In our last blog, we discussed the benefits which Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn can bring to your clinic. Today we’ll look at three other social media platforms which are popular around the world, but does that mean they’re good for your business?

Instagram:

Instagram Attracts over 800 million monthly users, that’s impressive for a platform which is all about mobile image sharing. In excess of 500 million users login per DAY on the site with 80% of them following a business, so can you afford to ignore Instagram?

As with many social media platforms, Instagram benefits businesses who are looking to attract business-to-consumer interactions, just like a dental surgery. Users primarily access their account directly from a smart phone to upload images or videos to their profile for sharing and comment. This leads the platform to be mostly suited to companies supplying or selling specific product to clients, rather than services. Many businesses find success on Instagram by forming strategic partnerships with key, influential members of the Instagram community. Sponsoring them to user, feature or promote a specific product to the Influencer’s followers.

To develop and maintain a follower base, most businesses post 1 – 2 per day, every day.

So, what does that mean for a dental surgery? Well, most users won’t want to see treatments and damaged teeth every day. That means you’ll need to take an alternative route to promoting on Instagram, rather than showing directly what your surgery does. Focusing more on your team and issues around could be successful, if challenging to do every day.

Pros:

Great for featuring products
Free to setup
Large user base

Cons:

You’ll need to post daily
Gaining real traction may mean partnering with an Influencer on the site which can be costly
Time will need to be spent taking good quality images or video to get results

Pinterest:

Pinterest is a fantastic way to promote your physical products to your clients. Pinterest is very different from the previous platforms, focusing on the sharing and pinning of “pins” to “boards”. Think of it very much like a digital scrapbook where you can store and share ideas with other people. Your pins, amongst other things, can be images, videos or links.

At present, there are over 150 million users on the site, with over 80% of them female and most users below the age of 40. Pinterest is great if you have a very visual product, such as fashion, jewellery, holiday or similar but to promote the type of services which a dental practice offers would be a challenge.

Users can pin your images to their own boards and so share your product with their friends and family. This is great for a dress but carder with dental work.

As with Twitter, much of your success on the site will come from the time and energy you put into it. You’ll also have to have some well shot images or videos to go on there too!

Pros:

Free account
Speaking directly to women under 40, if that’s your market
Perfect if you have a visually striking product

Cons:

You’ll need to have good quality images
Not great to promote the service side of dentistry

Your blog:

Don’t forget, your blog is social media too. That’s right, your blog counts as social media and, as you can tell, we’re a fan of them!

Your blog is one of the single best ways of promoting your business, it gives you a platform to communicate directly with your clients and tell them what you think. You can let them know about what your clinic is doing, your products, team changes, anything really. However, one of the most unusual things about your blog is you shouldn’t sell directly from it. A successful blog is about informing your clients and establishing your authority. This means that your blog should reflect the character of your business and share ideas, not prices and offers.

You’ll need to pencil time in to create your blogs, including thinking about what you want to write and how you’d like to term ideas. You’ll also need to allow time to respond to any feedback or questions that your readers may have on your piece.

Thankfully, for a start out, you can get away with once or twice per month to post new blogs, but as you generate an audience this may need to increase. You’ll also need to be consistent; delivering new pieces as and when you say you will.

Blogging can be a highly effective and useful addition to your business, you just need to make sure you do it right!

Pros:

You have complete control
Fantastic way to establish your authority in dentistry
Can lead to genuine and sustainable business growth

Cons:

Time intensive
Takes time to generate an audience

We hope you’ve found our two blogs on social media interesting and would love to hear about your advice, tips and experience on our Facebook or Twitter!