Social Media for Dentists

The benefits of social media are generally highlighted towards helping small businesses and/or large firms grow their customer base and increase sales; however, it is often ignored that those not necessarily in the corporate realm can also make use of this powerful tool. One such example is dentists. Dentists' patients are online and it only makes sense that their practice be online also. A dentist's practice is different in the sense that it almost 100% thrives upon word of mouth referrals and what better way to do this than by creating a Facebook page or blogging about your services to better connect with your current patients. For instance, if one of your Facebook followers who is a current patient shares one of your posts with 200 of his other friends your reach has multiplied within seconds generating a viral effect. The more content that is created, the more likely it is that others will see it and then share it leading to others acknowledging you as an expert in dentistry and then perhaps seeking you for their dental health care.

5 Essential Tools for Businesses & Brands

1. HootSuite - a social media management system that allows the user to manage multiple networks at once such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Foursquare, WordPress, Mixi and even MySpace. Inbuilt is a great scheduling system that allows you to set in advance an amount of posts for future sharing. An additional advantage is that analytics are also kept and given for businesses to use as they generate insight on their brands and services. 

2. AddThis - a social bookmarking service that can be integrated into a website with the use of a widget. Website visitors can bookmark items using Facebook, Google Bookmarks, Pinterest and Twitter. It is a great way to promote and boost engagement amongst brands and products.

3. PinReach - a Pinterest tool that helps view activity on your board by measuring impact and gauging success on your Pinterest pages. Its main purposes are to assess Pinterest marketing engagement and to identify new marketing and sales leads. 

4. Storify - a social media service that combines many parts of a story into one. For example, if you have a topic that is being discussed across different social media accounts, you can combine the information all into one spot so it can be read and shared easily in a narrative manner. 

5. YouTube's Audience Rentention Report. - This is listed by SocialMediaExaminer.com as the single most important social media marketing tool to come around in a many years. This tool gives information pinpointing on the time watched by viewers and prompt specific reactions. It also helps you see which audience your clips are reaching, monitor audience habits, so you can strategize and reach your target audience accordingly without wasting precious resources. 

Vine Now Available on Facebook & Twitter

Vine, Twitter's video sharing application, is now available for use on Facebook and Twitter. With the new IOS update, users of Vine are able to create video clips that are a maximum of 6 seconds long and then post them on various social networking platforms. Earlier brands saw much potential with Vine to use it as a video marketing solution but its limited functionality in terms of being able to share content on other sites did not provide much scope. However recently businesses can publish promotional material to their Vine accounts and develop unique campaigns, answer pressing questions, and hold contests via video in order to better connect with customers. This new platform shows promise in developing to be a perhaps more efficient alternative to YouTube.

What NOT to Do

I've posted much about what other companies are doing right in their social media strategy and what the general protocol is when developing a social media campaign; however, it's also important to know what the common mistakes are and what not to do. Sometimes that's all that's needed to steer one in the correct direction and away from the wrong one... so here is a list of three important starting mistakes to avoid:

1) Targeting the wrong network
Each social networking site (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc...) has its own use and not being able to focus your goal and align it with the site's will not achieve anything. For example if you are an HR recruiter of a company you will most likely want to scan LinkedIn for professional resumes as opposed to one's Google + or Facebook profile.

2) Sharing irrelevant material
It is extremely important to appeal to the consumer in a manner that is not only related to your product or service but sharing un related material in an overly repetitive manner without somehow tying it into your company's overall message may have the opposite effect and consumers may have a lessened sense of trust and respect in your brand.

3) Not tracking statistics 
The beauty of social media sites is that they can provide accumulated feedback of what exactly is happening on your profiles. It's extremely important to take advantage of these features and to learn from them before it is too late and you end up wasting time. Study WHAT is working and most importantly WHY it is working. Study when users are most active and engaged with the material so you get the most bang out of your buck.

Social Media Boot Camp

Earlier on this year I had posted about how some companies were actually requiring both their new and seasoned employees to go through mandatory social media training. This concept seemed unique, a bit controversial, yet definitely necessary for the changing marketing world. Now an even more unique, controversial, and maybe necessary concept is being introduced... and that is of a social media boot camp! This training session is for employers this time around and is geared towards allowing them to collaborate with experts (click for the complete list) who can help them develop a cohesive marketing strategy and increase their presence across various social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc...

