As an oral surgeon in the Chicago area, my fellow dentists often ask me about my social media activities. With Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter/X, TikTok, What’sApp, and more, there is a lot to choose from, and the list grows every day. To see what works best for you, start by asking a few questions…
How many of these social media platforms do you use?
More important, when was the last time you evaluated each to see if they are really providing value to your patients?
Is Your Social Media Time Worth It?
You’re busy, and this is probably the last thing you want to deal with right now. But if you just take a few minutes to review your social media efforts, you may save yourself a lot of time, money and other resources… and increase the number of new patients coming in your door.
Start with these questions…
1. How do you use social media?
Make a list of all of the social media platforms you use. How do you create your posts, who is responsible for the posts, and how often do you post?
Is anyone reacting to them?
Your answers will tell you right away where you may be wasting time and resources!
2. What’s the point?
It can be really easy to “jump on the bandwagon” and use a social media platform just because everyone else is posting on it.
Well, before you start using any social media platform, stop and figure out why you are posting on a particular platform and what you hope to accomplish by doing so.
Create an editorial calendar of themes and posts in advance and figure out a way to track results. This way, you can set goals and have a purpose behind your social media posts.
3. What are the results?
Do you see a lot of comments about a particular topic on Twitter?
Are patients contacting you with feedback on Facebook?
If you see that a particular post is popular, you’ll know that your target market wants more of that content.
If you receive a lot of activity on one social media platform and hardly any on another, check your goals and update future posts.
Track the results again, and if you don’t see any positive updates, you may want to think about discontinuing your use of a particular social media platform.
Instead of posting on social media without any kind of plan in place, use it to your advantage!
Review your current activities, set goals, create an editorial calendar, and monitor posts. Then, make changes accordingly for the best results.
This way, you’ll save time, money and resources by focusing on the social media platforms that give your targeted audience members valuable information they can actually use!