The number one mistake dentists make in relation to Facebook (Part 2)

This week on Marketing Monday, Angus Pryor, the founder of Dental Profit System, will help you answer the question: Are organic posts on Facebook a complete waste of time for your business?

Transcript: The number one mistake dentists make in relation to Facebook

Well hello, entredentists. Angus Pryor, created of the Dental Profit System and co-author of the Kindle crashing book “The Better Business Book” bringing you this week’s Marketing Monday, the weekly show designed to give you actual tips to boost the marketing in your dental practice.

Now, today we’re continuing our series on Facebook, and we’re going to be looking at the organic elements. The unpaid elements of Facebook. So this is part of a series. Just as a reminder, last week we looked at the different parts of Facebook…

Now, Facebook. Let’s just do a little break down for the opportunities that are available on Facebook, and then we’re going to answer the question for today. The question for today is are organic posts in Facebook a complete waste of time for your business?

So you’ve got the organic. You’ve got Facebook Live, which we will talk about next time. You’ve got boosting … and then you’ve got ads. And last week I gave you a bit of an overview about how those things work together. The part that I wanna focus on today is organic. I wanna tell you a little bit about how Facebook works.

Once upon a time … If you had 100 people who’d liked your page, whether that’s your personal page or your business page, then if you put a post in, I don’t know, let’s imagine … You know, your smiling faces and let’s say this is a client, and where I’m mainly dealing with dentists, so you know they’ve just got their braces off. So you know big deal, big smile. So post that on Facebook, you’ve got a hundred likes.

And if we were having this conversation a few years ago, then a fairly high portion of these hundred people who’ve liked your page would actually see that post. Something’s changed.

So. Once upon a time, 100 people liked your page, you put a post there if you’re a dentist. You know, someone’s got their braces off. Woo-hoo, awesome! And everyone was thinking how cool that is. Over time, the Facebook algorithm, the formula, which determines who sees what, has got narrower, and narrower, and narrower.

Now you think about it. If you’re Facebook, and you’ve got 100 people who like your page, and you post something and they all get to see it, then there’s less reliance for business people to be doing what? Spending money on ads.

And it’s just a constant change, is that that algorithm is getting tighter and tighter and tighter. If I take that photo of someone who’s got their braces off and post it to my business page, I can tell you … And there was something in one of the dental magazines recently looking at this.

But I reckon this figure now for our post that doesn’t have any likes, doesn’t have any shares, et cetera, that less than one percent of people will actually see that in their feed. Less than one percent! And that’s because they keep tightening the algorithm because if you’re a business, they want you spending money. So if I answer my question then and say is it a complete waste of time? Using old methods, yes. It’s a complete waste of time. But there are some things you can do.

Now just as an aside, post something, don’t get any shares or likes or comments or anything. Now it seems to be less than one percent of people on your business page are gonna see it. However, the more shares, likes, comments you can get, the more people will see that. But nevertheless, it may be … And I don’t know what the numbers are, but let’s say you got three comments, two shares, and ten likes. It might be that this number might get up to 30 people would see that in their feed, or maybe forty. It’s pretty tough.

And so there are two messages here. One is if you’re gonna use the old ways, forget about it. The second is, you want to make content that is eminently shareable, likable, and … you know, that people will make comments on. So that’s why you’ll notice I go for the most kind of provocative, interesting titles that I can for my posts.

However, the other thing that we really need to think about is when you’re looking at your organic stuff from a business point of view. Let me you ask you this question. Why are people on Facebook? It’s not to find out about your business. Facebook is not Google. People don’t go there to sort of search for … You know, and I’ll use the example roof cleaning, ’cause it’s something that a real estate agent told us we should do for our place.

So therefore one thing that’s really important here. If you’re doing your posts, you want them to be social. Because people are on Facebook for social purposes. And so we’ve figured out that that algorithms got tighter and tighter. But if you can get the social aspect, if you can get some engagement then that’s gonna help massively.

And the one thing that you really can get a benefit from is drawing from the fact that people only do business with people that they know, like, and trust. And if it’s someone who doesn’t know your business at all, then if they can pick up on this social stuff, then there’s definitely some value there.

But if you’re thinking you want to be using your organic stuff to you know promote whatever it happens to be, I would say, in my view, a complete waste of time. Once upon a time a few years ago, sure. But now, for actual advertising in the organic, if you’re a travel agent or something that people really love doing, that’s a totally different story. But for most people, their level of engagement with dentistry is very low. So using your organic for that purpose is definitely not worth it.

Alright, so basically in summary … Trying to do ads through your organic for a dental business, a complete waste of time. The number of people who are seeing your post is far fewer than ever. But what you do wanna be doing is boosting the social aspect, getting that know, like, and trust. If you can boost that … Which means, you know, photos of people taking their braces off is cool, but what about photos of a team meeting? What about if you go and do bowling together? What about you know so-and-so’s just got back from a holiday. It’s more that sort of stuff, and that’s the nature of what people are on when they’re on Facebook.

So, that’s pretty much it for this week. For me, Angus Pryor, signing off.