So you’ve taken on the task of starting your dental practice social media campaigns. Facebook and Twitter profiles are up and running, now what?
Now start building fans, followers, and loyal subjects – but how?
First, you need a list. How to start building that loyal sphere of influence on your foundational practice social media presence – Facebook – is the focus of this post. The good news is for Facebook, building and using your social media contact list is relatively simple.
Figure out where your social media contact list will come from – do you want to send Facebook invites to your entire email address book, or all of your professional contacts? Or both? Sure, that would be a good start. Just remember this…
Some practices want to notify everyone of their social media presence – and everything else, and have the culture to back it up. On the other hand, some practices are more discretionary with the patient correspondence. The bottom line is, go with what you know, and what fits your practice culture. Most importantly do something. Nobody is going to be that offended your practice reached out to them on Facebook – especially if they are already connected to you in some way. If your practice doesn’t reach out to connect with new and existing patients, their next dentist will.
So, where will you get this magical social media contact list, and how will you build it?
You already have it. It’s a list of existing patient email addresses. You can also upload all personal address book contacts, professional contacts – or both. Again, it’s your choice.
For the purposes of promoting your practice social media presence, and increasing digital word of mouth, we’ll concentrate on your existing patient list first. The option to include all personal contacts is your choice.
Now, think about a list of existing patients. Where will they come from?
You probably already have a list of either newsletter recipients, mailing lists, or a simple ‘export’ of your practice software should produce a couple thousand emails in a minute or two – if you’ve been actively collecting and updating those emails over the past few years. If not, no big deal. Just get started doing so now, and use that list as your fan foundation.
We want to compile a list of email addresses, and store them in one place – probably the most universal place for most practices, being an Excel file. This is the perfect task to delegate to your practice social media ambassador, and it should take a grand total of 5 minutes.
How to Build Your List?
- THINK about where your patient email list will come from?
- Practice software
- Email newsletter mailing lists
- Email address books (practice)
- Collect email addresses in one place (Excel file – or your mode of choice)
- Save the emails in an Exel file – or your mode of choice. For Excel users, YOU NEED TO SAVE THE FILE IN A SPECIFIC FORMAT – .csv is the probably the most universal method.
Your list is now built. And saved someplace you can easily access (and backed up accordingly). Maintain it, pay attention to it, nurture it, and update it. This should all be commonplace in your practice by now. This should be part of the daily or weekly patient communications process that requires very little administrative time. Asking for and updating an email address is like making sure you have someone’s correct phone number – in fact, while we’re at it, prepare now for the mobile access of your online practice information: COLLECT, MAINTAIN, UPDATE all patient MOBILE phone numbers. Again, if we’re talking social media here, you probably already do this. But just in case…wink, wink.
How to Upload the List to Your Practice Facebook Page?
- Login to your Facebook page.
- Click the ‘Getting Started’ tab. Then the ‘Import Contacts’ tab.
- Click ‘Browse’ to find the list you just created and saved someplace easily accessible.
- You will have the ability to preview the list and the mailing invitation prompting people to connect with your practice on Facebook. That’s it; now put your list to work for you!
- Send the invites!
This process will jump start your recruitment strategy and immediately result in positive conversions. How many existing patients will ‘Like’ your practice Facebook page?
That depends on the existing relationship, which we will also partner with you to cultivate and evolve. Please don’t think Facebook will automatically turn your practice into a social butterfly.
If your practice was a shut-in before the social media revolution, the zero to sixty approach will come off as inauthentic. A simple and methodical approach is needed to gradually integrate social media tools into your patient recruitment and communication strategies. To start, you have your contact list, you’ve uploaded it to your Facebook practice page, and you’ve invited all existing contacts to come and connect with your practice on the second most popular website in the world. Good job!
To Add Personal Email Contacts or Generate Contact Lists from Your Email Application:
For those of you that wish to include personal email contacts, Facebook does a pretty good job of making that easy. But here are the directions. If you’d like to upload contacts from email address books, simply login to your Facebook page then:
- Click the ‘Getting Started’ tab
- Click ‘Import Contacts’
- Enter your email info and follow the directions
- You can even create a separate file to save your email contacts, simply by following the directions Facebook provides for you here:
*Keep in mind, in order to upload PERSONAL email contacts, Facebook will ask for YOUR email address, and YOUR PASSWORD. For those of you that would rather not give out that info, simply CONTROL the list INFORMATION you GIVE to Facebook.
In future installments we will concentrate on the repeated recruitment strategies, and tilling the social landscape to cultivate an engaging, informative, and fun practice social media environment.
