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It’s Time to Elevate Dentistry!

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Let’s face it; the majority of the population doesn’t value dentistry anywhere near as much as they should. And they don’t value it anywhere near as much as other things of considerably less value that they spend money on gladly.

Now couple that with the fact that there is no single place where people could find out anything they wanted to know about oral health, and then find a dentist and even book an appointment right there online.

Which is why Dentistry.com was created. Imagine a website with all the benefits of WebMD, ZocDoc and Yelp, rolled into one, and none of the negatives. That’s what Dentistry.com is–a website dedicated exclusively to our profession, the ultimate resource for the dental consumer.

Dentistry.com is the new, free online platform from Dentsply Sirona. The goal for the site is simple and powerful: to improve the state of the nation’s dental health by increasing the number of new patients who go to the dentist and accept treatment.

It’s time we elevate dentistry to its proper place in healthcare. And no one else is in a position to do it–not the societies, not the search engines, and not the review sites, because they don’t have the resources and they don’t have a comprehensive goal in mind.

Consumer Education Is Essential for Dentistry

We all know that dental health is integral to overall health, but the rest of the population doesn’t. We don’t go six months without finding some new disease that is linked to periodontal disease. And we’re the only ones who aren’t surprised.

Understanding the value of dentistry and then easily finding an appropriate dentist will do something very simple and profound: more people will go to the dentist, more often, and will accept more treatment.

Dentsply Sirona wants more people to understand the critical role good oral health plays in their overall wellbeing, which is why Dentistry.com was designed as the ultimate consumer site for all things dental. And they also understand that consumers want things fast and easy, and they want it on their smartphone. And they want it in one place. Which is why Dentistry.com features:

  • An active community of dentists sharing advice with patients
  • Authoritative information and articles from dental professionals
  • The most detailed directory of dental practices – anywhere
  • Advanced online dentist search and booking tools

Best of all, it costs nothing to join Dentistry.com. As a new member of this online community, you’ll receive a free profile that helps you to attract more new patients online, improve your website’s SEO, and receive online appointment requests.

Boost Your Website’s Search Results

I’ll explain how that all works. First of all, being part of Dentistry.com boosts the SEO for your own site because it is a directory, and Google likes to index that information and boost results accordingly. (Sounds technical, but trust me.) And Dentistry.com will also appeal to Google because of the rich, detailed content about dentistry, along with advice directly from top professionals. And this is the latest online tool, written in the most efficient language (Google likes that too!) and will eventually have the most information about dentists that can be found anywhere.

I said “eventually” because that last part requires your participation. It costs you nothing to be listed, and there is substantial benefit to do so. But this is how we make it the ultimate destination, by thousands of dentists participating.

It’s time to give the people what they want: an easy way to research dentistry and find a dentist, and then book an appointment. Hey, it’s 2018 already–let’s join the future. And the result will be more patients going more often, with a better understanding of the value of dentistry, which will lead to easier and greater case acceptance.

So claim your practice now. (Did I mention it’s free?) It will only take five minutes. Just click here: Claim My Practice.

Let’s band together and elevate dentistry. It’s time!

Want to learn more about Dentistry.com?

Dentistry.com is hosting a free webinar on November 16th where you can get an inside look into the consumer research that led to the creation of “the new patient destination for dentistry.” Register now.

 

 

The Devastating Impact of Indifference

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With the ever-increasing influence of social media affecting every business, it is more important than ever to be hyper-vigilant when it comes to the perception by your patients that you care about them. They need to feel that you care about them more than money, more than efficiency, more than your own sense of importance.

And understand that the opposite of caring is indifference. Think about how quickly and easily you perceive when someone is being uncaring or indifferent to you? How little did you like it? And did you post somewhere about it? Did you feel compelled to tell someone? Or did you just not use that service anymore?

It doesn’t matter if you’re not feeling particularly caring that day or toward that patient (and I’m talking about everyone on the dental team, not just dentist).  What matters is that they perceive that you care.  Which means maybe you have to act like you care, even if you don’t feel like it.  Because that’s the job.

