LinkedIn tops Facebook for producing new dental patient traffic

Over the last two years, there has been a major increase in the number of dentists using social media platforms to generate new patients. While the majority of the dentists who use social media marketing primarily use Facebook, there’s overwhelming evidence that LinkedIn, the largest professional social network in the world, offers the best opportunity to attract the highest quality new patients online.

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Research indicates that a strong LinkedIn presence alo helps you appear in Google searches. According to BrandYourself, LinkedIn is the social network that most often appears at the top of Google search results, ranking “higher than all other profiles, including all other social networks and website builders.”

When you consider the average age and income of LinkedIn users (44, $110K+ per year) to the average age and income of Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube users (18 to 29, $69K per year), it makes sense why your dental web marketing efforts should be focused more on LinkedIn and less on Facebook.

LinkedIn has become the dominant social media site, where connections with above-average-income individuals and joint venture prospects can be made Without question it has become the best Internet platform for finding and attracting the highest quality new patients.

There are dozens of powerful strategies you can implement quickly and easily to start generating quality new patient traffic for your practice. The strategy offered here can produce explosive results for you, and fast.

Use LinkedIn groups for fast results
Imagine what it would be like to have a tool that brought in roughly 10 to 15 highly qualified new patient prospects every month, and actually worked? You’d feel pretty confident about your future, right?

Creating a LinkedIn user group gives you the ability to generate an amazing number of connections with high-end users (i.e., prospective new patients).

Here’s how to maximize the results from your LinkedIn group:
1. Add keywords in the description of your group to increase your search rankings on LinkedIn’s search section.
2. Add keywords in the title of the group to be found on Google.
3. Add your company website or blog to the group to drive traffic to your site.
4. Add your blog RSS feed to the group so that every new article is automatically posted to the home page of every group member.
5. Send a weekly message that adds value for group members and drives traffic back to your site. (NOTE: Your messages ARE NOT simply promotional offers. If you send only promotional offers users will complain that you’re spamming them, which can get you kicked off the network.)
6. Connect other people in the group by making introductions to those who could potentially do business with one another.

These six strategies will help you generate more qualified new patients for your practice. If your new patient funnel is set up correctly (online and offline), you will have more than enough qualified new patients to fill your schedule weeks in advance.

IMPORTANT: Make sure you create a group that fills a need for the audience in the specific patient niche that you’re targeting. This will ensure that every person who joins the group is a qualified new patient prospect.

If you follow these simple action steps, you’ll understand why LinkedIn is the best social networking site for generating high quality new patients. As I mentioned above, there are dozens of additional strategies you can easily implement on LinkedIn to attract qualified new patients, connect with powerful joint venture partners, and grow your practice.

Are you using LinkedIn? How is it working for you? I look forward to hearing what success stories your LinkedIn network brings you. Share your comments here.

NOTE: You can get a free copy of Dr. Newhouse's in-depth guide “Dental Web Marketing Success With LinkedIn” that includes a comprehensive list of strategies with detailed action steps that you can use to generate a dozen or more quality new patients from LinkedIn monthly.

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Ken Newhouse, DDS, is the Founder of Growth Hacker Central, the fastest-growing provider of dentist SEO and dental web marketing strategies, systems, and tools with 2,800+ dentists worldwide. Ken also serves as CEO of Practice Doctor Management, an organization that provides a variety of offline dental marketing systems and coaching. Ken is a certified LinkedIn expert, reaching his first 1,000 connections in less-than 30 days. You can connect with Ken on LinkedIn here.