3 Ways to Increase Facebook Engagement

Solutions By Design

Social media has become an important tool for orthodontists to connect with patients, bring valuable updates to their patients, give tips and showcase their incredible work. Facebook for orthodontic practices is becoming small community hubs, sharing not only orthodontic related content but content outside the office walls, from community outreaches, fundraisers and community updates.

Social media is a necessity in today's digital age, especially for businesses. More than 40% of digital consumers use social networks to research new brands or products. Allowing your business to be discoverable on social media by crafting a social media strategy is important for business growth.

Facebook is a great tool for orthodontic practices to reach potential patients and new audiences. Here are 3 ways to increase Facebook engagement for orthodontists.

1. Go Live

Facebook Live is a great way to get your audience engaged and keep their attention. Facebook changed their algorithm in 2018 to focus on meaningful interactions. “the public content you see more will be held to the same standard -- it should encourage meaningful interactions between people,” said Mark Zuckerberg. According to Facebook “Page posts that generate conversation between people will show higher in News Feed. For example, live videos often lead to discussion among viewers on Facebook – in fact, live videos on average get six times as many interactions as regular videos.”  

The Facebook Live video view count climbed to 2 billion viewers last year and it is continuing to grow. 

2. Contests

One way to grow your social media following and engage organically is through contest through social media. Contests a great way to create engagement on social media, especially if your social media is stagnant or has fallen behind. Contests are a great opportunity to build a following in your community, especially if you are just starting out. Social media contest allows your patients and community (past or future patients) to get involved and participate. 

Depending on the prize, how someone will enter and determine eligibility will be up to each practice, the actions should be simple and clear. You want to make the process of entering your contest as clear and simple as possible.

For example, TLS Orthodontics designed a giveaway with the goal of increasing their Page Likes on Facebook. The instructions were clear, like the post, share the post and tag 2 people on the contest. Tagging people in the post encourages additional entries from those who were tagged and expose your practice to someone new. Read our blog on “4 Social Media Contest Ideas for Orthodontists,” for some inspiration. 

3. Video 

 

Video is a big way to get your audience engaged on Facebook. Upload your videos onto Facebook: Videos uploaded onto Facebook have, on average, 110 percent higher engagement rate and 478 percent higher share rate than YouTube links. 

Video is a perfect way to engage your followers through announcing events, contest winners, creating a demonstration or simply showcasing some smiles. Jernigan Orthodontics uses Facebook video to show a behind the scenes of their office, showcasing their fun team. 

Bunn Orthodontic Group has used video in the past to announce contest winners, which has been effective in getting comments, shares and reactions, all leading to Facebook to rank them higher, among news feeds. 

Social media is integrated into our daily lives and rapidly evolving. 69% of U.S. adults use at least one social media site. The chances that your target audience and ideal customer is on at least one social media platform is highly likely. Download selfie signs and a social media calendar of fun holidays for free here. This will help you stand above your competitors and help create new content for your social media platforms.

5 Ways to Increase Organic Reach on Social Media

Social media is changing the way we view content, the way we check our phones and the way we view businesses. With social media algorithms constantly changing day to day, your content can find it tough to stand out from other content on search engines or social media platforms.

A lot of businesses/practices rely on organic reach on social media. Organic reach is how your social media posts perform without money behind them. Social media algorithms are always changing, with its most recent trend, organic reach is declining with social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram favoring advertising and posts with a budget behind it.

Early last year, Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg announced a change in how Facebook displays one's feed. “You’ll see less public content like posts from businesses, brands, and media,” Mark Zuckerberg said at the start of 2018. “And the public content you see more will be held to the same standard—it should encourage meaningful interactions between people.”

This could mean that your posts may not be reaching as many people as before. However, there are ways you can ensure your target audience is being reached and that your content is being displayed and given preference. Here are 5 ways to increase your organic reach on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

1. Publish Quality Content 

It is no use to constantly publish content if there is no strategy behind your posts. It is also hurting your rankings if you are publishing too many posts at one time. Ensure your work is quality content that your audience will want to engage with - news links, photos, videos or questions. The more your audience engages with your social media, the more it gets pushed at the top.

2. Create Unique Content: 

Don’t just repost to every platform - instead, take the time to ensure your content is posted and captions are written specifically for each appropriate platform. Tailor each social media post to each platform. 

3. Share Content: 

Sharing content from others in your community or industry, will not only give you additional social media content but help increase your organic reach on social media. Whether it is a retweet, a user-generated post on Instagram or sharing blogs and articles, sharing content is beneficial for both you and your audience. 

4. Know the Algorithms 

Social media algorithms are what determines how and when content is displayed to you, and it is constantly changing. Each platform has its own social media algorithm. At Solutions By Design, our social media marketing services, keep track of social algorithms so you don’t have to, ensuring you are always ahead of the changes in digital marketing and social media. 

