Orthotown May 2018 - 26

Involving patients in your practice's
charitable giving is another way to bring
patient engagement to a new level. People
like to give, and when you make it easy, it's
a win-win. For example, commit to donating
to a local charity when you reach a certain
number of likes on Facebook (depending
on your practice, 100-250 may be a good
place to start), and encourage your followers
to make it happen. Another way to involve
patients in giving is to donate to a breast cancer
awareness charity for each patient who posts
a selfie wearing pink in the dental chair and
tags your practice during October, which is
Breast Cancer Awareness Month. To increase
the camaraderie, be sure to post photos of you
and your staff participating as well.

While goodwill is great, don't be afraid
to provide a little incentive. In fact, an
industry report4 revealed that 35 percent of
Facebook users liked a page so they could
participate in contests. Use this to your
advantage by including chances to win in
your social media strategy.
There are two ways you can run a contest on Facebook, either directly on your
timeline or by using a third-party contest
app. Timeline contests are quick and easy to
launch. To get started, post a status update
on your page detailing the contest criteria
and have participants like or comment to
enter. Don't forget to pin your post to keep
it at the top of your page.

off your plate. Just don't forget to follow
Facebook's policies.
Using a third-party contest app for all
aspects is also an option. For a fee, apps like
Wishpond, Rafflecopter and ShortStack (just
to name a few), provide a tab app that your
followers access via a link or thumbnail on your
page. The tab app houses all contest-related
information (rules, entry form, etc.) and
automates the entire process. This method
is great for large, multisite practices that
engage with a large online population or
those that want to gather participant emails
for future outreach.
Generally, the longer the contest timeline,
the larger the prize. For example, it would
make sense for a contest giving away a
weekend stay at a local B&B to be open much
longer than a drawing for a three-month
supply of floss. (Not that oral hygiene isn't as
compelling-wink, wink.) Some timelines
will be influenced by the contest topic-you
wouldn't ask patients to choose Halloween
costumes after Oct. 31-but others are
more dependent on practice factors such
as the number of contests you want to run
in a given period.
Aside from their opinions, what do
people most love to share on social media?
Pictures-of themselves, their kids, their
pets, their lunch-essentially everything.
In fact, HubSpot reports that content with
visuals garners 94 percent more views and is
40 times more likely to be shared on social
media than text alone.5

Timeline contests deliver quick page
engagement and make participation easy.
One potential challenge with this method
is selecting a winner. If your contest garners
20 responses, you can easily execute it
on your own. However, if you generate
hundreds of likes, choosing a winner in
an unbiased way becomes more difficult.
This is where an app, such as Woobox,
can help. These apps automate the random
selection process, taking it completely

So how do you leverage this behavior to
benefit your practice? Start by asking! (Novel
idea, isn't it?) Post signs in your lobby and
have front-desk staff ask patients to check in
on social media and tag your practice. Create
a selfie-station with props-think oversized
teeth with braces and signs denoting regular
appointments. To encourage participation,
patients who check in and tag your practice
or post selfies with #YourPracticeName can
be entered into a drawing for an electric

Maximizing your benefits

26

MAY 2018 // orthotown.com
http://www.orthotown.com
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Orthotown May 2018
