During our research for Data Driven Dentistry, 87% of patients replied that they use Facebook on a regular basis. Of that, only 15% of patients were following their dentist on social media. There is a huge opportunity for dentists to take advantage of how much time their patients are spending on Facebook by creating campaigns that target them. By developing these campaigns, you can reach existing and potential patients on a platform you know they are already checking regularly.
Step 1: Choose type of campaign
There are 3 types of campaigns you can run on Facebook: Awareness, Consideration and Conversion. Choose awareness if you simply want to reach an audience and create awareness for your brand. You can opt for consideration if you would like to focus on getting website traffic and engagement. Conversion is best for getting people to take action on your website such as making a purchase.
Step 2: Choose your audience
You can add the qualities of your desired audience to include location, age, gender, language and interests/behaviours. This is an extremely valuable step as it allows you to only target patients who are located within your area and meet the requirements you look for in a patient.
Step 3: Choose budget and schedule
Then you can choose a budget and length of time the campaign will run for. Unsurprisingly, the more money invested in the campaign, the more results you will have. However, you can still garner valuable results from a lower budget on Facebook.
Step 4: Create the ads
The most important step is creating the actual posts which will be promoted. Choose images that are attention catching yet professional. Including your practice’s branding is a nice touch you will want to add. Be aware that adding too much text to an image will not be approved by Facebook so keep the images relatively clear of text. The text box and headline are where you can add your written copy. Don’t forget to include a link to your website if that if where you wish to lead patients!
Step 5: Review and publish
Before publishing, be sure to review your campaign to ensure all information is correct. Double check that your budget and schedule are correct and use the ad previewer to see what your ads will look like on your patient’s feeds. Then you are ready to publish your campaign!
Step 6: Monitor
The final step is to monitor the campaign to see how well it is doing. For example, you can check the analytics to see how many people have seen or clicked your ads by gender and age group.
Of patients who follow their dentist on social media, 72% of them follow on Facebook over other platforms. Take advantage of your practice’s Facebook account to communicate with existing patients and consider utilizing Facebook campaigns to reach new ones.
As seen in the print issue of Oral Health October 2020
*In late October and early November, 2019, Bramm Research, a third-party independent research consulting firm, conducted an online survey on behalf of Oral Health. Based on a sample of 1,000, the margin of error is +/- 3.2%.
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