A large part of my role involves me visiting practices to help them to run their business better. Which means I see many different attitudes towards social media. Believe it or not, there are still some practices out there who have yet to grasp the power of a good social media strategy. Which is why I feel it’s important to offer some advice on how to get started.

At Practice Plan we’re lucky enough to work with some of the dental industry’s leading consultants, one of whom is Gemma Starkey, aka Miss Social (www.misssocial.co.uk). Former dental nurse Gemma got the bug for marketing in the early days of social media and has since helped many practices up their social media game.

Who to choose?

First and foremost, how do you decide who should be responsible for your social media accounts? “A mistake often made by practices in the past is to assign that role to the youngest person on the team in the belief that as they’ll use social media in their personal life, they’ll be able to handle it for the business” Gemma says. “That’s not usually the best tactic. It’s better to train a person who has a flair for it and make sure their training covers business and marketing principles, as well as social media.”

Good advice. It’s also important to make sure that your vision and branding are clear and understood. Is your focus on cosmetic dentistry? Or do you aim to be the local village dentist, a family dentist? How would you like to be perceived? Are you advanced or helpful? These are important questions to be answered so you can be authentic with your posts. It’s important not to misrepresent online what your practice personality is, as it will be revealed in your reviews. So, it’s not appropriate to say that you’re a high-end cosmetic practice when really your main focus is being a family practice offering predominantly general dentistry.

It's important to bear in mind that, although there may be a single individual who oversees your social media, it should, as Gemma says, be a whole team effort to come up with the content. “It should see multiple people coming up with ideas, so everyone's a part of it,” she advises. “You can try different ideas and give responsibility for them to a few different team members. But the burden shouldn’t fall on just one person’s shoulders.” Indeed. The most successful practice social media sites I see are ones where everyone pitches in.

Know your audience

When developing a social media strategy Gemma advises her clients to think about who they want to reach with their posts. “Facebook is still the most widely used platform in the world,” she says. “People can view your posts from anywhere across the globe. However, your patients are likely to be people who live or work near where you’re located. They’re the people you want to attract.

“To narrow down your audience as well as posting on your practice’s account, you may want to think about joining Facebook groups local to where your practice is based, if they’ll let you. So, if you’re located in a village or a small town, then the sorts of groups to look out for are the ‘spotted in’ pages.”

To keep people interested Gemma suggests posts should be a mix of informative, educational, topical and fun. “A good post would be branded to the practice, and it would have relatability,” she advises. “It’s also important for it to have a good hook. Nobody wants to go onto Facebook either to be sold to or to be preached at about needing to brush their teeth twice a day.

What does’ good’ look like?

“A good post for Facebook would have a personal look to it. Using either a photo or a video of yourself as a dentist, it would be short and concise, and it would have a conversational, rather than ‘preachy’ tone.”

However, Gemma warns against just chasing likes and shares. “Remember you are a dental practice,” she says. “So, while fun posts may get a lot of engagement, it’s still important to post your before and after photos and your oral health and education tips. Prospective patients still need to see examples of the types of treatments you offer. So, while these types of posts may not get the most likes, they’re still an important part of the mix.”

One way to ensure you have a good mix of posts is to develop a content calendar. This can be physical or digital and helps you to plan your content in advance. It can be populated with notable dates such as mouth cancer awareness month, dental nurses’ day, Easter, Halloween, Christmas, Diwali etc. You could also go online and find a list of awareness days or add in any dates that are significant to you as a practice. This allows you to have a clear view of what’s coming up. Content doesn’t have to be filmed on the day as you can prepare for things in advance. Gemma suggests putting aside some time every month to film your videos. As producing content is a team effort, why not devote some time in a team meeting to come up with ideas? That way everyone gets a chance to contribute and share some of the load.

It's your shop window

Social media isn’t just good for attracting patients, it’s also a way of showcasing your practice’s culture and personality to prospective employees. Which is why authenticity is important. People love to see behind-the-scenes content, so it’s good to include the odd post when someone in the team’s marking a milestone in their life such as a big birthday, getting married, or having a baby. It’s also great to celebrate passing exams and qualifications too. All this helps to foster a sense of community on your socials.