5. Instagram Stories

Instagram Stories are becoming a big component of Instagram and can help businesses of any type grow their following and reach more people organically. If you are not using Instagram Stories, you are missing a big marketing opportunity. Launched in 2017, Instagram Stories allows you to tag locations, tag other users and use hashtags - all which make your story and profile discoverable by other methods.

Want to know how Solutions by Design can grow and impact your social media strategy? Solutions By Design can help you make professional and intelligent decisions that will be advantageous in setting the fate of your overall digital marketing efforts. Give us a call at 800-888-4084.

Increase Your Reach By Using Facebook Groups to Grow Your Community

Did you know Facebook recently launched “Groups” for business pages to use? This enables your business to create your own unique communities and feeds. If you’re confused how this will benefit you, we’re here to let you know this is a positive thing for your business. This update allows braces a new way to boost engagement and counter the decline in organic reach which all Facebook page users have experienced the past few years.

Over a billion people use Facebook Groups, and over 100 million people worldwide see “Groups” as a major part of their experience and use on Facebook.

What are “Groups”?

Facebook Groups are a place to connect with other users with similar interests and they are becoming increasingly important for brands and businesses aiming to encourage their own community.

How to create a Facebook Group

Creating a Facebook Group is very easy. Here are the most important steps:

1. Choose your Facebook Group name and privacy setting

2. Fill out your Facebook Group’s info

3. Write a description to tell people what the group is about in more details.

4. Add (up to five) tags to help people find your group.

5. Add your location if you are a local Group.

6. Customize your URL.

Facebook Groups offer built-in analytics making it easy for you to track the insights of your community. You can set up your group as public or private, post documents, create polls, start a group chat, and all members’ receive notifications about new posts to the group. This is why it’s great for businesses looking for a way to tap into their organic reach. For more information about Facebook Groups and how they can add value to your business, contact Solutions by Design.

Implement User-Generated Content Into Your Content Strategy

With the ever-changing algorithms of the digital world, it’s important for your social media strategy to include content that meets the needs of your SEO as well as engages with your consumer. We understand not everyone has a generous budget to put towards boosting posts or pay for ads on Facebook, but with the organic reach declining it’s time to add fuel to the fire. One way to do this is by implementing UGC, user-generated content, into your content strategy.

What is User-Generated Content? UGC is short for user-generated content; this is any form of digital content created by consumers and shared publicly online.

Sharing your brand’s story through UGC will give your content strategy more authenticity and it will be more engaging for your followers. Here are just a few more reasons you need to start implementing UGC:

INCREASES YOUR MARKETING TEAM
Consumers are creating content and posting it online; use it and source it.

OFFERS ADDITIONAL CONTENT
Everyone struggles with creating social media content, so leverage UGC to add variety to your content strategy and change it up.

SAVES TIME & MONEY
With UGC, you won’t have to spend money on hiring photographers or using stock photos.

IT’S MORE TRUSTWORTHY
This content is coming from friends or strangers within the community, making it more authentic, real and believable.

IT’S MORE ENGAGING
UGC drives 6.9X higher news feed engagement on than brand-generated content.

Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are popular social platforms that operate almost entirely on user-generated content. Be sure to start asking your consumers for UGC by putting a call to action on marketing materials, using hashtags, or promoting UGC with contests and giveaways. Once you do this, find the UGC by searching the hashtag or location and get permission from the user to share it. Repurpose this content on your website, social media, ads, blogs, etc.

UGC is one of the most cost-effective ways to promote your brand and increase engagement and loyalty with consumers. Reference these tips and you should be able to revive your social media content strategy and reach.

Do you need help with your social media marketing? Contact Solutions by Design and ask about our social media services. Visit our website or call 800-888-4084.

The Future Is Voice Search

A Burger King commercial caused a bit of controversy recently, not for anything racy or disturbing, but for being too invasive. The 15-second ad starts with a Burger King employee holding up the sandwich saying, “You’re watching a 15-second Burger King ad, which is unfortunately not enough time to explain all the fresh ingredients in the Whopper sandwich. But I’ve got an idea. OK, Google, what is the Whopper burger?”

If a viewer has the Google Home assistant or an Android phone with voice search enabled within listening range of the TV, that last phrase - “Hello Google, what is the Whopper burger?” - is intended to trigger the device to search for Whopper on Google and read out the finding from Wikipedia. Admittedly, it’s a clever marketing campaign and the first one to make use of what’s fast becoming a standard in many homes - the personal voice assistant.

Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s Home assistants sold at a rapid pace last year, and this year the sales are expected to grow even more. With both assistants able to do everything from record notes to control lights and appliances by simply speaking to them, people are discovering the value in owning these assistants. And one of the biggest uses of these devices is the ability to search for information or businesses simply by speaking.

