Spring Clean Your Social Media

Your social media profiles are often the first impression potential patients, clients, employers, collaborators, and even friends will have of you or your business. Before someone books an appointment, applies for a job, or reaches out, there's a good chance they've already checked your Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, or website first.

Social media has become part portfolio, part personality, and part word-of-mouth recommendation — and it’s time to get the internet working for you instead of against you.

Here are 6 steps you can take this week to give your social media a refresh that actually reflects who you are and what your brand stands for.

1. Do the behind-the-scenes work.

Answer the following questions with as much clarity as you can to kick your 2020 social media resolutions off with a bang. For more on positioning yourself as a brand head over to last month’s article for a deeper look.

What do you want to be known for?

Is the goal to position yourself as a mentor to a younger generation, be an intellectual leader in your space, be seen as a family-friendly practice, or simply to be more present in your online community?

Which social media platforms do you want to focus on?

Attempting to keep up on #allthethings just for the sake of #allthethings will lead to burnout - there is just not enough time in the day to post on each platform in the way that platform wants to be treated. Choose the platforms you see the most engagement with and find the most enjoyment in – pour your energy into those.

What problem are you trying to solve?

The best content is helpful. Whether you’re educating patients, easing anxiety, building trust, or helping people feel more confident, your content should provide value in some way. When you focus on serving people instead of simply posting for the sake of posting, connection naturally follows.

2. Create your ideal client persona.

The more people you’re speaking to, the more you're becoming noise.

An ideal client persona is someone you can focus on in your mind’s eye when creating content. Is it a young mom of 4 with a 9-5 career? A gentleman from the baby-boomer generation? Teenagers of an affluent high school, or a busy elderly woman managing a dance troupe in her community? Knowing who you’re talking to will give you insight into the pain points you can speak to, problems you can solve, and triumphs you can highlight - all leading back to how you can be the answer they’re looking for.

Let me show you an example; you’re scrolling and come across a photo of a happy, smiling patient talking to a happy, smiling dentist. The caption reads “We can’t wait to meet you, call us for an appointment today!” What do you think? Sure, you can see they’re friendly, you can understand they want you to call, maybe you can see the space is clean, but that’s about it.

Same scenario, but the caption reads “Are you leaving work at 5:00 to pick your kids up from school and race them to the dentist before they close? We’ve got you covered. We have Saturday appointments available for busy families and would love to serve yours. Click this link to choose the appointment time that works best so you can get back to your weekend!”

I’m a busy mom and you better believe the latter version spoke to my pain point (no time during the week), solved my problem (Saturday appointments), and even gave me a little bit of hope (I can still enjoy my weekend). I’m all about that practice. I want to be their best friend. And buy them donuts. Maybe leave my kids there for the rest of that weekend. You get the gist.

Don’t try to be everything for everyone, find your people and start connecting the dots for them.

3. Update your social media bio to be personable and professional.

Be personal, be relatable, but be professional. Your bio doesn’t need to read like a resume, but a blank space or mixture of emojis doesn’t help much either. Be clear about who you are, using your name or the name of your business with a focused one-liner “elevator pitch” that can quickly explain what you do in a descriptive, digestible way.

For example,

Studio 8E8 - Dental Marketing Agency

A team of architects and creatives building successful brands through custom, digital marketing to tell your story well.

Quick, snappy, understandable, engaging.

4. Coordinate and simplify your profiles.

If you’re still using that MySpace mirror selfie, cease and desist. Use an updated headshot with concise copy and a clear call-to-action on each platform you’re tackling. The more streamlined your introduction is, the easier it will be for those ideal clients to find you and for your current clients to refer others to you .

5. Choose well-rounded categories and post consistently.

For consistency as well as personal sanity, brainstorm 3-5 categories you’d like to post about and let your content fall under those. Your categories should be both specific to your industry and adding personality to your brand. If you’re a retired, traveling speaker in the dental space focused on educating practices to grow their teams well, you could let your categories rest under leadership advice, dentistry, travel tips, work-life balance, and your secret weekend passion: scuba diving.

Creating categories will give you direction on what to post if you’re stuck and help you think creatively to bring interest to your brand. If you learned something from your scuba instructor that applies to leading a practice well, share it. If you spent the weekend unplugging to be with your family and realized how much better you served come Monday, share it.

People may initially follow for your expertise, but they stay because they connect with you. The practices that stand out online today aren’t necessarily the ones posting the most polished content — they’re the ones making patients feel comfortable, understood, and connected before they ever walk through the door.

Here are some practical examples of content you can create using patient reviews, holidays, team culture, or even copy pulled directly from your website.

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6. Declutter your feeds.

Spring cleaning is all about getting rid of the excess, the noise, the space that’s being rented to people and things that are not adding value to your life.

-Leave inactive Facebook groups

-Unfollow unrelatable accounts

-Run through your albums, highlights, and any elevated content such as pinned posts or featured blogs to be sure they’re up-to-date, relevant, and attracting your ideal client.

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Social media is a great place to share your personal life, and if that’s your goal, great.

But if the answer to those first few questions goes deeper, it’s time to up-level your engagement and presentation on social media to build your business, brand, and contribution to the community.

There’s a handy dandy checklist for you below for that check-off-all-the-boxes feeling!

Grab a broom, the mop, and some Lysol and let’s get to work.‍

If social media is a pain point for your business or your practice, 2020 is the year to ramp it up. Ask us how.