7 simple ways to increase your dental practice's "likes" on Facebook

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So why are Facebook fans so important? Well, there are several reasons. The first, and perhaps one of the most important, is that once you grow a large community of loyal fans, you increase your chances that your Facebook page will be seen. It's all about numbers.

Many dentists want to know if Facebook likes matter. Is focusing on growing your Facebook community worth your time and investment? Well, after building a phenomenal dental practice that has nearly 50,000 Facebook followers and consistently getting a 1500 percent return on investment (ROI) on Facebook, I have to say it absolutely matters!

So why are Facebook fans so important? Well, there are several reasons. The first, and perhaps one of the most important, is that once you grow a large community of loyal fans, you increase your chances that your Facebook page will be seen. It's all about numbers.

The more fans that you have talking about you, sharing your posts and liking your content, the more your posts will go viral. Facebook allows you to build a tribe of raving fans. 

Related reading: Utilizing social media to capture the millennial audience

By the way, building your Facebook likes will build social proof. Once people come to your page and they see that you have thousands of fans, they think, "OK, this practice is doing something right," and then they want to know more! Also, the more fans you have, the more your posts get shared on Facebook, which helps to build your community. However, having likes alone is not what creates a ROI. In addition to these seven strategies, you must also post consistent engaging content, and create an ads strategy to optimize conversions to new patients.

Continue to the next page to see the strategies...

 

 

 

 

Strategy #1: The Facebook page plugin

The Facebook page plugin lets you easily embed and promote any Facebook page on your website. Just like on Facebook, your visitors can like and share your Facebook page without leaving your site. To keep it simple, when visitors are browsing your website, there should always be an objective. There should always be an action that you want your visitors to take. One of these actions should be for them to like your Facebook page. Your website visitors will see a small box which includes your Facebook cover photo, a list of their friends who like your Facebook page, and a button to like your page. They also have the ability to watch the featured video attached to your Facebook page. 

Related reading: 7 quick SEO wins for dental practices

Visitors to your website are warm, which means that they have chosen to find out more about you. This means that they are likely to follow your Facebook page too.

A Facebook page plugin is one of the most effective ways to grow your fan community. It is super easy to implement (takes less than five minutes) and will allow first-time visitors to your site to keep in touch with what is going on in your practice.

 

 

 

 

 

Strategy #2: Target friends of fans with Facebook “like” ads

A very easy, inexpensive way to get more likes is by targeting friends of your current Facebook fans. The reason this strategy works is that friends of your current fans will likely have similar demographics to your current fans. They live in similar communities, have similar interests and are likely to make similar decisions when it comes to which restaurant to explore or which dentist to visit.

Related reading: 10 hacks every dentist should know to boost their online reputation

Like ads are the simplest to set up and are super cheap. These promotions can be boosted right from your page without having to go to the ads manager and take seconds to set up. When you attract friends of your existing fans, you are more likely to attract a “quality” fan.

 

 

 

 

Strategy #3: Target your existing patients

This strategy is huge! A very easy way to boost your likes fast is to target your existing patients. This means that your posts get seen in the newsfeeds of people who already know, like, and trust you. Once you create an engaging post that talks about great things that are going on behind the scenes in your practice, you patients will very likely react to the post and like your page. You can create this custom audience within Facebook Ads Manager or Facebook Power Editor. You would choose custom list and upload a .txt or .csv file of your patient’s email addresses, which you can create in your practice management software.

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Your existing patients are going to be the cheerleaders on your Facebook page, no matter if you are just getting started or when you grow thousands of fans. They will like and share your posts, and provide social proof that your practice is the best as well as share stories with their friends of why they should become a patient of your practice. 

 

 

 

 

Strategy #4: Target people who have similar characteristics to your current patients

This strategy is taking growing your fan base one step higher. Once you have created your custom audience of your existing patients, the next step is to create an audience that has similar characteristics to your existing patients. You do this by creating a lookalike audience. So basically you say "Facebook, create a list for me of people who have similar characteristics to my current patients. This is easily set up in Facebook Manager-Tools-Audiences-Create Audience-Lookalike Audience.

Related reading: 7 tips for using social media to reach patients of all ages

Lookalike audiences, created by Facebook, are those people who are most like your existing patients. This one is a no-brainer! This means that your posts are seen in the newsfeeds of people who are not current patients, but because of their likes, interests or demographics are likely to become patients.

 

 

 

 

Strategy #5: Create a website custom audience

Website Custom Audiences (also known WCA) allow you to create Facebook ads to target people who have previously visited your website.

Website Custom Audiences is one more way to reach an incredibly warm audience. People that have already been to your website are already exposed to your brand. Once they see your posts showing up in their feeds, they are very likely to become a fan and keep engaging with you. Website Custom Audiences allows you to target your visitors organically. Custom audiences allow you to target your patient list, but now you can reach people who may not be a patient nor a current Facebook fan but they have visited your website.

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Another very cool feature is that you can focus on those who visited a particular page or a section of your site. You can also concentrate on those who visited pages that included a particular keyword in the URL.

This customization potential for such ads is incredible.

 

 

 

 

Strategy #6: Increase your engagement

One of the most common reasons why people struggle to grow their Facebook fan base is that they don't have any engagement on their page.

If you don’t have engagement, your posts won’t be seen in the newsfeed, and that is where all the action is on Facebook! You want to make sure that people are liking, reacting, commenting and sharing your content, and you must be responsive. You never want people to ask a question, and no one is there to respond. 

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When you get your fans to comment and share your content, their friends will also want to jump on the bandwagon. Lots of people like to follow the crowd, and when their Facebook friends are sharing your posts, they want to know why and will want to be part. (These shares also mean that you don’t have to pay for the engagement, it just happens naturally). If you want to increase your fan base, increase your engagement!

 

 

 

 

Strategy #7: Be consistent

The final step to increasing your fans on Facebook is to be consistent. Far too many dentists post way to infrequently to see any real results. You must create a consistent schedule for posts, and make sure that they are posts worth sharing. I recommend posting at least once daily, especially while you are growing your fan base.

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Tips to help with consistency are to share the posting tasks with a member of your team using the Facebook Pages app, schedule your posts within Facebook itself, or use a scheduling automation software like Meet Edgar.

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