The Number One Reason Your Dental Practice’s Social Media is Falling Flat — And What To Do About It

Do you wish your social media presence looked different? Some of the wish list items I hear from dentists are that you want your Facebook or Instagram to look more like you, to represent your practice better. Maybe you aren’t able to post consistently, can’t come up with ideas of what to post, or simply don’t have the energy to maintain it. I hear you.

Dentists often tell me their goals, what they want to see on their social media, or what they hope will happen as a result of posting: you want to expand your visibility; you want to keep growing relationships with patients; you want to attract more dental implant or clear aligner patients. If you are an oral surgeon, you might want to book more wisdom tooth removals. All of these are reasonable goals.

Whenever I think about reaching for goals, I think about Atomic Habits, the book by James Clear. I find his advice so inspiring and motivating. His advice on reaching goals is:

“Forget about goals, focus on systems instead.”

The number one reason your social media is falling flat is because you don’t have a good system in place. What is the difference between systems and goals? Clear says, “Systems are about the processes that lead to those results.”

Let’s say your goal is to have an amazing-looking Instagram grid—for example, where every third image is a before and after photo or testimonial. Those grids don’t just pop up spontaneously – you have to plan it out in advance.

If you want your Facebook page to help you become known as the go-to dentist or specialist for dental implants, you have to plan for it consistently.

Maybe you wish your posts were more personalized, featuring tidbits about your team and how much you love your community. Again, it’s the forethought and systems that will help you realize what you envision. 

In Atomic Habits, Clear goes on to say that results have very little to do with the goals you set for yourself and everything to do with the systems followed. Systems break down big goals into small bite-size pieces that you can easily plan for. I hope you find this advice as motivating as I have.

Here’s what a system might look like for your social media:

• Chunk time for your social media tasks. This doesn’t have to be more than 90 minutes a month total for posting on Facebook, Instagram, and Google Business, for example. (Ask me how if you need help.) 

• Use a content calendar and scheduling tool in one. Facebook and Instagram posts can be planned and scheduled to publish from Facebook Business Suite, or you may want to look into a tool like Hootsuite, or even our Connect90 program.

• Know what you want to be known for or what you want to attract more of. If you want to do more clear aligner cases or see more sleep dentistry patients, share this with your social media manager and make sure you are posting about these topics consistently.

You and your team know how awesome you are and what you have to offer, but if you don’t share it, your patients will have no idea. I can tell you this happens from personal experience working as a treatment coordinator in a perio practice. Patients would get referred to our specialist for implant placement and when we went to refer the patient back to their general dentist for the implant to be restored, the patient would sometimes say, “Can’t you just do the implant crown here? My dentist doesn’t even do implants.”

In some cases we had to call the dentist to schedule the restoration while the patient was in our office because the patient was convinced their dentist “didn’t work with implants.”

Using a system on a monthly basis is the key to your success.

This has been our experience while helping dentists and specialists with their social media for a decade. There is no way to be strategic without a plan in place, much less consistent or effective.

A good example of this for me is the difference between my business accounts and my personal account. When it comes to business content, my team and I plan out our content in advance. We include content to highlight specific services or tips to help us get the word out and reach our goals. This process is much different from my personal Instagram account @RitaZamora where I post spontaneously. On this personal account I tend to post whenever I have time or if something randomly comes up that I want to share. Sometimes I find myself doing a face palm because I forget to post something important there — I fail because there is no system in place for that account.

Systems are about the processes that will lead to the results you want from your social media. Those results can help you expand your visibility, grow word of mouth, and attract more of the patients that you want to see.

If you are struggling to get a system in place, reach out me and let’s have a chat about your needs. I am here and happy to help you. 🙂