Moms can look up recipes and have the assistant read them back as she’s making dinner. Dads can ask the assistant for the nearest automotive store. The kids can ask about upcoming concerts or video game releases. The possibilities are endless - and convenient. All you do is simply speak.

And it’s not just these assistants that are becoming the go-to devices for voice search. Smartphones are now a big part of the voice search landscape. Voice search can be enabled on both Android and Apple smartphones, and Samsung is releasing their Bixby voice assistant with the new Galaxy S8 this month. Even Microsoft is entering the game with their Cortana voice assistant which can be enabled on computers and tablets.

What does this mean for your business? First of all, it’s important to have a solid SEO strategy in place that can capitalize on this emerging search arena. When people type a search phrase into their browsers, most of the time they use simple truncated phrases to save on typing. For example, if someone is searching for an orthodontist in Dallas they may simply enter, “orthodontists Dallas.” This is especially true on a mobile device where typing can be tedious.

But a voice search uses more natural language, and most people aren’t concerned about truncation. The same person searching for an orthodontist may say, “What is the closest orthodontist to Jefferson Elementary?”, or “What are the top five orthodontists nearest to my home?” Natural language searches like these open up new challenges for SEO.

Here at Solutions by Design, we are fully aware of this new future in search, and are positioning our SEO efforts to meet this new challenge. Part of our SEO strategy will be to make use of this new “natural language” search in our optimization efforts and guide our clients in understanding the implications and benefits. It’s an exciting transition in the world of search and we want our clients to be prepared.

Facebook Testing Improved Local Search Feature To Offer Users Business Suggestions

Our favorite social media network is at it again. Facebook is currently testing a new and improved local search feature that may take away from Foursquare, Yelp, and Google Maps. According to TechCrunch, Facebook has confirmed that users are able to catch recommendations of nearby places. This works by entering something like “nearby vet” or “orthodontist nearby” in the mobile or web search of Facebook. By doing this, users will receive a list of relevant businesses near their location, as well as their Facebook ratings, map, and friends who have liked or visited the place in query.

At the moment Facebook is declining to share any further details on this addition, or how long this testing has been in progress. It is possible that some users are able to utilize this function, while others are slowly gaining access or don’t have it at all.

In regards to how Facebook determines which results to provide to the user, that answer is currently uncertain. It has been noted that the order of which locations are shown first is not determined by the number of reviews, rating, or proximity to your current location.

We will continue to keep you informed on this new Facebook feature as it unfolds. In the meantime, connect with Solutions by Design on social media to stay updated on social media news and more.

We #MannequinChallenge You

The latest internet craze is the Mannequin Challenge! The #MannequinChallenge involves a group of people to strike a pose while being filmed to hip hop artist Rae Sremmurd’s newly released song “Black Beatles” in the background.

The first viral video of the Mannequin Challenge surfaced in October 2016, and it's now trending all across the net. There are currently more than 56,000 posts with the hashtag #MannequinChallenge and the number rises every day. Now, it’s our turn!

Just a typical day at Solutions by design…#MannequinChallenge



The Mannequin Challenge is easy to create and fun to participate in! It’s so fun, we’re challenging YOU to create your own clip! It may seem a little odd, but trust us, it’s a powerful form of social media marketing and branding. Many brands have received amazing results while posting viral videos such as this, so join us and take on our challenge!

Tag Us! 

Don’t forget to tag us in your mannequin challenge videos! Use #SBDMadeMeDoIt so we can LIKE & SHARE your video!

What Can Social Media Do For Your SEO?

There is a misunderstanding for many business owners about how to grow your organic rankings on search engines like Google. Having an experienced and skilled SEO director is a key to achieving higher rankings, but it’s important to remember that without social media, particularly a social media strategist, your organic rankings will not advance to the optimum level of achievement. These days, simply having your business profile on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram isn’t enough to boost your search rankings. There is more to it.  You need to ask yourself one simple question, do you have a consistent social media strategy in place for your business? If you don't, you need one in order to see an increase in organic search rankings. Remember, if you're not in the number one spot, your competitor is.

What’s a social media strategy?
Simply having a social media presence is not enough these days; you must be active, engaging, and monitoring your social media profiles regularly. It’s important to recognize what social media channels will fit the needs of your business industry, set realistic goals for these channels, and implement them on a consistent basis. One important realization to keep in mind is social media is overwhelming, and with so many social networks out there comes constant new features to track and stay educated on in order to integrate them into your social media strategy.

