Marketing strategy: social media updates

We all know that there are thousands and thousands of articles out there about the best way to advertise on social media, but let’s take a closer look at some recent developments within the big 3 – Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn – to see how dental and orthodontic practices might be impacted.

To the news wire:

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We start with this infographic from Mashable on the age distribution of users of Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn for October of 2013.  As you look at this, remember from an earlier post that your key demographic are moms in their mid 30’s to early 40’s.  As a result, the center of this infographic represents the sweet spot for practices.

If you look at your important demographic, things look pretty even, right?  But let’s take a closer look.  As we examine this, please note the following:

• Note how young Twitter skews.  About half of the Twitter audience is under 24 years old.  This means that half of all ads directed at the Twittersphere will go to people either not interested in seeking dental or orthodontic treatment or not in an income earning position for the treatment – especially for a specialty like orthodontics.
• Note how old LinkedIn skews.  Almost half of all LinkedIn users are over 45 years old.  In this case, ads directed at LinkedIn users have almost a 50% chance of going to someone too old to benefit from treatment or with children who have moved past treatment age for a lot of specialties like pediatric dentistry and orthodontics.
• Facebook is relatively even across the spectrum, but small populations exist on either ends of the spectrum.  This leads us into our next item…

Teens are leaving Facebook.  This matters to your advertising for a couple of reasons.  First, this means that Facebook now has a greater percentage of users within the key marketing demographic.  When you place an ad on Facebook, the percentages are now improved for you to get to a targeted person more quickly. 

Second, while teens are not the target market for our group, teen migration does tend to give us a feel for where the social media audience might be headed.  After all, youngsters initially populated Facebook and the parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles followed.  According to those in the know, teens are moving toward areas like Snapchat, WhatsApp and Instagram.  And while we wouldn’t advise advertising in those areas now – your target market isn’t there yet – you may want to keep an eye on these applications and sites as a possible future avenue for advertising.

So with these tidbits, what should a practice do?  

First, obviously, Facebook is important.  Tons of people are on Facebook and it’s beginning to skew more toward your target demographic.   This is the time to follow the avalanche of advice for businesses on Facebook.  Keep your page updated, notify your patients of your presence of Facebook, encourage your contacts to follow, engage, post (but don’t be too salesy).  I try to follow a number of dental and orthodontic practices on Facebook and I am stunned by the number that have a page and a lot of likes, but do nothing with that group.  No communication other than possibly Happy [Insert Holiday Here].  Not every post has to be a price offer or pitch, but give people something that will inform and/or entertain to keep them engaged.  At select, important times, give them a promotion for themselves and for referring other patients.

If you are going to spend dollars on placing ads in social media, the place to be is Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, in that order.  You have a better chance to get to your demographic faster with this combination.  Of course, potential patients are everywhere so just because one may not be as target-rich as the others, that doesn’t mean that you should ignore second and third place.  

Of course, we’ve just touched on the big social media sites here.  We did not touch on other rich environments like Pinterest, mom blogs and the like.  We’ll dig deeper into those in a later post.