Social Media

Some of our best social media tips for dentists by a dentist!

24 Fun Dental-Themed Days to Post About

by | Feb 15, 2019 | Social Media

24 Fun Dental-Themed Days to Post About

Every day feels like a holiday when you’re in the dentistry field. But, did you know there really are holidays all the time that we can highlight on our social media pages to get more engagement? We’ve collected some fun dental-themed days that you can create content for and spread a little extra joy on your feeds!

Most of these dental-themed days are U.S. holidays, but a few of them are international. Depending on where you are in the world, some or all of these may work for you. Feel free to bookmark this list so you can revisit it each month as you plan your social media content!

Okay, are you ready to have some fun?

JANUARY

3 – National Drinking Straw Day – Talk about how straws and healthy teeth are BFF.!

28 – National Have Fun At Work Day – Show some behind the scenes photos of your team having fun!

FEBRUARY

9 – National Toothache Day – There’s lots of things you can do on this day!

28 – National Tooth Fairy Day – Share a fun fact or personal story about the Tooth Fairy.

MARCH

6 – National Dentist’s Day – This is a biggie! Go all out and celebrate dentistry and yourself

29 – National Mom and Pop Business Owners Day – Are you a small, privately owned practice? Celebrate that fact on March 29!

APRIL

11 – National Pet Day – Our pet’s teeth matter, too! Share a tip or fact about oral care for animals.

27 – National Tell a Story Day – Use this day to tell a story about you, your practice, or you could even share a cautionary tale about tooth care.

MAY

8 – National Receptionists’ Day – Shout out your amazing receptionists today!

31 – National Smile Day – As dentists, we LOVE smiles. Celebrate them on May 31 (and everyday, of course!)

JUNE

15 – National Smile Power Day – This is a day for everyone to share the power of the smile!

21 – National Selfie Day – Yay selfies! Ask your followers to share selfies featuring their beautiful smiles today.

JULY

12 – National Simplicity Day – Share a tip with your followers to make their oral health routine simpler!

29 – National Lipstick Day – Pucker up! Share your favorite lipstick shade, or your tip for keeping lipstick off your teeth!

AUGUST

16 – National Tell a Joke Day – There’s some great jokes about teeth out there. Share one on your feed!

21 – National Senior Citizens Day – What are some dental tips related to seniors that you could share?

SEPTEMBER

28 – National Good Neighbor Day – Do you have any neighbors that you want to call attention to? Today’s the perfect day!

30 – National Chewing Gum Day – Share your wisdom about chewing gum with your followers. Give them tips to choose the right gum for good oral health!

OCTOBER

16 – Boss’s Day – This is a great day to shout out the bosses that help  your practice run smoothly!

31 – National Knock-Knock Jokes Day

NOVEMBER

1 – National Brush Your Teeth Day – Remind your followers to brush away those sugar bugs from Halloween!

23 – Flossing Day – The day after Thanksgiving is a great day to focus on the habit of flossing.

DECEMBER

7 – National Cotton Candy Day – Cotton candy, also called candy floss or fairy floss, was created by a dentist!

26 – National Thank You Note Day – Use social media to send a virtual thank you note to your patients!

Need a little help managing your social media accounts and/or creating content for these dental-themed days (or any day, for that matter!) that makes people stop scrolling and pay more attention to your practice? We can help! Contact us to learn more about our social media management and branding packages!

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Building an Effective Dental Marketing Hashtag Strategy

by | Feb 10, 2019 | How To's, Social Media

Building an Effective Dental Marketing Hashtag Strategy

Hashtags. They’re the bane of many social media user’s existence! It seems like the rules are constantly changing around how to use hashtags. We often get asked if they’re really worth all the extra effort. In our opinion, they absolutely are!

We know the process of finding and adding hashtags to your posts can add more time to your already busy schedule, but they’re the most effective way to get your content in front of the right people. In fact, on channels like Instagram, it’s one of the only ways to show up in new people’s feeds.

If you’re investing in social media marketing or spending a good amount of time doing it yourself, a good hashtag strategy needs to be a part of it.

