We don’t like to be negative, but when it comes to dental branding, we do see a good amount of mistakes being made. We’re not blaming anyone! It’s hard to keep up with the changing trends and it’s equally hard to make time to tackle even the smallest tasks related to branding or marketing.
Hopefully, this post will make it a little easier to pinpoint some small ways you can improve your dental branding strategy. Every little step in the right direction matters!
Ready to learn what not to do when it comes to your dental branding? Let’s jump right in!
Using Low Quality Photography – We’re not going to say don’t take photos with your smartphone. The latest smartphones have incredible cameras, and shoot great pictures! We’re talking about posting low-resolution, grainy photos, or photos with poor lighting.
Your brand needs to be polished and professional, and on platforms like Instagram (for example) the photos you use are pretty darn important. If you are too busy or aren’t sure how to take professional-quality photos, ask someone on your team or invest in great styled stock photography. We have tons of dental-themed images over at Soiree Stock that is perfect for this exact purpose!
Not Being Consistent – We’re talking about both how often you show up and how you show up. If every time you post on social media, it looks like a completely different brand (different colors, fonts, photography style, filter, etc.) people are going to be confused. Choosing a brand for your practice is an intentional process and once you go through it, you should do your best to keep everything consistent.
On a related note, you also need to be consistent with your content. On social media, this might mean posting three or five or seven times a week. On your blog, you might post a new article every week. Maybe you’re on YouTube and you have a routine of posting a new video every other week. No matter what schedule you are following, make it consistent. Regular content builds trust and it also keeps you top of mind for your patients and future patients!
Using Old Strategies – We get it. Branding and marketing changes ALL THE TIME and as dentists, we’re busy enough without having to keep tabs on the latest social media trends. However, there are certain things that are super important to stay on top of. Things like paid advertising on social media, hashtag usage, and SEO are all really crucial components of a great dental branding strategy. Knowing what to do (and what not to do) will really help your practice stay competitive online.
We see so many practices just posting on Facebook every once in a while, hoping that people will see their posts. On Facebook, if you’re not boosting your posts or consistently posting on a fairly regular schedule, very few people will see your posts… and it gets more challenging every time the algorithm changes. We’ll give you a hint… it never changes in our favor. Social media is becoming more “pay to play” than ever before, which means dental professionals need to keep an eye on the strategies that really work.
Dental branding can be a lot of fun, but it does require some time investment on a consistent basis. At the end of the day, all that effort is well worth it if you have a full calendar and lots of patients raving about your practice to their friends and family!
If you want to learn more about branding, we have a workshop coming up in Chicago that we’d love for you to attend! The Get Social is being held June 1 and 2, and it’s being hosted by Dr. Jessica Emery and Dr. Anissa Holmes, two passionate dentists and branding experts. Learn more about the workshop!
