Social Media Marketing in medicine and dental clinic

Marketing continues to evolve from year to year. medical social Media marketing, part of the global advertising world, develops according to the same laws. The specifics of work in medicine leave their mark, but the basic principles remain unchanged. To build an effective sales funnel for dentistry or medical center, you must keep track of the changes and innovations in an ever-changing environment.

The content of the article

• Social Media Marketing as a tool to attract patients to a dental clinic
• The need for a clinic account in social networks
• How to attract patients with the help of Social Media Marketing
• Independent promotion of the clinic page on a social network – is it real
• The most popular social networks
• Latest Social Media Marketing trends

Social Media Marketing as a tool to attract patients to a dental clinic

More pages of dental clinics appear on Facebook, Instagram, Vkontakte, and other social networks. It is better to talk about the content, the specifics of the design, and the features of communication with patients separately – each topic requires detailed consideration. In this article, I will concentrate on a more global aspect: increasing clinic visits using Social Media Marketing.

The need for a clinic account in social networks

I often have to answer this question from dental owners: “Why do we need a page on a social network? After all, there is a healthcare website design. Our foreign marketing colleagues, for whom Social Media Marketing is one of the leading tools for promoting goods and services, have formulated a detailed answer.

Its essence is as follows:

• website – for business;
• social networks are for people.

The site is the main source of information about the dental clinic: doctors, equipment, services, and level of service.

And social networks are a place for less formal communication between patients and the clinic. In addition, the social media account is an image diary where the company talks about all the nuances of its work.

The website and the clinic page in the social network complement each other, but in no case can we talk about the mutual substitution of one for the other.

How to attract patients with the help of Social Media Marketing

The main tools for promoting dental clinics on the Internet:

• SEO – website optimization to get it into the top organic search results of Yandex and Google;
• contextual advertising – ads in search engines;
• posting information on aggregator portals;
• Social Media Marketing – marketing promotion in social networks.
• Social Media Marketing differs significantly from other patient engagement technologies. Search engine optimization and context are designed for users who independently search for information on certain dental topics.
• In social networks, people usually watch what they are offered. When visiting the clinic’s page on the social network, they do not even need dental care. Social Media Marketing specialists select the audience of accounts using filters: gender, age, interests, geographic location, etc. Proper advertising settings allow you to show the clinic’s advertising messages to those likely to be interested in such information.
• Promotion of dental clinic with the help of Social Media Marketing will give you:

• • Audience expansion. Each subscriber of your social media account is a potential patient. In addition, the social media page allows dental clinic to communicate directly with people through content, comments, and private messages;
  • Delivering the right information to the target audience. One of the most striking examples in this regard is aligners. Social Media Marketing helped solve the problem and spoke in detail about the new dental service specifically to the target audience.
  • Big reach for small budgets. For 30,000 people to see information about dental services, a solvent target audience needs about 10,000-20,000 rubles. And contextual advertising of expensive or most popular dental services (installation of implants, aesthetic procedures) costs at least 150,000 rubles per month. Even with the increase in tariffs on social networks, the promotion of the same services will cost several times cheaper.

Independent promotion of the clinic page on a social network – is it real?

• “Live” accounts on social networks provide the dental clinic with one or two primary patients every month. That is, these are people who learned about the clinic through a statement on social networks.
• When attracting patients through social networks, the budget plays a major role. In this case, we are not talking about large amounts. A professional approach helps achieve the optimal ratio of money spent and the result obtained. But this happens only when a team of specialists handles Social Media Marketing. Otherwise, you can spend a million rubles but not achieve your goals.
• At Healthcare Social Media Marketing is a team of five specialists:

1. 1. 1. creative – he thinks over and proposes the concept of an account in social networks;
      2. copywriter – this person is engaged in filling accounts with content;
      3. herpetologist — he sets up and places ads;
      4. the operator who shoots and edits video;
      5. A moderator who communicates with subscribers in comments and private messages.

• I believe Social Media Marketing today is the most accessible and effective tool for increasing audience loyalty and the number of primary patients. So, for example, with equivalent budgets, Facebook and Instagram are more effective than VKontakte. Therefore, I consider these two social networks to be the main platforms for marketing promotion.

The most popular social networks

• In a good way, a dental clinic should have accounts on all popular social networks. Their content can be duplicated or slightly modified depending on the specifics of each platform.
• According to Yandex. Radar, the following social networks were the most popular in Russia in March 2020:

1. This social network was initially developed mainly for students, today, the audience in VK is children and their parents. That is, the average age of a VK user has grown;

1. 1. 1. This site is preferred by an older audience, which lives mainly in the regions;
      2. Instagram – 117,000,000 visitors. This social network is developing most dynamically and is popular both in capital cities and in the regions. After the merger with Facebook, Instagram’s position has grown. In our agency, Instagram has become the most effective Social Media Marketing, bringing the largest number of primary patients to clinics. This happens due to the constant work of developers on promotion tools;
      3. Facebook – 82,300,000 visitors. The age and most solvent audience gather here. Mostly they are residents of large and metropolitan cities. The advertising account of this social network provides great opportunities for promoting dental clinics. There is a unique lead generation function here: the clinic pays for advertising only after the user requests a call, makes an appointment, or goes to the site. This is the same principle that contextual advertising works on, but the price of a target action on FB is several times lower.

• The dental clinics should not bypass social networks such as My World and Tumblr. Also, in the era of winning video content, you should have a YouTube account. You need to do this only if you have a specialist who will professionally develop and shoot video.

Latest Social Media Marketing trends

1. They get attention up to four times more often than a static image. The main thing at the same time is the practical benefit for people.

1. 1. Live broadcasts and Stories. According to 2019 data, 62% of companies said that Stories motivated customers to write to them in Direct. Users “consume” story content much faster than in other mobile formats. Developments are now paying maximum attention to the functionality of Stories.

• Patients have always been interested in looking at the “kitchen” of the dental clinics and the informal side of the clinic. Today, social networks provide such an opportunity. Dental clinics demonstrate in their accounts what kind of team atmosphere, sense of humor, company values, and, most importantly, openness to people.
• Remember: it’s not enough to create a page on a social network. It is imperative to conduct thoughtful, purposeful work on it constantly. Today, users are increasingly evaluating a clinic by their social network account, which is associated with all dental clinic activities. Competent, high-quality Social Media Marketing will help you create and maintain the trust of virtual patients and turn them into real primary patients.