Where and When to Use Hashtags

If you’re on social media, you need hashtags. However, they’re more effective on some platforms than others. As we said above, they’re absolutely necessary for Instagram. It’s also a good idea to use a few (2-3) hashtags on Twitter and LinkedIn. Facebook doesn’t really support hashtags, so you don’t need to worry about using them on that platform (as of right now, who knows what the future will hold!)

Instagram hashtags connected to your photo will be added to their highly targeted tag page, where other people with the identical hashtag will be able to find the photo more easily. On Twitter and LinkedIn, the pound sign turns any word or group of words that directly follow it into a searchable link. This allows you to organize content and track discussion topics based on those keywords.

For example, if you’re posting a before and after photo of a whitening treatment, you could use the hashtags #teethwhitening or #whiteteeth so people can easily find your post.

An Effective Dental Marketing Hashtag Strategy

The most complicated part about building an effective hashtag strategy is choosing the right hashtags for your content. After all, what good is throwing a hashtag on your post if no one ever searches for that hashtag?

Unfortunately, there’s no centralized list of good hashtags to use. That would be amazing! The truth is, hashtags are influenced by trends and change all the time. Certain hashtags surge in popularity while others fade into obscurity. You have to put in a little work upfront to come up with a list of hashtags that are timely, popular, and relevant to your content.

In a past blog post, we discussed a few ways you can research hashtags. We strongly encourage you to pop on over and read the post.

Dental Soiree Can Help!

Developing a good hashtag strategy isn’t overly complicated, but it can be time consuming. However, we urge you not to skip hashtags. They’re so effective and helpful when it comes to broadening your reach on social media. If it seems like something you don’t have time to do, hiring a social media management team is a great idea. They can do all the work for you, and you can focus on the day-to-day demands of running your dental practice.

If you decide to go this route, we would love to discuss our packages with you! You can contact us anytime and we can chat. We promise, there’s never any pressure or obligation.

Happy hashtagging!

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Outsourcing Your Social Media Management in 2019

by | Jan 21, 2019 | Productivity, Social Media

Outsourcing Your Social Media Management in 2019

We’re a few weeks into the new year… how are those goals coming along? Are you still holding strong or did life already get in the way of your ambitious dreams for the new year? For those of you who had goals of really knocking your social media numbers out of the park in 2019, you might be finding that it takes a little more time and effort than you have available. That’s why outsourcing your social media management makes SO much sense!

So often, we shy away from the idea of outsourcing aspects of our business. We think we can just handle it ourselves or train a (often already stretched-too-thin) team member to handle the task. Maybe it works well for a week or two, but then other things come up and soon, the task is forgotten.

If your goal is to find more patients through your Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram channels, we urge you to consider the benefits of outsourcing your social media management!

What to Expect When You Outsource

Sometimes, people are concerned that when they hire someone to handle their social media management, they’re relinquishing all control over the content and the look of their feed. Not the case! The right team will work collaboratively with you, but not in a way that is overly complicated or a drain on your already limited time.

There is an onboarding period that usually lasts a few weeks where you’ll be working more closely with the social media management team. You’ll get a chance to see the content they’ve created and give your feedback. They may work with you to do some custom photography that will be a part of your social strategy. They’ll also need access to all of your brand assets like logos, color codes, and other graphical elements you’d like included in your social media feeds.

After the onboarding period, your role will be much more “hands off” and you’ll mainly focus on overseeing the feeds and providing feedback and guidance as necessary.

Determining Success

Another common concern when it comes to outsourcing social media management is whether the investment will pay off. How will you determine success? What kind of ROI can you expect to see? These are all great questions to ask your potential social media team. Most companies have a set process for delivering analytics and outlining social media success, but the more specific you are about what you expect to see and how you want the information delivered, the better.

Of course, you’ll want to be realistic about your expectations. You aren’t going to be able to increase your followers by tens of thousands without spending a little money on advertising (most likely) and there’s always going to be an ebb and flow to your growth. Even if you lose a few followers or your engagement drops a little bit in the short term, looking at the long-term analytics will show a steadier pattern. If that shows growth, your team is doing something right!

The Soiree Squad is Here to Help!