Here's a final piece of advice from Gemma to help make your ‘social life’ a bit easier. “Experiment with your posts so you can get an idea of what works and what your goals are. You can then create a format that you can put out on social media,” she suggests. “After all, social media can involve a lot of effort, so, find a format that works, such as taking a question a patient has asked and videoing the answer to it. If you can find a fun or niche way to do that, then that is something you can rinse and repeat for lots of different problems. This makes life a lot easier, and as you get more experienced, you'll see what works and what doesn’t. You can then tweak the performance, and your patients will come back to your account for advice because they know they can trust you. You can then be seen as a trusted source of information which helps foster good relationships with patients.”

This year, Practice Plan celebrates 30 years of welcoming practices into the family, helping them to grow profitable businesses through the introduction of practice-branded membership plans. So, if you’re looking to switch provider or are considering a full or partial move away from the NHS and would like a provider who will hold your hand through the process whilst moving at a pace that’s right for you, why not start the conversation with Practice Plan, on 01691 684165, or for more information visit the Practice Plan website: www.practiceplan.co.uk  

About Emma

Emma Flunt is a Regional Support Manager for Practice Plan Group and has over 20 years’ experience in dentistry working in general and specialist referral practices, and training environments where she won multiple awards. Practice Plan is the UK’s leading provider of practice-branded patient membership plans, partnering with over 2,000 dental practices and offering a wide range of business support services.

About Gemma

Gemma Starkey, aka Miss Social, (www.misssocial.co.uk) was a dental nurse who took a detour from the usual progression route of a dental nurse into the business side of dentistry. She loved dental marketing and had a flair for social media.

Over a decade later, she has refined her skills in social media marketing, helping dentists and their teams to shine on social media. She creates bespoke social media posts that authentically reflect the dental clinics she works with, and which enhance their online reputation.

As an ex dental nurse, she understands the pressures the whole team are under. Her goal with Miss Social is not to add to a team’s to-do list but to be an extra team member that takes care of it and does a great job.

In her free time, she can be found having adventures with her three children. She loves cooking, running, hot yoga and learning about creative ways to use social media. Follow Gemma on Instagram (www.instagram.com/misssocialuk)

Practice Plan Head of Sales, Zoe Close, talks to CSR expert and coach, Mark Topley, about the part CSR can play in helping practices beat the recruitment and retention crisis.

Lookout: Image by Dave Bleasdale

The GDC have recently being taking a stance over professional conduct and particularly in regard to social media.   The Standards say that we must not publically criticise colleagues unless this is done as part of raising a concern.  I should like to make it clear at the outset of this blog that what follows is part of me raising concerns.  Concerns that I feel are not being taken seriously enough, and some not even acknowledged as being concerning at all.   This blog is in 2-parts.  Part 1 will look at ‘bringing the profession into disrepute’ in the context of social media.  It is perhaps timely in view of Mr Hill’s recent effort of justification over the need to suspend retired dentist Mr Pate under the pretext of ‘protecting the public’.   Part 2 will look at my concerns over conflicts of interests.  Both will, as usual, look at this in terms of recent events and cases. 

So my part 1 concern relates to a fellow dentist who is a Clinical Advisor providing early advice reports to the GDC and the material posted on the public stream of their Facebook page.  Our regulator tells us that we must not post material on public media that may undermine public confidence or bring the profession into disrepute.   On this public-facing social media page, there is a joke about a sexual act, several slang references to parts of male anatomy and masturbation, a profile picture that is potentially racially-offensive (depending on the generation of the particular panel that might be selected by the GDC), but the finest one has to be the picture which blames patients for their gum disease and tooth decay because they are “*insertslangformasturbators*’’.  Yet this Clinical Advisor, wrote in an early advice report for the GDC that a dentist who communicated with a patient using Facebook Messenger, was unprofessional for doing so. This would be funny apart for the stress that the registrant was put under as a result of it being included in their initial allegations which contributed to the case being forwarded for a full hearing. There will be more of this to come in another blog.   

