Social Media

Before I forget, sorry about Friday's blog. I published it and it was officially up on the site, but no email alert was sent out. It is supposed to be automatic.

I finished the blog in the afternoon, so there wasn't really much time to figure out the issue on Friday. We had to find out what the problem was on Monday. Then Dr. Scott wrote his blog and, lo and behold, if you are an email alert person, you got two email alerts. Ahh, the joys of using Blogger.

Hope everyone is having a good week. This weekend I watched "The King's Speech." I have to tell you, I was a bit disappointed. Not because it wasn't good, because it was good. But it was just good. It wasn't great. It wasn't "Oh, my gosh this movie was so awesome." It was good. I mean, if a movie wins all these awards and gets all these accolades, I think it is going to be pretty special. And when I watch it and it is just good, I get disappointed.

Okay today I want to talk to you about social media.



I know you have seen this. We talked about this about a year ago and I thought it was done. But, you see, it is still evolving and I thought we should talk about it again. I am no expert - I don't even know what the Fr icon is, or the W for that matter.

A year ago I wrote about how crazy people are on Facebook. I wrote how people were just being stupid on it.

"Just got my nails done."
"Woke up and put on a red shirt today."
"My kid just got third place in the 4th grade track meet."
"Sitting in my back yard looking at the loons."

I don't even want to get into what I think of all this stuff. But here is the thing: whether you like or not, people are all over Facebook. And small businesses are capitalizing. I hear that 1 in 8 people all over the world are on FB. ALL OVER THE WORLD!! And Twitter is blowing up, too. I have to admit I don't know how dental offices are using Twitter, but I am sure I will be telling you about that next. (I have a Twitter account and I have about 20 followers but have never tweeted.)

So what is new on Facebook? Well, most dental offices and small businesses have a FB page (if you don't it is real easy - just do it). And for a dental office page you don't get friends, you get "likes." If someone "likes" your homepage, they are like your friends. If you put something on your page, it will go to all the people that like you.

I have done this sparingly. I think it is a good idea to stay in front of your patients, but social media is kind of like a part time job. I have to update my website, my personal FB page, and then my office FB page.

But dental offices are doing it. They are trying to get more and more "likes" and they will not stop til they get a ton. They will have contests to get "likes." Maybe everyone who 'likes' the office will get their name in a raffle. The new thing I am seeing is this people "checking in." It is a service that FB is providing. Patients come in and telling everyone in the world that they are "checking in" to Dr. Donald's office. Then all of Sally's friends now know that Dr. Donald is her dentist.

Dentists are getting wind that this is free social marketing. If you "check in," then we put in our weekly raffle for free movie tickets. This might be a bit more directed to the younger crowd but, I just talked to a friend and she was telling me that at various restaurants if you check in, a message pops up saying that you get free appetizer if you show the message to your server. You don't have to be young to love free stuff.

But what I meant about the young person thing is that if you have a high brow clientele you are probably not going to get too many people in your raffle that will "check in." But I can tell you that even the high brow CEO types have a FB account.

If you saw the article in the AGD Impact, "E-mail Marketing with Social Media," they mention there are companies out there that will get you names of people that have tons of friends and another company that gathers email addresses that have tons of activity. And, with both of these, you can market to the people that are very "social." I am certainly not practicing any of this yet.

If you have seen my office FB page, you have seen that I will periodically put up cases. I let people know what is going on in the office, like our Free Day of Dental. I am starting to recognize its power, but I am only one man. I hired someone about 3 months ago that I thought was going to be our social media person, but she didn't work out, so I am back to the drawing board. I am presently checking into texting all my patients "daily specials." Something like, "If you make an appointment today, we will reduce the price of bleaching 50%." Kind of like my own little Groupon.

I would like to know if you do any social media. Are you using it or just letting it sit? Are you Tweeting? Let me know if it is working for you.

Have a great week. I will talk to you on Friday.
john