Q&A: How to Make Your Practice's Social Media Efforts Pay Off

Derek Pearson is vice president of Business Development at Banyan, a company dedicated to improving social media performance for dentists. He sat down with Dentist’s Money Digest® at the Greater New York Dental Meeting, held Nov. 24-29, 2016, to discuss the common denominators of success he sees on social media in dentistry.

Q: What sorts of things should dentists be doing on social media in order to set themselves apart?

Derek Pearson: It’s about being personal. Everybody knows dentistry is about relationships. To build relationships, you have to be personal. Facebook, Instagram, all of these social media tools are a relationship play.

Q: What sorts of things should dentists be doing on social media in order to set themselves apart?

Pearson: On social media, dentists need to be different. They need to stand out, and the only way to really do that is to engage with what your audience will want. A lot of dentists think, “If I post this before and after photo of an implant that I did, I’ll get a lot of engagement,” but they won’t. What they need to do is they need to post pictures of them with their patients. They need to post pictures of people: their patients, their staff, them. They even need to post pictures of their family and what they do, because our patients want to get to know who you actually are.

Q: What are some of the common mistakes that you see dentists making on social media?

Pearson: The most common mistakes I see dentists making on social media is they’ll post manufactured content: a tooth joke or an oral-health fact. That’s OK to post occasionally, but people don’t pay attention to that. It looks fake. It doesn’t help me get to know you as a person. It doesn’t help me get to know you as a dentist. It doesn’t help me trust you or even really like you. It tells me nothing about you.

Q: Which social media platforms tend to be the most effective?

Pearson: Ultimately, at the end of the day, Facebook is by far the biggest one. Instagram is going to be number two. Twitter is really hard to do for a dentist but if you do it right, you can be effective with it. It just takes a lot of time and energy, where Facebook and Instagram are going to be a little bit easier and a lot more effective. And YouTube, even though it’s not fully a social media platform, YouTube videos are huge for dentists. They help your SEO — where you rank on Google. But by far, Facebook is the most impactful.

Q: What are some of the content types that have been proven to get readers’ attention?

Pearson: There’s really only three types of content in my mind. There’s educational. There’s manufactured: the memes, the jokes. And then there’s real and personal. … Ultimately, you’ll start having success as a practice when your business Facebook page starts looking like a personal Facebook page. … If you have a patient that comes in and had no cavities, take a photo of that. Celebrate those moments. If you have a veteran come in, you have a police officer, you have patients that you just have great relationships with, take those photos and celebrate them online. We live in a culture where we love sharing. Your patients are part of that culture and they love sharing. Why not help them share these experiences?

Q: What are some of the pitfalls with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliance?

Pearson: The best tip I can give for a practice to stay HIPAA compliant is put a system in place that can be automated. When things are automated, you don’t forget. Put a system in place and make sure that you’re following it consistently, that your team knows it.