017? With just a few simple tips and changes to your social media pages, you could expand your reach on social media by leaps and bounds this year. Social media is one of the best ways to draw attention to your practice. Even in today’s tech-savvy world, it is often underutilized and undervalued by companies, especially dental and orthodontic practices. Because of this, it can be a valuable way to get a leg up on the competition. There are some incredibly compelling statistics when it comes to branding, consumer interest, and social media. Here are just a few that might surprise you:
The average consumer mentions brands 90 times/week with family, friends, and co-workers.
What better way to make sure your brand is a part of those conversations than by engaging those consumers online through one of the hottest and most frequently used forms of communication today?
Facebook adds 500,000 new users every day; 6 new profiles every second.
This number is astounding when you think about what that can mean for doctors who use Facebook as a tool build their practices.
97 percent of online adults aged 16-64 say they have visited or used a social network within the last month.
This means that almost every single person online is visiting a social media site at some point. This is one more reason why it’s important for orthodontic practices to take advantage of all that social media can do to increase brand awareness and improve customer service.
Growing an audience on social media doesn’t have to be difficult, but it can be if you don’t know a few key things that every successful social media campaign includes on a regular basis. The new year is a perfect time to reevaluate and set your goals for growing an audience on social media. If one of your goals is to double or triple your following on social media in 2017, we want to help get you there by giving you the tools your practice needs to succeed where other practices often fail.
Here are a few key areas we want all our clients focused on in 2017:
Create the best possible content.
Photos, videos, captions, etc. They all need to look as good as possible.
Empower your Social Media Manager.
If you don’t have a Social Media Manager, you need to find someone *today* and start delegating your social media workflow to them. Don’t forget the 10-80-10 rule, though. Great social media depends on the doctor being involved in the process and making sure that the quality stays high.
Create a Publishing Calendar… and stick with it.
Last month we talked about publishing calendars. Have your Social Media Manager create a calendar for January and February. My SMM tentatively schedules 15 posts a month at the beginning of the month. This gives her a roadmap to work from. We talk about how our posts perform throughout the month and call audibles as necessary, but we also review the publishing calendar at the end of the month, which helps us better decide our plan for the next month.
Remember to keep Social Media Social.
Try and be more active on your personal Facebook profile. Doctors like Neal Kravitz and Cole Johnson become celebrities in their local communities because they have huge and highly likable personalities, but also because they take full advantage of their personal Facebook profiles. Friend your highly influential moms on Facebook and interact with them. You’d better believe they’ll recommend you to more of their highly influential mom friends.
Let us help.
We are here to help. Need advice on a caption, photo crop, or which direction to choose for a social media campaign? That’s what we are here for. Don’t hesitate to contact us!