To some of you this information may seem very basic, but I get these questions often enough from dentists where I think it’s important to clear them up.

1. “I should set up my Facebook business page so that people can’t post, because otherwise some people will say nasty things about me.”  Wrong.  On Facebook, you can delete anything that anyone posts.  I’ll say it again; YOU CAN DELETE ANYTHING ANYONE POSTS.  You want people to post as much as possible, as often as possible.  This isn’t Yelp, where you’re powerless.

2. “Facebook is for kids.”  Nope.  The fastest growing segment of Facebook users is…wait for it…people over 54!  I guess since I’m over 54, and I feel like a kid, and I use Facebook, then maybe that’s why this is a widespread fallacy. But seriously, the majority of Facebook users are over 30.

3. “No one will read my page.”  Even if this were true, which it isn’t, Google, Bing and Yahoo will still be reading your page. Plus you need a Facebook page so people can easily find your practice on their phone when they check in on Facebook. And depending on how many likes, posts and check-ins you have, this will add to the SEO of your practice website.  Don’t have a website yet? Oy. Go here.

Below is what a Facebook check-in looks like on a smartphone.

4. “Facebook will get me lots of new patients.”  Negatory. Not on its own. There are many social media “experts” who will tell you that Facebook is the new advertising medium, and do it right and you’ll be buried in new patients.  Not yet.  Not until Graph Search comes out.  In the meantime, it is an adjunct, an enhancement, to your overall practice marketing strategy, albeit one that is growing constantly in importance.  Look at Facebook like word-of-mouth reinforcement.

5. “I don’t need a lot of posts or a lot of likes, just good quality ones.”   False. Used to be true; isn’t anymore.  Now that Facebook is about to launch Graph Search and make itself the social Google, the more “likes” you have from patients, the more posts they do, and the more times people “check in” to your practice, the more you will come up in that search.

Often these are all just lame excuses for not getting involved with Facebook. Sorry, but it is high time you got going with Facebook as part of your practice marketing.

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