I emailed the current Director of Fitness to Practise to ask him what he thought about the content on this Clinical Advisor’s Facebook profile page, and whether he felt it was appropriate for someone affiliated with the GDC.   The GDC ought to know how their Clinical Advisor was behaving whilst giving potentially life-changing advice about other registrants’ professional conduct.  Perhaps my tip-off might assist them in getting their own house in order after a run of bad hearing outcomes for them and at a time when the mood of the profession is resembling that at the time of the ARF debacle.  At the time I had started to draft this blog I had not received any reply, and suspected that the GDC’s email filters might have kicked my email with its supporting attachments of profanities straight into their Spam Folder. I have now received my reply, so I will come back to that later.

On this particular issue of ‘unprofessional’ social media comments, 2 registrants recently received letters from the GDC reminding them of their need to uphold standards when using social media.  They had both used an inappropriate word, albeit on a single occasion, on a Facebook thread and a helpful colleague had very kindly pointed this out to the GDC without raising their concerns with the group moderators or the registrants themselves.  The digital evidence suggests that the anonymous informant was another registrant. In terms of the naughty word used, it was quoted ‘verbatim and in italics’ in the GDC letter.   If the GDC think that word is inappropriate they ought not visit the Dr Rant page and see their ‘affectionate’ nicknames for Jeremy Hunt which are used on an almost daily basis.  The GMC don’t seem to concerned however, but perhaps doctors do not refer each other to their regulator over spats and spite instigated on social media platforms.

Anyway, I felt pretty strongly that this particular display of conduct on social media referred to above really should not go unquestioned, all things being considered.  

The Standards apply to all and this Clinical Advisor who is a fellow dentist, is held to the same standards as us all.  No-one should believe that they sit above us mere-registrants, somehow ‘protected’ by a relationship with the GDC.  A colleague has a four-month suspension for alleged religiously-offensive statements made visible only to other dental registrants, yet I found his comments less offensive that this advisor’s silly, misogynistic and sexist posts. Also, someone with the infantile mentality that is publically displayed arguably unfit to assess whether any other registrants’ behaviour is professional, surely.

Whilst waiting for my email to be replied, rather hilariously, another registrant got a letter from the GDC courtesy of another anonymous informant reminding them of their professional obligations, and advising them to take action so they too could be better behaved in the future.  However, the letter gave no information on what was posted that caused offense or deserved some kind of GDC-referral retaliation.  An SAR sent the GDC may well clear that one up in time. 

Taking screenshots from Facebook and using them to make complaints to the GDC is a rather petty way to retaliate against another dental registrant in my opinion.  Those doing it really need to take a long hard look at themselves, especially if they are in the subset of registrants whinging about our high ARF.

As it happens, the GDC Annual Accounts and Report show that by 2018, 9-10% of incoming GDC complaints (as per my little infographic below) currently arise from other registrants.  This is a record year.  Well done registrants!!  Keep this rate of progress up and in a few years we might actually beat the patients. 

So actually, never mind the GDC: we also need to get our own house in order here.  Please can we all stop being so childish? If you don’t like what’s on Facebook, get off social media, leave the groups that aren’t to your taste or contain people you don’t like, block people who wind you up, or if what’s being said is about you is that bad, spend your own money on legal proceedings rather than wasting all our money artificially inflating the ARF telling tales by the use of screenshots.  Still, it’s nice to see that the GDC has healthy reserves of £20 million against a back drop of a decreasing number of incoming complaints.  Maybe this is in preparation for the day we achieve a level of 100% of complaints arising from all the back-stabbing and bickering going on between ourselves. 

This is the problem with the ‘duty to report concerns’:

LEGITIMATE CONCERNS REPORTED TO THE GDC OFTEN END UP IN ONE OR MORE REFERRALS IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION.

This is the sheer reality of the dire situation that faces us.  The minute you act on a professional duty to raise concerns with the regulator, you are at risk that ‘concerns’ will be raised about you, and there will be GDC referrals all round.

But back to my email:  I did get a reply regarding my Clinical Advisor issue.  I was advised that I should use the online form to report the matter to the Initial Assessment Team.  

It looks as though we are not the only group happy to throw dentists under the bus, which is always nice to know. 

 

Image credit - Dave Bleasdale under CC licence -  modified.

