Although you may think of LinkedIn as a site to publicise a job search or recruitment exercise, it still has a use for dental practices, according to Gemma Starkey, aka Miss Social, as she explains here.
Sometimes people don’t appreciate LinkedIn is a social media site whereas it is the oldest social media platform. LinkedIn has been around since 2002, whereas Facebook didn’t appear on the scene until a couple of years later. So, it is well established now and is still as popular today as it ever was.
LinkedIn is a site that mainly attracts professionals. There are two ways that dental practices and dentists can be using LinkedIn that sometimes they overlook. Firstly, as a dentist they can be on the site sharing their knowledge and building their profile. Secondly, as a dental practice you could have a dental practice page, and your dentists can link their profile to the practice’s page.
Dental practices can benefit from being on LinkedIn, particularly if they’re in a city location. I worked at a practice in London which had three dental sites, and they were located within the premises of big businesses. Two were located within law firms and the third was in a bank. Lots of the people who worked in these buildings may not have been on Instagram or Facebook, but they would certainly have been on LinkedIn. And so, it’s important that if you are in that sort of area to be posting and reaching people on the platforms that they spend time on. This is the great benefit of social media marketing as it allows you to reach out into communities of people that are likely to come to your practice. So, by posting on the sites they use, you can stand out.
Showcase skills and training
One of the best ways of using LinkedIn by dentists I have seen is where they have linked their own profile to their practice’s profile, and they have been posting engaging content and sharing information. LinkedIn is fantastic for recommending people to connect with and highlighting the connections you have in common. It also allows you to go out and look at businesses that you would like to target as well.
So, for example, in the case of the dental practice that was in the law firm, we could follow that law firm, and we can then see the law firm’s employees. So, it gives us a link and a connection to help to target the people that are likely to become patients.
Followers
It’s a good idea to try to build up your number of followers on LinkedIn. People often don’t understand that by increasing their number of followers, you become more of an authority on that platform. You earn the platform’s trust so they will open up new things to you. For example, on LinkedIn when you reach a certain number of followers you get access to LinkedIn newsletters.
These can be useful for sharing content about what is happening at the practice. They can also be used for sharing more professionally focused content that might not be suitable for say, Instagram. This could be about a course that they’ve been on or new things that they’ve learned. That more professional slant is perfect for sharing on LinkedIn.
Have a calendar
If you think that LinkedIn will benefit you, much like the other social media platforms, you should be posting consistently. One of the best ways to be sure to do that is by creating an annual events calendar of different things happening that you would like to post about. For example, for mouth cancer action month you could post charity events or fundraising on there, or courses that you’ve been on, and information about how you screen for oral cancer.
Think about sharing different media such as videos as well as images and text posts. The greater the number of platforms you can use to reach potential patients, the better. Also, the more frequently you reach out and provide valuable information, or patients see you, the greater the opportunity to strengthen the bond you have with them. Not just for new patients but existing ones too.
With Facebook and Instagram, I would recommend posting two to three times a week. However, I wouldn’t say the same with LinkedIn. The key is to be consistent and be realistic about how often you can post on there and stick with that.
Vary your content
It’s good to think outside the box about your LinkedIn content. You could share the posts of authority figures, or you could post when you have a new blog on your website, and that’s a nice easy reshare. After all, you’ve made the effort of creating the blog, you might as well try to get it out there on as many platforms as possible. If you have reached the threshold then you may be eligible for LinkedIn newsletters that you could share with your followers. So, if you have a calendar, you can see when you have a blog, or a newsletter, and it soon builds up. You can then start to understand how many posts you can commit to sharing regularly.
As with a lot of these things it’s about experimentation. You never quite know how something is going to work until you give it a try. And some things can really surprise you. Don’t be scared to have a go and follow the process. Most of the platforms are great now at guiding you along and offering you advice about what the next step is, what you should be posting and encouraging that journey. So just step in and give it a try.
