Is your practice on Facebook?  If not, you are missing out on a great opportunity to grow your practice. The Average American Spends 40 Minutes Per Day on Facebook.
This is HUGE!

Facebook has made a significant impact on my practice.  We currently receive over 40 new patients a month from Facebook alone.  Facebook is our #1 strategy for external marketing.  Why?  Because it works.  Facebook is where we tell our practice story, our culture.  People see us having fun and see us impacting so many lives in our community. From Facebook, followers go to our website, they see pictures of our dentists and our team as well as see beautiful before and after pictures of our dental work.  

We love referrals from Facebook! These new patients walk in already connected- they know us.  This builds trust and makes it easier for them to accept treatment.  

Here are some other interesting stats:

–50% of 18-24 year-olds go on Facebook when they wake up.
-70% of monthly Facebook Users use it daily.
-29% of Americans use Facebook during the work day.

What this means is that Facebook, through it's targeted marketing capabilities, allows us to reach our specific audiences.  We can target so that posts show up in the feeds of our patients, non-patients who have similar characteristics to our patients, parents of kids who are a certain age, engaged women, etc.  

I hear some dentists complain that it's not fair that you have to pay for your posts to be seen.  However Facebook should be seen as a marketing strategy, and an amazing one at that! This means that you put aside a budget to have your posts seen by your intended audience based on the objectives of your campaign, and test to ensure that there is a return.  

Once I tested other forms of traditional media, including yellow pages and newspaper ads, I saw that Facebook gave me the best ROI.  Imagine spending $500 a month on Facebook adds, and getting a return of $8000.  Well this is what happens if every one of my 40 new patients referred from Facebook spends only $200. That is a 1500% return on investment!! However, this return is actually multiplied when these new patients come to the practice and then become an internal referral source because of the “wow” service that they receive.  They share their experience with their family, co-workers, and friends.  And most times wind up spending more than $200 if additional treatment is needed.  Not to mention the lifetime value of future visits!