The Age of Social Media

Posted on January 16, 2021

Social media has become a necessary part of marketing/advertising in the last number of years. I have seen a variety of strategies in branding ranging from educational to personal/lifestyle. I think the most important thing to keep in mind when marketing on social media is to determine what exactly you represent and how you want your business to be perceived online.

There are so many online avenues for marketing these days. Do you join Facebook? Instagram? TikTok? YouTube? Twitter? Blogs? Fortunately, they all are intertwined and most often if you publish on one platform the post can be directed across all of them. Thank goodness for not having to repeat yourself hundreds of times! In my opinion, these platforms target different patient demographics. Facebook can be seen as an avenue to the older generation. Think: Retired people playing games online. TikTok, is often for younger people in their 20’s or teens dancing to pop music. Everyone needs dentistry, but you need to be conscious of the demographic you are trying to reach and the approach you are taking.
The other thing that comes to mind is entertainment value. It is great for dentists and those of us in the industry to look at photos of teeth, beautiful preparations, and talented clinical work, but unless its a before and after, the average patient probably has not been educated on the hard work that went into that photograph. If you do include a photograph of clinical work, I believe that providing educational content will allow for the post to become more “liked” with a higher response rate. And although I may cringe at some TikTok videos of people dancing as their “talent” — they are definitely amusing and people like being entertained. I have also seen a health component incorporated into a lot of dentistry blogs/social media accounts. For example, total body wellness, exercise/fitness, and mindfulness. I think that general health education is a great way to promote yourself as a dentist in this crazy internet world where most people care about looking good more than brushing their teeth. I know, its very unfortunate.
See my instagram at SkoulasDDS

This leads me to my current tagline of Beauty. Confidence. Health. Moving forward, I will try to incorporate one of these word choices into most of my posts. I will be exploring the idea of a beautiful smile and what that means to each of us. I will be asking for you to dig deep in understanding how you can identify the feeling of confidence. Finally, health should be a major motivator in most everything we do on a daily basis. I’ll ask for you to join me on my journey through dentistry and getting to know each of my patients as we develop beauty, confidence, and health together. This will probably mean photos of me living my life, before and after cases, fitness, and hopefully some things that might make you laugh along the way!

I think one thing to keep in mind is — Don’t you definitely want a dentist who is in tune with modern advancements and societal norms enough to attempt to understand the world of social media marketing? Especially, in San Francisco, if you work in technology or corporate business, you know the importance of staying up to date in a constantly innovating world. If anything, if you like my blogs, we can be friends first and then I can work on your teeth. 😉