Nearly every dentist and dental marketing manager has trouble writing captions, especially when they’re trying to make a dental practice’s social media posts interesting. Let’s face it, people are not that interested in the intricacies of dentistry and oral health. Unless you work in a dental office or have a sore tooth, dentistry is probably not on your mind.
Here are a few tips on how to create great social media captions that'll get patients to connect with you and your practice. This will lead to awareness and encourage people to call your office when they’re looking for a dentist. We’ve produced an e-book containing 101 dental social media captions you can use as inspiration. All you have to do is download, copy, and paste.
Create captions with intention
Think about the purpose behind your social media posting. Is it to connect with your local audience? Do you want them to interact in a specific way? Is it an educational post? Is the post simply to share your practice culture? Do you want to gain more followers? Do you want people to share your post? The caption is a post component that should be written in the same style as the rest of the content. The approach you take to write the caption will be determined by what you want to achieve with the post.
If you want engagement, ask for it!
Remember that social media algorithms favor engagement on a post. You can post all day long but if no one is engaging with it, this means no one is seeing it or no one cares. Create captions that encourage clicks, likes, comments, emojis, and shares. Captions should encourage your followers to respond. A one-line sentence about how you love hamburgers probably won't be enough. Make sure that you ask open-ended questions to prompt engagement.
For example, instead of saying “I love hamburgers!” make it more engaging by asking, “I love hamburgers. Which local hamburger spot is your favorite?” (figure 1). Open-ended questions drum up more conversation than a “yes” or “no” question. The more engagement you get on your post, the more people will see it.
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Include a call to action
For each caption, you should aim to include a call to action (CTA). The CTA should be concise, unambiguous, and relevant to your followers and your practice. It could be a link that sends them to a new blog post, to download a coupon on your website, or to participate in an upcoming event. Whatever your call to action is, make sure it’s simple for followers to execute. Linking your posts to your website and other online assets is a great dental SEO technique. It will help you rank higher in search results.
Leverage the value of hashtags
A hashtag is a group of keywords with a pound sign in front of it. It looks like this: #hashtag (figure 2). When used on Facebook and Instagram, your hashtag creates a link. Hashtags are a great way to group your posts together and help patients find your content more easily. For example, if you’re running a campaign, you can create a unique hashtag for your posts related to that campaign. Use hashtags to increase brand awareness and connect with new patients. You can even use them to track campaigns or events. They’re a great way to get more out of your social media marketing. On Facebook you should use about two to five hashtags. Instagram gives you the ability to add up to 30 hashtags.
Use emojis to get attention
Emojis are cartoon-like symbols that draw attention to your caption. They also add emotional subtext to the caption.
- Place an emoji at the beginning of your caption to get attention.
- Use checkmarks or pointing emojis for lists.
- End captions with entertaining emojis.
Emojis are the new language of the internet (figure 3). They’re used by billions of people every day to express themselves in texts, emails, and social media posts. But not all emojis are created equal—some have picked up slang meanings that aren’t obvious at first glance. For example, a peach emoji doesn’t always come across to users as a piece of fruit. Make sure that you use emojis that convey the message you want to send. For a list of emojis, check out Emojipedia.
Don’t hard sell
People are bombarded with advertising every day, especially on their social media accounts. One of the most effective things you can do to stand out from your competition is to restrict your promotional and advertising posts. Instead, focus on content that is relevant and interesting to your target audience.
The goal is to get people interested in your brand. You want to foster a sense of trust with your potential patient, and constant selling isn't the way to do it. Social media marketing for dental practices is about relationships and reputation. Remember this mantra, Connection Before Conversion.
Pro tip to get started
By keeping your captions interesting, relevant, and engaging, you create connections with your patients that build trust. The key to writing great captions is to find a way to connect with patients on a personal level. Show them that you understand their concerns and you’re here to help. There is nothing wrong with using previous captions that increased engagement and connected with followers. We’ve aggregated the best 101 dental captions in this downloadable e-book.
You won’t find these kinds of dental-specific ideas anywhere else, so don’t wait to get started with your caption writing process. Don't forget to check out all the other free resources we have available for dental practices. They're all designed to help you grow your practice online!
