word-of-mouth marketing. The only
catch? Your practice must have a
Facebook page that your patients have
“liked”.
Facebook Promotions for
Dental Practices
In addition to revolutionizing online recommendations, Facebook has also made
it easier for you to run and administer
promotions on Facebook. That’s right,
they’ve changed the rules and they
are definitely in the dentist’s favor.
Promotions are a great way to connect
with your patients online, so as you can
see, this is great news. Here’s what you
need to know:
The Old Rules
In the past, it was against Facebook rules
to give away anything for a promotion by
asking your Facebook fans to “like”,
“share”, leave comments or tag themselves in a Facebook post or photo. In
addition, all promotions had to be
administered through a third party app,
which were usually cumbersome and
confusing for the Facebook users
trying to participate in the promotion.
Presumably, Facebook put these rules in
place for two reasons; to keep business’
from buying “likes” by offering a prize or
incentive and to stay out of legal hot
water that can come with giving away
prizes.
The New Rules
What Facebook found was that regardless of their regulations, many small
businesses (including dental practices)
weren’t aware of these rules and were
using Facebook features (likes, shares,
comments) to hold contests anyway;
thus putting everyone in a potential legal
quagmire. So, Facebook has made it
much easier (and more effective) for
dentists to run promotions on their
Facebook page. That’s right, no more
cumbersome (and somewhat sketchy)
third party apps to administer your
Facebook promotions or contests. Now,
you can run a promotion by asking for
likes, comments and shares and you can
do it all within Facebook’s platform. You
can even use “likes” as a voting mechanism; which means an SEO boost for
your practice website. But, the possibilities aren’t entirely endless; here’s what
Facebook still prohibits:
• Encouraging your Facebook fans to tag
themselves in photos or posts they are
not actually involved in.
• Asking your Facebook fans to share
your promotion on their personal timeline as a means of participating.
Additionally, your practice’s Facebook
promotion should still be run in accordance with the laws and rules of
Facebook, including clear posting of eligibility, promotion rules and compliance
with Facebook. For more on that, check
out the official Facebook promotion
guidelines on their website, www.facebook.com/facebookforbusiness.
What Should Dentists
Do Next?
Facebook’s graph search and new promotions rules are providing dentists with
even more opportunities to connect with
their patients and potential patients, but
your practice must have a Facebook page
to reap the benefits. Here is what our
social media team recommends:
•
Make sure your Facebook profile
information is 100% complete and accurate; including a great cover photo and
“About” section.
• Post once a day with a mix of 80%
social content and 20% promotional or
clinical content.
• Make sure people can “check in” to
your practice on their Facebook page.
This is important to graph searches an