DC Dental Society
79th Annual Nation’s Capital Dental Meeting
April 2, 2011
Engaging Content
For Social Media
Presented by:
Adele McAlear
@AdeleMcAlear
adele@mcalearmarketing.com
adelemcalear.com

About Me
• 20+ years marketing experience
• Consulting for last 4 years specializing in social
media
• Joined LinkedIn February 2004
• Joined Facebook (the 2nd time) in May 2007
• Joined Twitter in April 2007
• Named one of top 10 most influential women in
social media in Canada in 2009

Your Turn
• Did you go to David R. Norton’s session yesterday?
• Who’s got a business page on Facebook?
– Personal profile?
• Is your dental practice on LinkedIn as a company?
– Personal LinkedIn profile?
• Who’s on practice has a Twitter account?
– Personal Twitter account?

What’s on the sched?
• I’m going to play mythbuster with some tough love
• We’re going to take one BIG step back
• Everything is social
• Ideas for original content
• Help you with an action plan
• Answer lots of questions

Social Media
Mythbuster

Reality Check
Have you tried to use Facebook, Twitter or Linked in
and were disappointed with the response?
Do you feel like you’re missing something here?

Don’t believe the
hype!
You are less likely to “go viral”
than you are to win the lottery.
Often brands only go “viral” because
they pay agencies
tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars
to make it happen.

Who cares?
• Why should someone Like your page on Facebook?
• Why should they follow you on Twitter?
• Why should they visit your web site?
• Why should they read your blog?
• Why should they watch your videos?
WHAT’S IN IT FOR THEM?

Broadcasting vs.
Conversing
Why “join the conversation”
does NOT mean it’s all about you.
Old marketing values vs. new marketing values
Don’t be that guy.

Ooo! Shiny!
They’re just tools.
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr, blogs,
podcasts, Foursquare, Google Places, etc., etc.
New channels to speak to people.
There will always be new tools.
What you are saying and who you are saying it to
is most important.
Not which tool you are using to say it.

Social Media is a
long-term
commitment
It’s a slow burn.
A marathon.
The web is littered with abandoned accounts
from well-meaning people
who just didn’t think things through.

Why Bother?
Because…
• The social web is happening whether you are
participating or not.
• You are losing business to those doing a better job
at it.
• You are likely over-spending on traditional
advertising.

Big Step Back
a.k.a.
Marketing 101

Strategy & Tactics
The 5 Ws are strategic
Who
What
When
Where
Why
How is tactical
(Guinea pig time!)

What?
• What are your objectives?
– Get new clients?
– Increase frequency of visits?
– Increase the level of services? (upsell)
– Raise your profile within your peer group?
– Raise your profile outside of your local geography?

Who?
• Who do you want to reach for those objectives?
– Non-clients in your geographic locale?
– Existing clients?
– Friends & family of existing clients?
– Other dentists and/or specialists?
– National organizations?
– Media?

Why?
• Why are you different from your competition?
– Staff?
– Ambiance?
– Awards?
– Rare abilities?
– Specialization?
– Customer care?
– Flexible booking schedule?

When?
• When should you market to reach your objectives?
– Time of day?
– Season?
– New staff?
– Daily/Weekly/Monthly intervals?
– New techniques/products?
– At time of visit?

Where?
• Where should you target your potential clients?
– In your office?
– In their homes?
– At work?
– In the car/on transit?
– In the neighborhood?
– On the internet?
(I’ll explain a bit later how everything is social now.)

What About How?
• Once you know your strategy:
– What your objective is
– Who you want to reach
– Why you are different
– When you should reach them
– Where you should reach them
• How is the LAST thing you should answer
– Don’t make the mistake of starting with How.

How?
• Devise the tactics that you’ll use to reach your
objectives
– Tactics are measureable
– You will likely have several that work together
– The 5Ws will drive everything you do.
Create A (educational info - why)
Targeted to B (parents - who)
Distributed via C (email - where)
Every D (month - when)
Call to action resulting in E (2 referrals/month – what)

Everything is Social

Physical Places

Physical Places

Physical Places

Print
• Billboards & print ads
– QR codes
– URLs

Any Web Page
• Any page on the web
– Like / Tweet / +1
– Email
– Delicious, Google Reader, Digg, Reddit, Stumbleupon

Reviews
Yelp, Google
http://dc.doctoroogle.com/

Types of Media

Your Social Hub
Your web site is your social hub.
• Make sure you’ve given it a tune up
• If you choose to have a blog, it should be on your
site’s domain.
• Any online accounts should link back to your site
• Drive traffic from your outposts to your web site.
• Your site/blog will hold links to everything you’ve
published online.

