As dentists prepare for social media marketing in 2022, it’s essential to develop a strategic approach that engages patients and builds brand awareness. Start by identifying your target audience and selecting the right platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram, to connect with them effectively. Create valuable content that educates and entertains, including patient testimonials, treatment highlights, and oral health tips. Embrace video marketing to showcase your practice’s personality and foster community engagement. Additionally, consider scheduling regular posts and monitoring analytics to refine your strategy for optimal results.

Transcription of Episode

Jonathan Fashbaugh::
A lot has changed in 2021 on social media, and you got to make a plan for 2022. That’s what we’re going to be talking about today on Marketing Chairside. You are a dentist trying to stay on top of things in terms of your marketing, and that’s good, and you need to stay focused on what you’re good at doing, and that’s dentistry. The marketing is our job and the job of your marketing company. But it’s still good for you to stay up to date on what’s new, and a lot has changed in 2021. I mean, not a lot of different changes, I guess, but some significant ones. And here to help me talk about that today, I’ve got Rhiannon Myers, our Social Media Manager. Hi, Rhiannon?

Rhiannon Myers:
Hi, thanks for having me.

Jonathan Fashbaugh:
Yeah, I’m super stoked. I always love getting the team on here, and so thanks for helping me. Rhiannon, I’ve got some questions for you here, so are you ready?

Rhiannon Myers:
Yes.

Jonathan Fashbaugh:
Excellent. So tell us, I mean, it’s not just Facebook at this point, I mean, in a way, even though they’re not a social media company, Apple has changed social media for us this year. Can you tell us about that?

Rhiannon Myers:
Yeah. So back in April, they went and had one of their big major updates iOS 14.5 went up to iOS 15, but what iOS 14.5 did is it gave users the option to turn off tracking across apps and websites, that sort of thing. So they’re kind of selling privacy at this point, which means that apps and social media companies like Facebook no longer have as much data to pull from in order to give the people who should be seeing the ads that would be most relevant to them.

Jonathan Fashbaugh:
And so it wasn’t really in response to those changes, but Facebook sort of jumped on the bandwagon in making major changes, right? Can you tell us about what Facebook changed recently?

Rhiannon Myers:
Yes. So recently, Facebook had an update as of October 11th, 2021, where they’re kind of changing the way that their apps are interconnected. So Facebook owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger. And so previously, the way that those worked is that Facebook could kind of tell just based on their own information that they had, either based on your email or the device you were using, that you were the same person across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, how many of those you use. Their current update is to kind of jump on this privacy bandwagon, where they’re making it so that now instead, what you can do is use the Account Center to link all four accounts, so that that’s now being seen as one view. Which is the same as it was previously, but now, you’re kind of having to give explicit permission to do that by going through the effort to connect all these accounts. And if you don’t choose to use their Account Center to connect all these accounts, although you’re one person, you’ll now be seen as four, if you were to see the same ad across all four apps.

Jonathan Fashbaugh:
And so our dentists that are watching this are probably like, “Hmm, that’s very interesting. What do I do about it?” And the honest truth is that you, the office manager, the dentist, you can’t do anything about these things. You just have to just know that this could have an impact on your metrics. Hopefully, you’re tracking things. But when these changes happen, your marketing company needs to be on top of it and be looking for what’s changing. Because if you do see a decline, it could be because of this. But without having a consistent process, that track data, you will don’t know. Rhiannon, what else is changing about Facebook? Is there something else we need to be aware of?

Rhiannon Myers:
Yeah. So in case you’re living under a rock, Facebook has been in the news constantly for at least the past few weeks. They just recently changed their company named to Meta. They’re kind of been some legal trouble, they’ve had a whistle blower come forward with some internal documents showing some of the more questionable things that Facebook has done in relation to things like privacy and the way that they treat younger users and that sort of thing. So basically, we’re in the, “We’ll see …” boat of things, where we’re kind of just waiting to see what the legal implications are for them as a company and what kind of changes they’ll have to make, and therefore, what kind of changes we’ll have to make to keep up with those changes.

Jonathan Fashbaugh:
Yeah. I mean, I was just going to ask, what are we going to do in 2022 with these changes? We’re just going to dump these guys?

Rhiannon Myers:
So what we’re going to do is we’re going to continue to stay up-to-date on these changes and keep an eye on what Facebook is doing, what Apple is doing, and how we can stay ahead of things and what we can do to make your ads better so that you as a dentist are making it so that your ads are reaching the people who need to see them so that your targeting is still working well, that your ad money is being spent to get your office in front of people who are likely to become a patient.

Jonathan Fashbaugh:
Right. And then I guess just to bring this home and make it as practical as possible, what’s the best social media tip you can give our viewers today for 2022?

Rhiannon Myers:
Yeah. Best advice is always to get involved. People love to see your face, personal posts perform really well, but that’s because people enjoy human connection. Social media is all about creating relationships, and that should be a personal thing where, as a dentist, your face is on your profile, your team is showing up in your post. They want to know who you are and who they’re going to be working with so that they feel confident when they come to see you.

Jonathan Fashbaugh:
Social media should be social. I love that take because I mean, we see that all the time with our clients, the users are more engaged on their content. So good tip there. Rhiannon, thank you so much for your time in helping us today.

Rhiannon Myers:
Yeah. Thanks for having me.

Jonathan Fashbaugh:
If you’ve got a question about social media or dental marketing in general, I’d love for you to post it in the comments down below, and don’t miss another episode of Marketing Chairside. If you’ll subscribe, those will get fed right to your notifications as long as privacy policies don’t stop it, all right? Thanks so much for your time, guys. Talk to you later.