This blog was inspired by a recent post by Seth Godin, whom I normally find extremely insightful, but this post was more akin to wisdom, and relates directly to creating a remarkable patient experience (my favorite theme!), so I’m going to quote it in its entirety here for you:

The Toxic Antidote to Goodwill,

by Seth Godin

 

Anyone who has done the math will tell you that word of mouth is the most efficient way to gain trust, spread the word and grow.

And yet…

It only takes a moment to destroy. Only a few sentences, a heartless broken promise, a lack of empathy, and it’s gone. Not only that, but the lost connection can easily lead to lawsuits.

Doctor, the surgery seems to have gone wrong!

It’s not my fault. I did a perfect job. Tough luck.

Architect, the floor is sagging, the beams were put in the wrong direction!

I don’t care. There’s a three-year statute of limitations, and even then, it wasn’t my job to ensure that the work met the plans.

Airline, my two-year-old can’t sit in a row by herself, and the agent on the phone said you’d work it so we could sit together!

It’s not my fault. If you don’t want to get on the plane, don’t get on the plane.

In all three cases, there are significant operational barriers to magically fixing the problem. But that’s not where the breakdown happened. It happened because a human being decided to not care. Not care and not express anything that felt like caring.

A human being, perhaps intimidated by lawyers, or tired after a hard day, or the victim of a bureaucracy (all valid reasons) then made the stupid decision to not care.

By not caring, by not expressing any empathy, this individual denied themselves their own humanity. By putting up a brick wall, they isolate themselves. Not only do they destroy any hope for word of mouth, they heap disrespect on someone else. By working so hard to not engage (in the vain hope that this will somehow keep them clean), they end up in the mud, never again to receive the benefit of the doubt.

What kind of day or week or career is that? To live in a lucite bubble, keeping track only of individuals defeated and revenue generated?

It turns out that while people like to have their problems fixed, what they most want is to be seen and to be cared about.

Of course you should use these fraught moments to reinforce connections and build word of mouth. Of course you should realize that in fact people like us get asked to recommend airlines and doctors and architects all the time, but now, we will never ever recommend you to anyone, in fact, we’ll go out of our way to keep people from choosing you.

But the real reason you should extend yourself in these moments when it all falls apart is that this is how you will measure yourself over time. What did you do when you had a chance to connect and to care?

Sometimes the only option is to reach deep into ourselves to offer up caring even when we feel we are too busy, too annoyed, too frustrated or too frazzled.  But this is when it makes all the difference.  And if it’s just a performance, so be it. Because what happens almost every time is that other person responds positively, warmly, humanly.  And suddenly you feel yourself genuinely caring. And find a way to solve the issue.

Why Do Patients Choose You?

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We recently did a survey here to determine what’s important to patients these days when it comes to selecting a new dentist.  Because we are such clever marketing people we put it all into a nifty infographic.

I think you’ll be surprised at how some of the patient thinking has changed from five or ten years ago, like their attitude toward insurance and their interest in technology.  It’s good insight for all practices as you plan your marketing and make other practice decisions.

To get the infographic just click on the image below and it will send you to our site.

Alert: We are having an issue with Chrome not downloading this properly. Use another browser if you can. We should have it fixed by 2pm PST.

 

 

 

Perfecting Your Dental Practice YouTube Channel

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In my previous post, I explained how to make patient testimonial videos.  One of the most important Internet locations to post those videos is on your own practice’s YouTube channel.  Yep, just like ABC, CBS and Fox, you can have your very own channel for people to watch.

Why do it?  Because YouTube is the second most active site on the Internet, second only to Google itself, (which owns YouTube.)  And people love watching videos.  More than 50% of the time on smartphones is spent watching videos.

It’s so pervasive that there’s a battle going on between YouTube and Facebook for video dominance. The good thing about this competition is you can play on both sides and come out winning either way.  And beyond that, there is the Google Juice (SEO) that videos generate.

So how do you make your own channel, and how do you make it interesting?