For the latest information and news from Carestream Dental, make sure you are connected via Twitter and Facebook!

Follow us @CarestreamDentl and like our Carestream Dental Facebook page to be among the first to hear about new products, exciting competitions and the latest research designed to streamline your daily practices and help you grow your business.

Our social media platforms also share a variety of fresh ideas to help you make the most of your digital technologies. Plus, you have the perfect opportunity to reach us should you ever need any extra advice or support.

Providing an array of leading digital imaging solutions and practice management software, the team at Carestream Dental are committed to delivering only exceptional standards of customer service. Through our dedication to eXceed, the business programme ensuring excellent service, we constantly strive to make sure you receive all the help and support you need, when you need it.

So if you don’t already, follow us today!

For more information, contact Carestream Dental on 0800 169 9692 or visit www.carestreamdental.co.uk

Blogging For Your Practice

Neil Sanderson

Blogging is now essential if you want to have a successful Social Media presence and at the same time get your dental practice website up the Google natural rankings, so first things first, what is a blog?

Well you are reading one now, this is my blog and I write one every week, for two reasons, the first is to communicate with my clients and potential clients, the second reason is that blogging is one of the best ways to keep your website on the first page of Google.

A blog is simply an article written by you, usually on your website, but you can have a separate blog area too if you don’t have this as part of your site. I would recommend to anyone that if you are thinking of building a new dental practice website or changing your existing one you must have the ability to write a blog.

I recently asked for a quote on behalf of one of my clients to have upgrade his website which currently doesn’t have the ability to start blogging. Both he and I were staggered when I was quoted £950.00 + VAT.

All websites should have a blog built into them, if you build a website in one of the two major “content management systems” e.g. WordPress or Joomla, this will be provided for you automatically. Don’t buy a website without either (a) a content management system or (b) a blog section. Incidentally all the websites we build have both as standard see my siteDental Website Design and Build.

So why is blogging so important? Let’s look at Social Media first. The two main Social Media sites you should have your practice on are of course Facebook and Twitter. Neither are really geared up for having lots of content in a single post, in fact Twitter limits you to 140 characters in total.

So if you are going to engage with your patients you have to link to something else, this is where blogging really comes into its own and this is how you do it. First you write your blog (remember a blog can be any size you want) on whatever special offer you are running or something interesting about the practice. You then create a post on either Facebook or Twitter and put a link back to your blog.

This does several things, firstly it takes the person who is reading your post back to your website which is ideally where you want them. Hopefully they will take advantage of your offer or maybe have a look around your website, either way this is what you want to achieve.

Secondly Google loves this type of traffic, so the more traffic you have coming to your site from Facebook and Twitter the higher Google will rank your site. This is the modern equivalent of “link building” but one that Google approves of and rewards you for doing it.

Blogging has another great positive effect on your website ranking. Google is encouraging everyone to update and create new content for your website. A blog is the single best and easiest way to do this. If you start to blog ideally once per week or once a month even once a quarter, your website rankings will improve.

So remember, if you are ordering a new website, insist it has the ability to blog (all ours do). Insist it has a content management system (all ours do). Start blogging and see your website rise up the rankings and your Social Media engagement soar.

If you don’t have time to blog yourself, we can do it for you, simply call me on 01767 626 398 or email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit the website www.dentalmarketingexpert.co.uk

Facebook Advertising For Your Practice

Neil Sanderson

I’m sure when you think of Facebook Advertising you probably think of having to post all the time and interact with your friends or the people who have liked your Facebook page, which by and large it is, but there is another way to manage Facebook Advertising.

As I mentioned in a recent blog, Facebook recently became a publicly listed company, which means that is now has to answer to its share holders, and they are interested in just two things (a) increasing their share value and/or (b) getting a regular dividend.

In order to satisfy this requirement, Facebook has suddenly become very business minded and they now offer a wide range of advertising opportunities for the likes of you and I and Facebook Advertising has become a very good and relatively cheap way to get your message out there.

To advertise on Facebook you have to have a Facebook page and of course be the administrator of it, but you don’t have to post regularly on it, the advert will do the job for you. Facebook Advertising works very similarly to Google PPC (per per click). This means that whenever someone clicks on your advert and is taken either to your website or to your Facebook page you are charged a fee.