What can social media do for your SEO?
Social media and SEO are in a tactical relationship with each other. How so? They are both strategies that focus on creating an appealing identity that will increase visitors.  Having a strong plan for each of these will benefit the other. Having a solid social media strategy and presence can influence your Google rankings and improve your SEO. This includes updating, monitoring, and implementing everything on your social media pages from the quality of your followers to the content you post and engagement on your page. If you don’t have a skilled social media manager with the expertise of utilizing social media for increasing your SEO, then you need to think about how serious you are about achieving the highest organic ranking you can.

If you don’t have a full-time social media manager at your business, no need to panic. Solutions by Design has social media services with experts who will develop and implement social media strategies for you. We specialize in working with businesses on social media and SEO and can help you reach your goals and increase your search engine optimization. Visit our website or give us a call for more information. 800-888-4084.

Pokemon Go Social

The Pokemon Go phenomenon has taken off and is now a leading app since its launch on July 6th. Though many may look at Pokemon Go as just a game, others are looking to it as a huge marketing opportunity. In just a week, some businesses have decided to use the game to lure in new customers…so we want our clients to have a heads up on this and do the same!

Get your practice involved in Pokemon Go by learning how to play, and taking advantage of PokeStops and Lures. Doing so will result in creating brand awareness, engagement, and foot traffic to your practice.

What is a PokeStop?

PokeStops attract foot traffic without any effort. Pokestops are located on or near monuments, schools, museums and other historical buildings, and players flock to them like they’re giving away a million dollars every minute. So figuring out whether your practice is a PokeStop is the first thing you should do. If you haven’t already, download the Pokemon Go App (it’s free). Once you have it downloaded, open it up and check the map for a Blue Spinning Tower. If you see one on your screen without having to walk too far away from your practice, lucky you, you have a PokeStop! Now all you need to do is sit back, place Lure after Lure on your PokeStop, and watch all of the prospective new patients flock to your office.

While there are rumors of PokeStops being available for purchase in the future, as of today, there is no way to own or create your own Pokestop. However, if your practice happens to be located next to a PokeStop you need to be taking advantage of it now.

What is a Lure?

Lures increase the rate of Pokemon generation in the area around the PokeStop where they're placed for a half hour. Lures are completely affordable, for about $10 you can purchase enough Lures to have your PokeStop in pink sparkles for 7 hours. So for a little more than a dollar an hour, you can bring crowds of people to your practice when you place a lure.

If you want to take advantage and lure in new patients, Pokemon Go provides you the opportunity to do just that. Jump on the Pokemon Go bandwagon and get your practice name seen by your community when they become a part of the Pokemon Go phenomenon. Also, it’s important to know what to do with these prospective patients when you get them to your office. Set a goal of what you want in return and create a strategy to reach the goal. Confused on what to do with the prospects once you get them to your office? Ask us about our Pokemon Go Party Package!

The Ultimate Facebook Secret to Success for Orthodontic Practices

Lately, we’ve been getting a ton of questions from clients confused about social media and how to create effective social media strategies on social networks. This is a huge topic, seriously, we could write pages and pages on it! To make your lives easier, and save our hands from carpal tunnel, we decided to share with you the ultimate Facebook secret to success for orthodontic practices.

Here it is…USE YOUR CURRENT PATIENTS AS BRAND AMBASSADORS ON FACEBOOK FOR YOUR PRACTICE!

How do you do this, you ask? Simple. Engage with your patients when they’re at your practice and encourage them to connect with you online, specifically on Facebook. One way to do this is something a lot of our social media clients currently do; use strategic Facebook contests.

Let’s explore this a little more.

So many practices do contests, but the real question is, are contests being done right? This Summer, Solutions by Design’s social media clients have tons of custom created contests that are efficient for the practices social media marketing strategies. Several of our custom created contests promote patients to post selfies and tag the practice on Facebook, in order to be entered to win a prize from their doctor.

By doing this, we have the patients utilizing the power of social media for the practices brand awareness.  Yes, posting photos of the patients to the Facebook business page is great, but having patients post their own photos and tagging the practice is even better, and the ultimate secret to social media success. By doing something like this, your patients become brand ambassadors for your practice on Facebook.  Ultimately, this connects their closest friends and followers with your practice because they tag your practice on Facebook, and this shows the world of Facebook they do business with you. All while they think they're just entering a contest.This eliminates extra costs of paying to boost Facebook posts, purchase Facebook advertisements, or worrying about HIPAA consent forms.

Also, when your patients tag you in a post, Facebook will notify your practice, and provide you with the option to share the post on your practice's page.

Custom designed contests are just one of the several ways our social media clients use patients as brand ambassadors. Are you interested in learning more about our social media services? Contact our trusted social media department and ask for more details or client reviews.  Remember, there are several companies out there claiming to provide similar services, but they’re based on limited experience and misguided advice; especially when it comes to the area of orthodontic marketing.