Why It’s Time to Get Your Dental Practice on Instagram

Ever completed a treatment and wanted to show it off to a wide audience? If so, Instagram could be the perfect marketing and educational tool for your practice.

Sharing ‘Instagrammable’ before and after photos, advertising to a local customer base and promoting oral care are some of the exciting opportunities Instagram can provide.

Why use Instagram?

Instagram has been a runaway success since launching back in 2010. This year, the social media platform surpassed 1 billion global users.

In the UK alone, this figure stood at 30.6m users as of June 2020. That is 46% of the population.

Of UK users, 54% check the platform several times a day and 80% follow business accounts. This allows Instagram to provide a crucial link between customer and service provider.

Who uses Instagram?

In the UK, 25–34 year-olds account for 30% of overall users. 26% of users are 18-25 and 13% are 45 and over.

Women are more likely to use the platform than men with 57% of the overall share.

How Instagram can benefit your dental practice

So nearly half of the UK are using Instagram, but how do you begin reaching and engaging with them? Start by focusing on your goals.

Are you joining the platform to reach potential local customers or is your objective to educate as wide an audience as possible on the importance and possibilities of dental care? Or is it both?

Once you’re clear on your aims, begin focusing on content and how to make your posts engaging. As Instagram is still primarily a visual medium, it is ideal social media platform for dental practices.

Here’s what we suggest:

Before and after treatment: Show potential customers what’s possible through dental care.

With people more aware of their smile than ever before, now is the perfect time to showcase the power of restorative, orthodontic and cosmetic procedures through before and after shots. These “visual testimonials” can be very powerful.

Be educational: Stress the importance of oral care with evidence and facts.

The internet is awash with misleading information that is easily spread. Dental professionals can have a positive impact on oral hygiene and patient compliance by adding their voice to conversations around healthcare.

Be unique but professional: Break up dentistry-specific content with posts, videos and stories of a more personal nature. Sharing extracurricular stories from your team can help build trust and enhance relationships between staff.

Whatever the nature of the content, it is important to always maintain a professional image in line with GDC guidelines and to get written consent for any patient related images or information you intend to share.

Target local users: Build a core local following and open the door for potential customers by targeting users local to your dental surgeries. Do this by tagging your location whenever you post and including your address in your bio.

Setting up your account as a business account will provide the opportunity for paid advertising in which you can specifically target local accounts.

Use hashtags: Ensure your target audience can find your content more easily by using the right hashtags.

Hashtags are vital to marketing on Instagram and can help your account grow its reach, get more engagement and more followers.

Look at posts by other practices to get an idea of the best hashtags to use.

Link back to your website: Include a link to your website in your account bio. This will help any potential local customers find your website should they want to get in contact. Instagram doesn’t allow you to put your web address in a post, but you can have it on your bio.

Engage with others: Keep an eye on the competition and what other practices and dentists are posting about. What do they do well? Is there an idea you could use, and perhaps put your own spin on it?

Staying active by engaging with other dental accounts and replying to comments will help Instagram prioritise your own content.