First, you must have a Google+ account. I know, I’ve told you not to bother with regular posting on Google+ anymore, but that refers to social media activity. You still need to have a practice profile there, so that when people search for you on Google all your information comes up.  If you haven’t done that yet, go to Google Accounts and do that first, before I get angry.  (You don’t need a Google+/Google Place account to have a YouTube channel; you just need to have one if you’re a dental practice in the 21st century.)

I’m not going to give you a frame-by-frame explanation on how to do create your channel, because you need to learn to do this stuff by reading what’s on the site itself and finding what you need. But I’ll tell you what you should be doing, step by step.

1. Go to YouTube.  Sign in with your Gmail address.  If you haven’t created a YouTube account yet, you can do that as you sign in.  Make sure it is the same Gmail as for your Google+ account. If you have a Google+ page, YouTube is going to drag in the images from that. You’ll notice that it looks a lot like a Facebook page, only with a wider, narrower image.  So don’t be afraid to be consistent in your look and use the same panoramic photo, and put your practice logo in the thumbnail.  You can always adjust or replace them in your Google+ page and it will automatically adapt.

2. Name Your Channel. You can name your channel whatever you want, but generally it’s your practice name.

Add a description of your channel, which is simply a quick description of your practice and it’s location and contact information. Mine looks like this:

Fred YouTube Home Page
3. Upload Videos.  Anything you have already done:
  • Patient testimonials
  • Practice tour
  • Practice parties, holiday events, etc.
  • Dentist’s statement of purpose
  • Treatment explanations

Entitle and describe your videos individually. Your settings should include making the video public and allowing comments.

4. Tag your Videos.  This is perhaps the most important part of the video, maybe even more than the title. Click the on the pencil icon and you will get to “Information and Settings,” and then there is a box to add tags, where the red arrow is pointing.

Fred YouTube Channel tags

Click to enter the “tags” box and then just start typing relevant words. You can add as many tags as you want. You can’t do too many. They should include your practice name, your dentist’s name, and words like: dentistry; teeth; smiles; dental health; and anything that relates to the video, like braces or implants. Two or three words in a single tag is not a problem. These are critical because this is how Google finds your video if someone is searching a specific topic. (You don’t think Google is watching your videos and determining what’s in them, do you?  They won’t be able to do that until next year!)

5. Create a Playlist. On the left side of your Channel Page, click on “Library” and then on the button that says, “New Playlist.” What this allows you to do is suggest what video the viewer should watch next, in what sequence. Otherwise Google will do that for you, and that’s not necessarily what you want to happen, because it won’t be one of your videos.  Click on “Playlist Settings” and make the playlist “public,” and I also suggest in the “Ordering” that you show them by “most popular.”  Then click “add videos” and all the videos will appear.  Highlight them all and then add them into the playlist.  Eventually you will make multiple playlists, like when you have a lot of patient testimonials, but for now let’s just one done.

6.  Add Relevant Outside Videos to Your Playlist.  You can add other videos that you like to your playlist. They don’t have to be all yours.  Essentially, you are creating “programming” because you want them to stay on your channel, even if the video is made by someone else.  This is what the playlist allows you to do.  Make your playlist more interesting by suggesting other videos that relate to dentistry in some way.

7. Shoot more videos.  Add them to your playlist. You should be shooting more testimonials all the time.  But also, do videos explaining your technology and procedures or treatments if you think you might be any good at it.  That way you own them, and don’t have to borrow someone else’s.

Some other notes:

Facebook prefers it if you upload a video directly to them, not embed a YouTube video into your post.  So why make them unhappy?  Just upload it two times: once to Facebook, and once to YouTube.

You can embed your YouTube videos into your website, if you have a dynamic one.  If you don’t. Shame on you. Check out WebDirector.

Still can’t figure it out?  Then search YouTube for a video on “How to Set Up a YouTube Channel.”  There’s a YouTube how-to video for everything!

 

6 Steps to Making Good, HIPAA Compliant Patient Videos

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I’m continually being asked the best way to do patient testimonial videos, so I’m going to lay it out for you.

