#DENTISTRYROCKS

#DENTISTRYROCKS

Some of the people reading this blog post instantly understand what the headline means! Others have no clue. Let me try and decipher.

Whether you spend any time on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or other sites, the fact is that Social Media has become a trend that is simply too big to ignore. Recently the highly regarded research firm, The Nielson Company reported that 22% of all time spent online was on Social Media Networks:

http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/global/social-media-accounts-for-22-percent-of-time-online/

WOW, that number is staggering and illustrates why mastering Social Media Marketing is the new skill set of interest to progressive Dentists. The science of Social Media Marketing is in its infancy but there are some real business opportunities provided by ‘first mover advantage’. In this blog post I will share some resources that will help you understand more about Social Media channels and how you can use Social Media to build your practice.

My friend, Fred Joyal the founder of 1-800-DENTIST knows more about dental marketing than anyone I know! He has committed his career to getting patients to visit the dentist. As your first step in arming yourself with information I highly recommend that you and your entire team read Fred’s book titled, Everything is Marketing. This book is brilliant and the best read in dentistry! Here is a link for the book. Type Gary in the promo code and you get the book for $20. Thanks Fred! 

http://www.goaskfred.com/Store

After reading Fred’s book, read the whitepaper he wrote about Social Media. It’s free and provides an excellent overview and insights on Social Media.

http://www.goaskfred.com/Home/Whitepaper

After reading Fred’s book and Whitepaper, you will have an excellent understanding of marketing and how social media can be useful for your practice. Now, I will build on this foundation. The four Social Media channels that are most useful for dentists are your own Blog, Facebook, Twitter, and a YouTube channel. Of these four, Twitter is the channel that is least understood. Below is a link to an outstanding book written by Mark Schaefer titled, The Tao of Twitter. This book is a very quick read and will tell you everything you need to know about Twitter. 

http://www.thetaooftwitter.com/

Now, let’s put all of this together and develop a coordinated marketing strategy using the four Social Media channels of your own written Blog, a Facebook Fan Page for your practice, a Twitter feed, and your own YouTube channel. I could explain exactly how to do this, but my friend Jack Hadley can do a much better job. Jack has created an amazing 4 minute video that explains how to use these Social Media elements to build your practice. 

This is a shameless plug, but I just finished providing an online course titled, Marketing Academy where I discuss how to develop a comprehensive marketing plan to consistently attract quality new patients. We decided to release the course as a ‘Self Study’ course so that Dentists and Team Members could access this CE very conveniently, anytime, anywhere, at YOUR convenience. We are offering special pricing thru September: 

www.academyselfstudy.eventbrite

Back to the headline, #DENTISTRYROCKS. The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keywords or topics in a tweet. Clicking on a hashtag word in a tweet leads to a search of all other tweets in that category. My hashtag headline #DENTISTRYROCKS declares my unbridled  passion for the dental profession! Keep Smiling!