These are several straightforward techniques that can give your dental clinic its needed recognition on Instagram.
The increasing popularity of Instagram for dental clinics
These are several straightforward techniques that can give your dental clinic its needed recognition on Instagram.
I like using Instagram. Maybe it is because the platform is simple to use. The incredibly visual posts, as well as precise captions (if included), make this platform the right way of distracting myself during the whole day. This is the reason that numerous users – particularly users from ages 18 to 30 – find out that they are addicted to it. However, not many dental clinics are leveraging on this massive tool.
A lot of them are channeling all their resources to Facebook. However, because of the unique nature of Instagram, it is an excellent community platform that enables dentists to display their practices as well as interact with their local communities. To be able to get several insights as well as advice on how dental practices can ride on the waves of this platform. I had interviewed a friend and an expert in the promotion of dental clinics, Ian McNickle, the CEO at WEO Media, who is also the president for The DSO Project.
Why are dentists recommended to be on Instagram?
Whereas I have consistently promoted Facebook as the primary social medial site for dental clinics, Instagram is rapidly catching up on Facebook as a somewhat effective platform for social marketing.
YouTube and Facebook are still dominant forces when it comes to social media for a majority of users present in the United States. However, Instagram has grown significantly, particularly among younger adults. As of June 28, it was reported that Instagram has amassed about an excess of 1 billion global active users. Similarly, based on recent statistics from the Pew Research Centre, about £5 percent out of all adults in the US currently are active Instagram users. Most notably, about 71 percent out of all 18 to 24-year youths and an excess of 50 percent of all 25 to 29-year olds use the platform regularly.
Based on statistics from Instagram, a minimum of 80 percent of all users are currently following a minimum of just one business. People are looking to become a component of the identity of a brand and be able to stay updated. Online advertisers are continually noticing the value that Instagram ads bring to the table. Based on a report from Recode.net, in the new quarters of 2017, Instagram accounted for about 10 percent of the total advert revenue of Facebook, however around the fourth part of 2018, Instagram will be able to account for approximately 30 percent. (Facebook had purchased Instagram back in 2012 for a price of $1 billion.)
Posting content and advertising products and services on the Instagram platform can yield vital benefits for dental clinics, which can efficiently interact with existing patients (as well as prospective patients).
How do dentists begin?
It is vital to create for your clinic, a business page on Instagram, as compared to creating an individual page. Instagram Business pages offer numerous benefits than personal pages: it is capable of providing your business information, it has the alternative to add plain CTAs – calls to action, page analytics as well as an advertising capability.
In creating a profile page for your dental business, you should ensure that you add in the essential keywords which people may be expecting to see. This includes the name of the practice as well as “the dentist category, the city, the state,” in addition to your essential services as well as categories of dental procedures (general dentistry, dental implants, orthodontics, etc.). These CTAs can be used and come highly recommended: Phone calls, emails, texts, and offering directions to the business location(s).
You discuss content generated by users frequently. Would you let us know the meaning of this and how this can be produced on Instagram?
You may not always generate content to be used on your page. You could partner with extremely engaged users on the platform (colleagues, patients, and friends) who would produce content related to your practice. Generating this sort of material could easily show that a business is paying attention to the community, and it can lead to further interaction from different users. The content produced by the platform users may not always be in the form of videos and photos; it can be something as simple as making people tag their friends or comment, and these interactions can be featured as stories or posts on the platform. At times enhancing engagement is more like telling people to post up emojis if somebody agrees, or you could ask them to select the most excellent response to emojis to your posted content.
For instance, you could produce a simple post telling online users to distribute photos depicting their smiles by using hashtags like #shareyoursmile so that this can make people feature on your page. You could also motivate users to interact on the platform through giveaways as well as requesting users to like, share and comment, which would then make them eligible for a draw to become the winner of the fun prize.
It seems the best thing in using Instagram currently, is not only meant for just posting still images to your timeline. Would you let dental clinics know how they, too, can post their stories as their users?
Learning from the technique used by Snapchat, Facebook and Instagram have been able to include stories on their sites, enabling users to make people see updates about them, which disappear after a time of 24 hours. Whereas Facebook users have not adopted this mechanism, the users on Instagram often make use of the feature of Instagram stories to obtain frequent updates. As a matter of fact, from a report from Statista.com, about 400 million active users on the platform view these stories daily. Additionally, stories also sought a method to produce content generated by users as well as user-generated feedback, like direct messages, online polls as well as getting questions submitted for the clinic to insert their responses. This enables free, instantaneous updates straight from the dental clinic. Ask your question, engage with other followers, easily share news relating to your dental office, capture exciting moments, and highlights of your day regularly, and enjoy yourself!
How much creativity do you need to be able to get a strong interaction from posts on Instagram?
Currently, it is no longer possible to get a decent engagement by just posting any photo. The pictorial beauty of a picture is highly essential because people streamline what is shown on their feeds and updates. Instagram is a platform that hugely relies on visual content, therefore. In contrast, people are looking for value that goes beyond pretty pictures, and it is also essential to use visually appealing, beautiful, or striking images that attract people to know further and interact. Furthermore, consistent visuals are always necessary for terms of your brand. If you are sending in your posts from your smartphone, such apps like Snapseed, Canva, VSCO as well as Over are several useful apps for editing photos on mobile devices.
At what regularity should dental clinics post content to obtain a decent engagement online?
There is quite some contradicting information as to the right time to post content on Instagram as much as often. However, generally, it is best to post content on weekdays. It is left for you as well as your targeted audience to pick an accurate time and how often you should post. But, generally, consider when most people have their lunch breaks during the day and would scroll through notifications on their phones. This could be when they wake up, during lunch, during breaks, the moment that they arrive home. Although posting pretty often is essential to continuously engage your users and help meet up to the algorithm of Instagram, focusing on content that has a high value is necessary. This specific content motivates your fellow online users to interact.
In terms of promotion, it is recommended that the rule of 80/20 is applied in this regard. In this case, the 80 percent involves time spent while teaching people about new information, posting entertaining stuff, or just persuading them to take part in the interaction. While the other 20 percent gets used for the promotion of your products or services. Posting daily is recommended if your bandwidth allows this, but it is generally acceptable to post a minimum of just once or two times a week.
You should focus most of your posts on storytelling, and get your followers to make it go viral while providing something valuable. A successful promotion campaign on social media needs trust. On Instagram, this trust can mean finally creating your reputation within the community. Once you get confidence, you can indicate that you have something interesting to share with them regularly. It is also advisable to listen to other people’s stories and celebrate them too.
When you stick to all these mentioned strategies, I am pretty sure dentists will undoubtedly reap the benefits of marketing their practices online and engaging people online.
