A recent advertising study called “Digital Index” from Adobe Systems revealed that Facebook brand engagement has witnessed a year-on-year jump of nearly 900%. Adobe’s research study attributes this huge surge in engagement levels, in part, to the new Timeline feature of Facebook.
Several other studies on the same issue corroborate the findings of the Adobe study. Another study conducted a few months ago concluded that the Timeline feature of Facebook achieved positive results, particularly for small and medium-sized brand pages.
A major upswing in mobile engagement among Facebook users has also contributed to this extraordinary gain in its engagement levels. Nearly 25% of the total engagement for Facebook came from mobile users. The overall gains in mobile marketing have also been significant for Facebook during the same period.
Professional practitioners such as dentists should look at these social media and mobile marketing trends and find ways to integrate them with their online marketing strategies. One suggestion is to engage the services of a professional Internet marketing company to develop a focused social media campaign in line with the new trends.
It is a costly mistake to ignore social networks
Dentists who are looking closely at new ways to promote their practices in a highly competitive market must take notice of the favorable social network marketing trends. Search engine optimization and social networking are increasingly intertwined with each other. Leading search engines such as Google tend to accord higher page rankings to websites that have an active interaction with prominent social networks such as Facebook.
However, many SEO and Internet marketing companies continue to make the fatal error of ignoring social network promotion, while pressing on with the traditional SEO strategies. Dentists with an active Internet marketing engagement to promote their practices should seriously consider working with marketers that understand the growing importance of social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus.
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Mobile search marketing
Adobe’s Digital Index report revealed encouraging progress for mobile search marketing. It said that 20% of paid search clicks came from a smartphone or tablet. This trend is expected to gain more strength rapidly. Therefore, a dental practice must have customized websites that have excellent compatibility with smartphones and tablets.
Innovative Internet marketing companies are finding new ways to take advantage of the new trends by focusing their marketing energies on tablets and smartphones. At the same time, they are capitalizing on the new platform changes introduced by Facebook in order to reach their target audience in a more personalized manner.
The current trends revealed in the Adobe report should encourage dentists to tailor their online marketing campaigns to include mobile marketing and social media promotions. However, the emphasis on mobile and social media must not come at the cost of the traditional Internet search marketing. The “search spend” of an average U.S. company grew by 11% compared to the last year.
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Building your brand via social networks
To survive in a competitive environment, it is crucial for a dental practice to differentiate itself from its competitors and build a unique brand identity that patients can identify with. A lot depends on the professional marketing team that develops the marketing campaign. The average dental practice is going to have a very limited marketing budget. Therefore, the maximum value within this budget may be achieved through Internet marketing and SEO alone.
Creative social media promotion can achieve the greatest impact for the dentist — at the lowest cost. However, the social media area is very crowded, and it’s not easy to develop a large, targeted, and responsive audience on social networks. An experienced social media marketing company will first understand the social needs of the target audience of a dental practice brand. It will analyze what the patients wish to engage with and share with others on the social networks.
This information and analysis will help the marketers come up with innovative ideas to capture the imagination of this audience over the social networks. It will create exclusive content that will engage the audience and prompt them to share it with others. Social networks such as Facebook provide Page Insight data, which can help the marketers understand what kind of content is most appealing to the dentist’s target audience.
Effective social networking tips
A dentist who is planning to launch a focused social media campaign to promote his or her practice should keep some basic tips in mind.
* “Brevity is the soul of wi”’ when it comes to social networking. Brief postings with less than three lines of text achieve a far better reader engagement and response compared to lengthy postings. Be brief in your social media postings.
* Post frequently and maintain consistency. Readers have a very short memory span in the world of social media. Out of sight is out of mind in this game. Stay in touch with your readers, and post fresh messages about three to five times a week, if not more.
* Use Page Insights to determine what may be the optimal time to post on your social network. Maximize your impact and reach by posting within the optimal time range.
* Familiarize yourself with your audience as much as possible. Whenever there is an opportunity, engage with them individually to personalize the relationships.
* Try to be current and seasonable in your social media engagements. Your fans and followers will feel more connected when you touch upon the most pressing issues of the day.
* Be reader friendly in your language and content. Make sure your messages are appropriate for your target audience.
* Make use of images and videos wherever possible. A growing number of online readers and social media enthusiasts prefer to view rather than read a lot of text. Reader engagement levels improve dramatically with pictures and videos.
* Try to construct brand-specific content in your social media engagements. Help your readers identify with your dental practice brand by speaking in your brand voice. Differentiate yourself from other dentists on social networks and offer unique content to your readers.
The most important aspect of your Internet search and social media marketing campaign is to constantly strive to be useful to your readers. Rather than focusing on aggressive self-promotion, make it a point to disseminate useful dentistry-related information, and educate and guide patients about new products, procedures, and treatments. A sincere, helpful, and pro-patient approach will go a long way in building your dental practice brand online.
Susan Hutson is vice president of marketing at Ekwa.com, a complete Internet marketing company that focuses on SEO, social media marketing, and the online reputations of dentists. Vikas Vij is the marketing manager-SEO for Ekwa Marketing. Visit the website at www.ekwa.com.