V.I.T.A.L.
Conent Ideas

V.I.T.A.L. Content
Video
Images
Text
Audio
Links

Where Can I Put
Content?
Examples to create cross-linking
• Blog - home to all content + outposts + sharing
• YouTube channel - video content
• Facebook page – text*, photo*, video* + updates
• Twitter - updates & links
• Flickr - photo & light video content + sharing
• Email newsletter - text content + sharing
• Podcast - audio or video content
* Beware Facebook’s right to use your content

I Don’t Have Time for
All of That!
• It comes down to making realistic expectations for
how much you can produce and maintain
• Many of these ideas can be sliced & diced to
multipurpose content across channels.
• Email marketing can repurpose blog content
• If you are in clinic, have Dentists take turns creating
content.
• Think about partnering with a complementary
service provider.

Content Guidelines
• Video: ideal = 60 seconds, max = 3 mins.
• Blog posts: minimum 200 words, illustrate with an
image, embed video from YouTube, photos from
Flickr.
• Audio podcasts: Shorter is better. 5, 10, 20 minutes
are more likely people will listen to whole thing.
• Make sure it fulfills your 5 Ws strategy.
• Be aware of your tone.
• Don’t be evil.

Content Ideas
• Demystify the dentist: tools, jobs, who does what, dental specialties, why
certain things are done (dental dams etc.), UV light, how to talk to your kids
about visiting the dentist
• Care and maintenance: partials, braces, elder care, infants (milk), flossing
for kids, the truth about baby teeth
• Health: X-ray facts, amalgam facts, Wisdom teeth facts, causes of bad
breath, healthy mouth/healthy taste buds, top foods to damage teeth, cold
sores & teeth, cankors – what are they?
• Procedures: Extraction, fillings, cleaning, fluoride, cosmetic procedures,
how do braces get put on
• Emergency care: what do do if…/on weekend, tooth knocked out, lost
filling, lost crown, cracked/chipped tooth, dry socket
• Consumer products review: truth about toothbrushes, toothpaste, home
whitening, floss
• Community Help: non-profit/low-cost dental options for low income,
students etc.; dental-related charity (smile train, etc.)
• Pop Culture: dental humor, celebrity makeover smiles (who’s had what
done?), who are the dentists to the stars, top movies featuring dentists

Content Aggregation
• Collect the best of the web for your niche. Make sure
that it supports the 5 Ws.
• Once a week make a links post to the highlights from
the web / news etc.
• Use Delicious to share your bookmarks to your blog.
• Use Google Reader and share the feed here.
• Use your Twitter account (in part) to post links to
interesting stories (in addition to your own original
content)
• Use Storify or Scoop.it for more depth

Staying on Track
• Create a spreadsheet with the following:
• Editorial calendar, by week
• Measureable objectives with time frame
• Who’s responsible for which editorial piece
• Where editorial is distributed.
• Each week record # of Facebook Likes, Twitter
followers, YouTube subscribers, # of Foursquare
checkins, # of reviews left on each of the sites etc. to
track changes over time and spikes in performance.
• If you are using incentives like couponing or refer a
friend loyalty via Facebook or other, track
conversion.
• Track web traffic/visitors from Google Analytics on
your site.
• Track Google Page Rank.

Paid & Earned Media
• Facebook Ads & Google AdSense are highly
targetable to location.
• If you have a special story to tell, reach out to
bloggers to see if they’ll write about you (mom
bloggers, dental bloggers, health bloggers.)
• Offer to guest post on other blogs.
• Don’t forget to reach out to your traditional local
media as well.

Last Words
• Don’t bite off more than you can sustain over the
long-haul.
• Start small and grow incrementally.
• Make sure your sharing tools are everywhere!
• Explore what other dentists are doing and get
inspired for ideas.
• Don’t forget to talk to your fans/followers directly. Be
human. Show humor and tact. Show an interest in
them, ask them what they want to see/know about.
Be helpful. Be a good member of the community.

Resources
• Content Rules by Ann Handley and CC Chapman
• SocialFresh.com (social media education)
• Hubspot.com (inbound marketing tools, gradrs and info)
• Oneforty.com (directory of social business tools)
• SocialMediaExaminer.com (how to, videos etc.)
• Animoto.com (make video with music from photos)
• AudioBoo.com (simple audio podcasting)
• NorthSocial (suite of Facebook apps)

Thank you!
Q&A
@AdeleMcAlear
Blog: adelemcalear.com
adele@mcalearmarketing.com
514.277.5623
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