If you think outsourcing your social media management is the best way you can meet your goals, the Soiree Squad is here to help! In addition to our #famous creative branding photoshoots, we also offer social media management for dental professions who want to grow bigger in 2019! If you’re interested in learning more about this service, you can fill out our contact form and someone will be in touch with you shortly!

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How to Attract Millennials to Your Dental Practice!

by | Jan 14, 2019 | How To's, Social Media

How to Attract Millennials to Your Dental Practice!

Every day, it seems like there’s some news story about Millennials “killing” another industry or brand. It might be easy to say this generation is hard to please or ruthless, but we know there is FAR more to the story than that. Understanding the full story (and knowing how to attract Millennials rather than repel them) is vital if you own or run any kind of business… dental practices included.

Millennials are the people who were born between 1982 and 2000, and as of today, there are about 80 million in the United States. That’s a lot of buying power! If your dental practice is still struggling to attract younger adults, it’s time to reflect on your marketing strategy. After all, Millennials often have young children, so if you also offer pediatric dentistry, you could be looking at A LOT of potential new patients.

What Millennials Want

Recently, an article came out in Dental Economics that claimed Millennials are shying away from private practice dentistry. There’s a few reasons the author of this article believes this is happening. Surprisingly, very few of his reasons have anything to do with actual dentistry. Instead, it’s more about the experience and how easy it is for them to interact with your practice when they need to.

The truth is, Millennials need things to be EASY! They’re working more hours than any other generation, they have less “downtime” and a lot of them are parents. They simply don’t have time to call and make an appointment. They want to be able to do it online, from their smartphone, on the go. In fact, according to the article and a Lincoln Financial Group Dental study, “40% of millennials cite a dentist’s website as “very important” as opposed to 14% of baby boomers.”

Do you have a website that works well on mobile? Do you allow patients to book their appointments online? Making it easy is the name of the game if you want to win over this huge chunk of the population!

It’s Time to Get Social

For a dental practice to attract Millennial patients, you have to show up where they hang out. In this day and age, that means online! Your website must look good and be discoverable through search engines, which means spending a little time and energy on SEO (consistent blogging, keyword research, and website optimization).

In addition to a great website, you need to be active on social media. Just posting once in awhile isn’t enough. Daily conversations with your followers is mandatory, and making your content fun, engaging, and informative is key. It should not be about YOU and how great YOU are. It should be about your followers. Solve their problems, give them helpful tips, and get to know them though actual conversations online. This is how you win over the younger crowd.

Some Key Takeaways

At the end of the day, your goal should be to create content that shows exactly why your practice is the best one for your potential and current patients. Showcase your personality, your skills, your equipment, and your services. Use attention-catching imagery and short videos to really “wow” your followers. Be consistent on social media and have a great website. It can seem like a lot, but if you take it one step at a time and outsource when you can, we guarantee you can grow your audience, not only with Millennials, but across the board.

Do you need help with social media management, content strategy, or do you need to schedule a photoshoot so you have tons of on-brand imagery and video to share online? We are here for you! Feel free to contact us anytime.

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Five Ways to Use Instagram Live to Promote Your Dental Practice

by | Jan 7, 2019 | instagram, Social Media, Technology

Five Ways to Use Instagram Live to Promote Your Dental Practice

Lights, camera, action! Are you ready to go live on Instagram? Or does the thought of hitting that “live” button give you heart palpitations? We’ve seen great success with our clients who regularly use Instagram Live, and we know that it will be an effective way to promote your dental practice, too!

However, there’s a little more to it than just working up the nerve to hit the button! You have to have something interesting to talk about. Otherwise, why would anyone tune in or stick around to watch your entire stream?

In this blog post, we’re going to give you five fun Instagram Live content ideas you can use to promote your dental practice!

Introduce a new product

There are new dental products hitting the market all the time and your patients and followers want to know how YOU feel about them. After all, you’re the expert. Take one of the new products and do a live video where you outline the claims of the item and then provide your expert insight as to whether those claims are valid and whether you think it’s worth your follower’s time and/or money.

