By Jamie Nanquil
Fun fact: A survey done in Canada found that 1.4 million women had canceled their dental appointments out of fear.

When it comes to the dentist, the words that often come to our minds are fear, pain, anxiety…the same could be said about current dentistry advertising. The truth is, many dentists are still using traditional methods of promotion, which is, quite frankly, boring, uninteresting, unentertaining, and in today’s society, white noise.

Traditional advertising is moving online, and only 14% of people use phone books to find a professional. And 24 of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation. According to Dentistryiq.com almost 90% of people Tivo television shows to avoid watching commercials. Out of all TV commercials watched (billion dollar industry) only 18% generate positive ROI.

As a new generation of dentists emerges, there is a clear division of social media adopters and those who stick to more conventional approaches. The fact is that the ways we are communicating are drastically transforming and the more people come to accept that, the more opportunity there is for connections and relationships. The dentistry industry has built their clientele through a series of relationships and professionals are starting to realize that social media doesn’t prohibit or replace those face-to-face interactions, but instead, allows it to happen more often and with a broader reach of the target audience.

Dr. Jason Lipscomb, co-author of Social Media for Dentists, found that the majority of dentists are simply avoiding and even ignoring social media tools when there is a quickly developing demographic of 55 to 65 year old women on Facebook. They are communicating with each other through this social media site, which has exceeded the demographic’s utilization of email. This should not be information easily looked over when you consider that 8 out of 10 women are the ones making the dental appointments for themselves and their families. Women are making the household decisions, spending the money, and about 34 million of them are discussing it later with their friends online. Lipscomb stated, “The number of women reading local review sites and using Google, Yahoo, and Bing local searches to find dentists is in the millions. I spoke with a cosmetic dentist recently who said a woman found him through a local search in his city and drove several hundred miles because she knew he was the dentist she wanted.”

That is the type of situation that dentists should want to create for themselves. It’s not always about having a great SEO (although that is certainly very important), because that is not what will retain prospects. It will be the tweets, Facebook posts, and Yelp reviews that will turn website traffic into actual clients. Relationships would be built, issues/fears would be addressed, and there would be genuine interest in the content that these professionals post. Remember those 1.4 million women who canceled their dental appointments? Now insert social media into the picture.