Your dental patients are online, so your practice needs to be online too. Want to be ahead of the curve with your online marketing? Try live streaming. It's fun, easy, and will draw in patients.
We all know that to effectively market our practices, we need to be where our patients are—online. But the digital landscape changes almost daily, so to stay relevant it’s important to stay on top of online trends. The latest trend is live streaming, and just like the other marketing strategies you’ve used online, it can benefit your practice.
A history lesson
Before Mark Zuckerburg launched Facebook, there was MySpace. With its limitations, MySpace was quickly eclipsed by Facebook and remains a relic of the past. Despite having a ton of competition (Twitter, YouTube, and SnapChat, to name a few) Facebook has managed to stay on top of all social networking trends, from advertising to streaming video. While YouTube remains the king of video streaming, Facebook is killing it in the world of live streaming.
Live streaming pros and cons
If you watch the news, you know that live streaming has drawbacks. Because it’s live, the content cannot be controlled. In the proper hands, however, it is a remarkable feature that people are using regularly.
If you couldn’t watch the Final Four on television, for some reason, you could find someone who was live streaming it on Facebook. Can’t actually go to the Ed Sheeran concert? A friend in the audience has your back. These major events are obvious reasons to live stream, but your practice also has reasons to live stream—your patients.
Live streaming for your practice
The point of social networking for your practice is to remind patients that you are there, even when they aren’t sitting in your chair. You obviously don’t want to live stream a wisdom tooth extraction; very few patients would want to sit through that. But there are plenty of things you can live stream. Do you have a new intraoral scanner? Live stream a scan to show patients how quick the procedure is. Are you running a 5K for a favorite charity? Have your staff live stream you crossing the finish line. Surprising your office manager with a wedding shower? Let patients in on that, too. All of these remind patients that you’re there for them and allow them to see who you are when you’re not wearing the white coat.
The content of your live stream does not have to be lengthy or elaborate. In fact, you’ll more likely encourage patient engagement if you stream something short. No need to worry about those who weren’t online when you were live; the live stream saves to your feed for people to watch later.
The very thing that makes live streaming terrifying to some—its uncontrollable live-ness—is the very thing that makes your patients want to engage. The fact that the post features their favorite dentist is just icing on the cake.