Talk about an industry statistic

As dentists, we know there are shocking stats out there that people just aren’t aware of. Knowling the sometimes scary information about dental care can help people stick to their goals, and getting expert advice from someone who really knows what they’re talking about (that’s you!) can be invaluable. Hook your followers in with a great teaser for your live video, then give them all the info they need to stay healthy when you go live!

Give a behind the scenes tour

People love getting a look behind the scenes! Do an office tour for new patients who haven’t been to your practice before. Go into the breakroom and show people what you’ve stocked the fridge with. Trust me, they love to see things like this! Show them how a piece of equipment works to dispel some of the mystery around a procedure. Pull back the curtain a little bit and let them see the inner workings of your practice and give them a chance to ask questions as you go!

Introduce a new team member

Did you just hire a new team member? Sit down with them for a live video where you introduce them and let them talk a little bit about their life and passions outside of work! It’s a great way to get current patients comfortable with the new employee, and it’s also a fantastic opportunity to reach potential new patients with a more laid-back live video to show off your team’s personality!

Do a Q&A session

If there’s one thing we know for sure, it’s that people have lots of questions about what we do. Answer their questions in a live Q&A session on Instagram Live! You can allow your followers to leave their questions in the comments of a post beforehand, or you can let them drop questions right in the chat during your live stream. If you choose to do the latter, it’s always a good idea to have a few questions prepared in advance that you can answer as you’re waiting for people to participate!

With all of these ideas, don’t forget to build up some anticipation first. Create a few social media posts to promote upcoming video and post them throughout the week leading up to your live stream. It’s a much more effective strategy than just going live and hoping people will show up!

If you feel like you need a little more instruction before jumping in, we have a great mini-course on Instagram Live over on The Soiree Suite. It will teach you everything you need to know to use this tool to promote your dental practice, plus we share our favorite insider tips for rocking your videos and your marketing!

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Three Dental Marketing Trends to Watch in 2019

by | Dec 31, 2018 | Social Media, Technology

Three Dental Marketing Trends to Watch in 2019

Can you believe 2019 is already here? It seems like the years go faster and faster and things change at the speed of light… especially online marketing. It can be so difficult to know where to spend your time and money, especially if marketing is not your primary area of expertise!

We want to share three of the dental marketing trends we’re watching for in 2019. We think focusing on these three areas will get you the most “bang for your buck” when it comes to your dental practice marketing!

Email Marketing

You might think we’re crazy to start with email marketing. After all, isn’t email the oldest digital marketing channel there is? Yeah, maybe, but it’s also one of the most effective. As we rely more and more on social media, it can be easy to forget that those followers are simply “borrowed” contacts. They belong to the platform, and if the platform goes (or changes their algorithm again) you might not be able to reach them. With email, your contacts are always your contacts, and when you send something, they get it. Simple as that.

In 2019, we’ll be focusing more on email marketing, and we think you should, too! It doesn’t take a lot of time to create a great email template that you can use over and over again (and tweak if you need to) and you can always test new subject lines and strategies. Don’t be afraid to send more email in 2019!

Videos on Instagram Stories

One thing that we fully expect to be even more popular in 2019 is Instagram Stories! It’s such an easy way to connect with your followers, and they love the chance to get to know the “real” you through these short, easy-to-digest videos. Photos are also popular in Stories, but we have a feeling videos will rise to the top and you’ll see even more of them over the next year!

If you’ve been hesitant to share videos (especially of yourself) on Instagram Stories, make this the year you overcome your fear or reluctance and just hit that video button! Your followers will love the chance to see the more human side of your practice.

Chatbots

Lastly, we’re keeping an eye on chatbots. These started to get popular in 2018, but we think in 2019, even the smallest small businesses (and practices) will start to use them as well. Chatbots are sometimes programmed onto a business’ website and now they’re even being used on social media platforms like inside Facebook’s messenger feature.

Chatbots can help you get your website or social media visitors the information they’re looking for 24/7 so they don’t give up and possibly head over to a competitor. You don’t have to be an expert to create this either. There are lots of easy-to-use programs online!

What do you think will be the biggest dental marketing trend of 2019? Do you think it will be one of the three we listed above… or something totally different? Head on over to our Instagram page and let us know what you think!

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