By My Social Practice

You have a professional, informative business Facebook page for your cosmetic dental practice. Great! But how do you grow your page? How does your page get more “likes”? Taking your cosmetic dentistry page to the next level is surprisingly simple. It requires minimum time and almost no hassle.

“Likes” in and of themselves are not the goal, but they do play an important role in your online reputation and image.The goal is to interact and connect with your patients and with prospective patients online. “Likes” lay a foundation for your social pages to grow and gain more trust from users online. 

Start With Your Team

How many people work in your practice? Five? Twenty-five? Chances are that many of your team members are actively using Facebook.The average Facebook user has 338 Facebook friends.Let’s pretend for a minute that you have 10 team members on Facebook, each with 338 friends. If each of your team members “liked” your Facebook page and shared a post from your page, that's a potential 3,380 people that could have a chance to get to know you better, starting immediately.

Encourage Your Team to Reach Out to Their Circle of Family and Friends

Your Facebook fans aren’t limited to patients who have been to your office. Encourage your team to reach out to their friends and family and ask them to “like” your practice’s page! Most Facebook users are interested in following local businesses, so your team’s circle of family and friends is a perfect place to start. Keep in mind that it isn’t about the number as much as it is about establishing a base for telling your practice's story.

Post a Public Contest Post

Nothing attracts attention like a chance to win a prize. Share a giveaway post right to your page and explain to your fans that they must like the post and Facebook page to be eligible to win.

Set a Goal

Set a goal for your team! Is it 300 "likes"? One-thousand "likes"? It depends a little bit on the size of your practice. Make the goal a challenge that stretches you but don’t make it so unattainable that your team is discouraged. Remember, lunch at a restaurant is pretty inexpensive marketing dollars spent—especially given the potential.

Give an Incentive

Of course your team will be more than happy to help the practice out, however, offering an incentive could make getting Facebook likes a lot more fun! Why not challenge your team to work together to reach a total of __ likes (you pick the number)! Once you reach that number, take the whole team out or give them gift cards to their favorite lunch spot. 

Make It Competitive

Another idea is to make it a contest. For example, the employee who gets the most “likes” for your page wins. Instead of a prize for the whole practice, give one bigger prize to the winner! You could even have a first, second, and third place prize. Perhaps a weekend spa retreat? The more fun you have with this, the more fun they’ll have, too.

Never forget, ALL of this effort is laser-focused on reaching more people online, strengthening your relationships, and building an awesome reputation.

Interested in marketing tools to help grow your practice? Check out AACD membership. To stay up-to-date with the latest practice management and marketing trends, opt in to receive AACD's Practice Matters monthly eNews here.