People ask in part because I am always saying that patient videos are the most powerful marketing tools available, and perhaps the most versatile.  You can post them on your website, on your YouTube channel, on Facebook, and in your Google and Yelp profiles.  And people love watching videos. Facebook and Snapchat both have over 8 billion video views a day.  Yes, I said billion!

Requesting and making videos should be someone’s specific responsibility in the office, and in some ways everyone’s. Every team member should be willing to request this from a patient they believe will do a good testimonial. But every office should have one point person–the Facebook Geek, I call them–that is in charge of regularly doing these, like one a week, and then posting them in all the appropriate places.

Here are the steps:

STEP ONE: ASK FOR A TESTIMONIAL

Identify a patient who might be a good candidate, either because they just had a great result, or they’ve already praised the practice in some way.  If they just said, “You are all so nice here. I’m so happy I found you.”  That’s your cue to say, “We’d love it if you would do a short video saying that for us to use on social media. You know how important that is nowadays.” Don’t say crazy stuff like, “Please help us promote our practice,” or, “We really need your help getting new patients.”  Don’t sound desperate.

If the person is reluctant, just say, “If you don’t like it we won’t use it. But all you have to do is take 30 seconds and tell us what it’s like to be a patient of ours.”  If they’re still hesitant, then back off.

STEP TWO: RECORD ON A SMARTPHONE

This is what makes the testimonial real and credible: You didn’t make a big production out of it.  You made it like a video that they do themselves all the time.  Using a smartphone camera is also less intimidating to the patient.  One more important thing: shoot it in horizontal mode [I’m amending this from my original post] because in most media it will look much better.  The one challenge is that 70% of Facebook viewers are watching on mobile phones, and people don’t like to turn them.  This is why Facebook’s new Canvas ad format is a good example of the direction this is all going. The solution is to shoot through Instagram in horizontal mode, and then you can modify the shape if you want to.

You’re looking for four things from the patient:

  • sincerity–you want them to be believable;
  • enthusiasm–low energy is not persuasive or watchable;
  • brevity–it should be at the MOST, 60 seconds long.  Closer to 30 is better;
  • the practice/dentist’s name–this “labels” the video internally.

WARNING: Don’t let them talk about their treatment in the video! This qualifies as “patient health information,” and this is where the HIPAA challenge arises.  It would require you to create a release from the patient describing the specific treatment and who the audience would be that would see it.  Too much trouble.  The fact that they agreed to make the video would seem to me to qualify as a release, but the government doesn’t see it that way.

However, the patient can make a video on their own phone and post it to their Facebook wall. Patients can say whatever they want in their own posts on social media, because they can’t violate their own HIPAA.  If they do it that way, then you can share that video on your practice page.

STEP THREE: SHOW THE VIDEO TO THE PATIENT FOR APPROVAL

If you did more than one take, ask them which one they like. But make sure they approve you using it.

STEP FOUR: GET A SIGNED RELEASE

If you don’t already have one with the patient, get one, to use their image and video in all media, including social media, in perpetuity.  If they won’t sign one, then don’t use the video.  If you have an account with HR for Health, they can provide one, otherwise use LegalZoom.

STEP FIVE: ASK THEM TO SHARE IT ON SOCIAL MEDIA

If they did it on their phone, obviously they can share it on Instagram or Facebook.

STEP SIX: POST IT ON ALL YOUR DIGITAL LOCATIONS

  • Website (your website should have a separate page for patient testimonials, with a link from the home page.  If not, read this blog.)
  • YouTube channel
  • Yelp profile
  • Google+ page
  • Facebook (start with Instagram and have it post automatically–the Facebook geek knows what I’m talking about)
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

As a huge motivational bonus, show them to your team in morning huddles. Letting everyone know how much they are appreciated by patients is a great way to start the day.

Here are examples of the right and wrong way to do videos:

The above one mentions the treatment, cost, negative aspects of the experience, but is in the right framing–horizontal.

This one doesn’t mention treatment, is positive and energetic, and says the dentist’s name.  But it’s shot vertically, so it’s only good for Facebook mobile.  Almost there.

Make it a habit to do videos. As I said, they are the most credible and versatile marketing tool you have or your practice.  Do one today!