Participants will learn the following:

• How to build a social media monitoring dashboard
• How to extend the reach of Facebook and Twitter to third-party, destination websites
• B2C and B2B social marketing strategies
• Launch a blog, add photos, videos and widgets
• How to search engine optimize web content
• How cede control of the message without damaging your brand
• State of the mobile web, location-based social networking and what's next
• How to measure the influence on any blog or website
• How analyze your web stats to see what's working, and what's not

There are two registration options currently: to enroll in the complete 8 week program or attend individual sessions for $95 each. Register here.

A Picture is Worth a 1000 Words

Social media has constantly been evolving, whether it be from AOL's initial communities, to email, to spam, or to Facebook. The most recent and undeniable turn that social media has taken is that of visual content or in layman's terms, images, mostly due to the fact that pictures can communicate what text would otherwise in a much faster and clearer way. 

The statistics below "illustrate" the evidence and thinking behind this point: 

• Pinterest and Instagram are the two newest and fastest growing social media outlets and Flipboard (a visual news app) was the most popular at the time of the iPad's launch. 
• Recruiters judge your LinkedIn profile more by the photo than the content.
• The most shared and clicked-on links on Twitter are images.
• Facebook images are what generate the most reach, views, and interaction.

Marketers have an opportunity to take advantage of this trend by not only including relevant images on their business' social media pages but to also join some of the fastest growing image social media networks such as Instagram and Pinterest to link their images and help generate more traffic, leads, and sales. 

Twitter Emerges True Winner of Superbowl

Some say the Ravens won it, some say Beyonce won it, some even desperately say the 49ers won it, but Twitter seems to be the true winner of the Superbowl. According to a study conducted by MarketingLand's Matt McGee, Twitter was mentioned in 26 out of 52 commercials during the nation's most watched sports event. This was a whopping increase from last year's low count of only being recognized in 8 out of 59 advertisement clips; meanwhile Facebook experienced a 50% decline in this matter and Google+ received no prominence whatsoever for the second year in a row.

The impact Twitter made on Superbowl Sunday goes on to show four main things:

1) Social media marketing has taken a greater impact on national television.
2) Brands believe that social media strategies can generate leads for them.
3) Twitter continues to prove itself as an extremely significant B2C resource.
4) Twitter has seamlessly integrated itself into the daily lives of consumers worldwide as the reliable, real time, marketing and news source for connecting brands, products, and people.

Facebook Releases Gift Card

Everyone has probably heard of a Macy's, Express, or even a Taco Bell gift card... but a Facebook gift card is one that even the most avid of Facebook users and advocates would most likely have not imagined. Recently Facebook did the unthinkable with launching it's own gift card, one that allows people to exchange gifts from multiple brands with each other across the platform. This is a perfect feature for social media marketers as it will allow companies to better connect with their consumers with the quick and easy way of a universal card. So far Olive Garden, Sephora, and Jamba Juice are amongst the large companies to take advantage of this unique gift card but smaller retailers should especially take note of it to make their brands and products more known and easily accessible.

The Facebook gift card is very simple to use - A user buys it for his/her friend or family member and they receive it in the mail shortly after. Once the recipient has the gift card, it may be loaded and re charged over and over again. An updated balance is available on the Facebook home page, via the Facebook app, or even via instant notifications on the phone or computer.

This is truly a "gift" for marketers of companies and retailers trying endlessly to connect with their target audiences.

Social Media Job Training?

Diversity, sexual harrassment, and ethics are common topics in workplace trainings; however who would have thought that eventually social media training would become compulsory in the corporate world also? Dell, Adidas, PepsiCo, and Sprint are just some of the firms that are implementing a mandatory social media educational program in place for current and future employees in order to avoid disasters such as the Dirty Domino's Pizza fiasco. In these training sessions, workers will not only learn how social media has a large influence on business practices and how it can be used for the company's benefit but they will also understand how to work the company's internal social network, often times misunderstood.

3 key steps for companies to get their social media training right from the get go: 

1) Start early
Starting from day 1 will send employees a strong message about the organization's goals and objectives in carrying out the training and their emphasis on social media in general.

2) Create branded program for social media training
Inspire and connect with unique logos, characters, taglines, or themes that will resonate with the employee and motivate them to be successful in the program. Sprint did just that by calling all trainees "ninjas" to shadow their common characteristics of self control, moderation, and courtesy.

3) Be creative and specific about what you want 
Guide employees through initial interactions and experiences in order to provide them with the confidence and freedom to later adapt best practices for the business with ease.