Compared to Google this fee is very reasonable (usually about a quarter of the price), however it has to be said, it will never be as targeted as Google is simply because there is nothing that is as targeted as Google Adwords.

However if you are trying to reach a particular group of people with a particular profile, Facebook advertising (PPC) is very, very good.

With Facebook advertising you can not only decide which area you want to aim at e.g. your postcode but you can also target whether the person who sees your advert is female or male, what age group they are, what is their marital status (even if they are engaged). You can specify particular interests they may have.

So for instance you could run an advert that will only be shown to someone who is female, who is between 25 and 35, who is engaged, who likes dogs, who likes going on holiday etc. etc.

There are no other platforms that will  let you get down to this level of detail for display advertising (Google is search advertising). You can set up a Facebook Advertising campaign for just a couple of pounds per day and so long as you get your targeting correct it will almost certainly pay for its self.

Facebook advertising is also the quickest way to get people to like your Facebook page and the best part is that you will only be getting likes from the people you are directly targeting, as opposed to buying likes from disreputable sources (don’t touch them).

The best thing about Facebook advertising is that you can send traffic from Social Media to your website with is where you ideally want people to go.

If you need help and advice with Facebook advertising, call me on 01767 626 398 or email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit my website www.dentalmarketingexpert.co.uk

Food for thought from the Bank of England:

In the week where the UK dental industry was tied up at the NEC, the Chief Economist of the Bank of England gave a question and answer session to the world using the medium of Twitter. It appears he made a good job of it. Some commentators criticised the fact that the answers were standard PR fare, but others realised he did, in fact, release some crucial financial information.

Other companies in the world of high finance feel forced by their regulators to only release critical news via official channels. Twitter does not count as "official".

So did the Bank of England break its own and other regulator's rules? Newspapers were once new, as were radio and TV, the world realised these were tools of communication, and engaged with those media.

Let's turn to the consumer field, where large retail and customer facing companies use Twitter and other social media to enhance their customer service operations. They have teams of people, sometimes responding 24/7, to show that they are giving the best customer service and that they are listening. Ask a few people at Dental Showcase, I did, and they all have a story. "My train was cancelled, I had paid through the nose in advance, and I missed a very important meeting, what will the railway operator do about it?" Or " My heating is broken, we have a small baby, an engineer to fix our heating in seven days time is not good enough".

Do have a look in the social media - those two comments are only a small example of the complaints aired daily, and addressed to the relevant companies. In those cases Virgin Trains and British Gas did reply, and fixed the problems rapidly. The responding company hopes the complainant returns to the same social medium to say how great the service recovery was.

So, back to dentistry.

Dental practices and their teams do face the social media and partake, they take the risk that a complaint may be aired, but they know they must respond to this, and respond seriously.

However, some of the dental industry are scared of GDPUK, on whose website you are reading this blog. GDPUK gives dental professionals a platform to tell their colleagues [and only that limited group]  when they have had great service, and that sort of comment is rewarded by a magnified, greater uptake of that service. I know this is a true fact.

As well as sharing all sorts of news, information, questions and experiences, some dental professionals use GDPUK to tell their colleagues when they feel they have had bad service. Sometimes the complaint is only about what is perceived as poor service. The effect of this can be magnified, in the world of the isolated dental professional, when two or three other fellow professionals appear and confirm they too have had the same less than perfect experience. This is the power of the internet in the modern world, we all know it allows us to rapidly compare prices, compare services, and read reviews. Surely the winning technique for the dental companies, and other small businesses the world over, is to monitor those media, and if a problem occurs, respond in that medium, and try your best to give the best service possible. This could be a winning formula and may lead to positive results, and positive feedback, which in turn will create more sales.

I am convinced the modern companies who adopt this approach will be the winners in the long term. Censorship cannot win, but open-ness will.

Refs:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/bank-of-england/10388036/Bank-of-Englands-chief-economist-says-2014-rate-rise-very-unlikely-in-AskBoE-Twitter-chat.htm

Blog image by Gord Fynes, @gordasm. With thanks.