Tag: social media

How Can Dentists Use LinkedIn for Marketing?

With more than 200 million users worldwide, 1 million of which are healthcare professionals, and 1.5 million active groups, LinkedIn is an invaluable social media tool for your practice. LinkedIn isn’t particularly glamorous like Pinterest or Instagram, nor does it have the high patient engagement factor like Facebook and Twitter. Even so, the site offers excellent opportunities to connect with other dental professionals.

Step 1: Create or Update

If you haven’t yet created a LinkedIn profile, do so now. Otherwise, verify that all information on your profile is current. Fill out as many sections as possible, including professional memberships, honors, nonprofit involvement, and published articles, if applicable. A robust, keyword-rich profile will appear more frequently in user searches. Follow interesting and relevant companies, fellow dental professionals, and nonprofits, and subscribe to their updates. I suggest Dental Economics, the ADA, and MDPM Consulting, for starters.

Step 2: Join in the Conversation

Join and participate in group discussions to connect with professionals by specialty, associations, and geographic area. Ask and answer questions, and share content that will intrigue and engage other group members. Most LinkedIn groups have private job postings that non-members cannot view, giving you an edge in your career progress. LinkedIn allows you to join as many as 50 groups, so choose wisely.

Step 3: Build Your Network

Each additional contact opens up new opportunities and greater visibility. Don’t limit your contact list to professionals. Import your contacts from your email and other social media networks, then add coworkers, friends, peers, and partners. Most group members are more than willing to add fellow professionals to their own network.

Step 4: Sharing Is Caring

When sharing content, focus on quality over quantity. Yes, you want to increase your visibility, but not with shameless self-promotion. It’s give and take. When someone posts content that interests or intrigues you, share it with others. Content should be relevant and fresh, a good mix of original and shared media. Unlike Facebook and Twitter, LinkedIn content should be strictly professional. Leave witty anecdotes, memes, and personal beliefs for your personal social media profiles.

Step 5: Drive Traffic

Showcase your best blogs and articles on your LinkedIn profile and in your groups. Your “best” blog posts on LinkedIn will appeal to other professionals. Another dentist probably wouldn’t see the value in an article about the importance of flossing, unless of course it happens to be part of a recent study. Find out what works best by test driving different copy, pictures, and titles and comparing the number of views.

About Jill: Jill Nastasia, CEO and Director of Business Development at MDPM, is a woman on a mission. To connect with Jill, contact her at 972-781-8861, or send her an email.

Social Marketing Needs to Eat a Banana

We’re all so very busy. You know exactly what I mean. I try to get in some yoga or a walk in the  morning, then do my reading at night. On my nighstand right now are a parenting book (I have two teenagers), The Count of Monte Cristo (birthday gift and personal life goal), and UnMarketing by Scott Stratten. It’s the latter that inspired this blog post. I highlighted some interesting points in UnMarketing last night, thinking of you, and I want to share them.

What’s the deal with Facebook and Twitter? Well, social marketing is in a rapid state of evolution. You can literally see it growing. It’s like a teenager! I say social media needs to eat a banana because when I grew two inches one summer, my legs ached like a big dog. My mom, a nurse, made me eat bananas for the potassium. It helped. (On a side note, I looked up Chaquita Banana on Facebook. She has an unused profile, but I added her as a friend anyway.) (Another side note, I am not bananas.)

Scott, the guy who wrote UnMarketing, is a very smart wiseguy, and that’s a compliment. He lends great insight and perspective to how social media works right now. Like a teenager, social media will change quickly. We may not even recognize it as “social media” in a few years. Who knows? But, I figure knowledge is power, so there’s no harm in learning all I can right now.

In the book, Scott wrote that many people join social media sites, like Facebook and Twitter, then give up when nothing happens. YES! I thought. Scott said that social media isn’t media. The term is misleading. It makes you think of TV or radio. He says social media is more social than media. Yep. Yep.

You have to engage to make it work.

I want to invite YOU to read UnMarketing along with me. Go to Facebook to join in the discussion.

I’m going there now to finish up this post! Remember those points I was going to share…

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