One of the things we hear often from our clients is that you’d love to post more regularly on your practice’s social media feeds, but you don’t have the time. Or perhaps you have someone in your practice who has taken responsibility for your dental marketing, but they’re struggling for ideas of what to post on social media. This is where creating a social media content calendar can help. Setting aside a bit of time once a month or so can save you the stress of trying to post in ‘real time’, and also means that you can be more strategic and efficient with your time. Here’s how to get started.

First, take stock of what you’re currently doing. Which platforms do you have profiles on? You’re most likely on Facebook, but what about Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn or even TikTok? Make sure you have all your login information and that all your profiles, wherever they are, are consistent with the same logo and bio information.

Review which posts have performed well and engaged your audience, and which haven’t. There is huge amounts of data that you can look at on the back end of business pages, so make the most of it. The key measurables are reach (how many people have seen your post), impressions (how many times it has appeared in peoples’ feeds) and interactions (comments or link clicks).

Next, decide on your content mix. This can be as simple as deciding that each week, you’ll publish one post to drive conversions, one post to share something informative, and one post engaging with your customers. So your weekly schedule might look something like:

• Monday: share an existing blog post about orthodontics and encourage people to contact the practice for a free consultation
• Wednesday: share a news article about the ‘Turkey Teeth’ trend
• Friday: post a (positive!) review from a patient

Now you can create your content calendar and start filling it up. It’s up to you how you do this and how much detail you include but for each post you’ll need to have at least:

• which platform you’re posting it on (Facebook)
• the copy (words) (Meet our TCO Sarah …)
• the image or video (photo of TCO)
• any links you’re including (Book a consultation with our TCO at this link …)

There are lots of options and templates available online that you can use. Google Docs is a cloud-based solution which allows multiple people to view and edit the same document. If you want something more visual, there are online apps like Trello or Hootsuite to try, so take some time to discover the best option for your working style.

Providing content for social media should be a job for every member of staff in the practice, from dental nurses and TCOs to receptionists and dentists. Make sure to share the plan with everyone, to get them on board and enthusiastic about the benefits of a social media presence and the possibilities to be creative. By assigning tasks to each staff member and having one project manager to oversee and collate everything, creating a bank of social media content doesn’t need to be an arduous job. There are so many opportunities within your practice; before and afters, patient testimonials and reviews, staff insights, special events or occasion days. When everyone pitches in, you’ll soon have a regular stream of photos and videos to share.

Next, get scheduling! There is paid software you can use to schedule your social media posts, and there is also a free scheduling tool in Facebook. From there, you can schedule your posts for both Facebook and Instagram. Spend some time uploading all of your posts so that they will go live exactly when you want them to.

Finally, relax. This is where all the hard work pays off and you can relax safe in the knowledge that you have a week or month of content scheduled and ready to go. Of course, it’s always worth double checking your planned posts, especially if you’re mentioning specific events or special offers to make sure that nothing has changed, but this is a much simpler job when all the content creation and planning is already done.

To find out more about how Hive can help you optimise your social media campaigns and with all of your dental marketing, get in touch with a member of the team today.