Practice management
D
o you sometimes think: ‘If I just cover
Understanding
my head with a pillow, all of this talk
about social media might soon go
away’?
It does seem like a new social media site
social media
is popping up every day, and it is easy to get
overwhelmed with it all. Is it just a passing
fad? Let’s look at the facts:
• Forty-three per cent of online consumers
belong to one or more social networks
• Seventy-four per cent of social network users
send messages to their friends as part of their
daily routines
• Eighty-seven per cent of parents of teenagers
are online
• Ninety-six per cent of Generation Y
participates in social media.
Why do we need to
understand social media?
If we intend to market our dental services to
younger clients, we need to understand how
they communicate. For example, when my
daughter was home from university, I never
saw her send an email. Instead she was busy
with text messages and Facebook. But let’s
bust the myth that only Gen X and Gen Y use
social media.
The fastest growing segment of users of
Facebook is now neither secondary school
nor university students, but rather females
aged between 55 and 65. Why? With the rest
of their family on Facebook (the average user
now spends an hour a day on the site), it’s the
best way for them to keep up with stories and
photos of their children and grandchildren!
According to the video Social Media
Revolution (www.socialnomics.net), below
are the number of years it took each of the
following to reach 50 million users:
• Radio – 38 years
• Television – 13 years
• The internet – four years
• iPod – three years.
Facebook, on the other hand, has added
100 million users in just the last nine months!
Here, according to the Facebook Global
Monitor, is a listing of the per cent of a
Ted Janusz demonstrates why Facebook country’s citizens (not just the per cent of
those citizens who are online) who currently
and similar sites are more than a passing
maintain a profile on Facebook:
• Iceland – 53%
• Norway – 46%
fad, requiring would-be users to rise above • Canada – 42%
• Hong Kong – 40.5%
their fears
• United Kingdom – 40%
• United States – 35.5%
• Chile – 35%
• Israel – 32.5%
• Bahamas – 30.5%.
xx Implant dentistry today June 2011 June 2011 Implant dentistry today xx
Practice management
With 40% of the United Kingdom now
on Facebook, it is important that we have
an understanding of this social media
phenomenon that is rapidly spreading across
the globe, and learn how we can use this new
form of communication to grow our dental
practices. Let’s get started . . .
What is Facebook?
Facebook is the most popular of the social
networking sites, having garnered more than
600 million active users (that’s almost 10% of
the world’s population) in its seven years. Time
magazine named Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s
founder, as its ‘Person of the Year’ for 2010,
while the creation of Facebook is the subject of
a popular 2010 film The Social Network.
Users of Facebook may create a personal
profile, add other users as friends and
exchange messages on the site. Facebook users
now post a billion pieces of content, such as
photos and messages, each day. Additionally,
users may join common interest groups,
organised by workplace, school or university,
or other characteristics.
The name ‘Facebook’ stems from the title
of the book given to American students at the
start of the academic year by many university
administrations to help students to get to
know each other better.
The Facebook
On 4 February 2004, Mark Zuckerberg
launched The Facebook, originally located
at thefacebook.com. The site was founded
by Zuckerberg with his college roommates
and fellow computer science students. The
website’s membership was initially limited to
Harvard students (within the first month, more
than half of the undergraduate population
was registered on the service), but was soon
expanded to other universities in the Boston
area. It gradually added support for students
at various other universities before opening to
high school students and, finally, to anyone
aged 13 and over.
Facebook profiles and pages
Users can create profiles with photos, lists of
personal interests, contact information, and
other personal details. Users can communicate
with friends and other users through private or
public messages and a chat feature. They can
also create and join interest groups and ‘like
pages’ (formerly called ‘fan pages’).
Facebook requires a user’s name and profile
picture (if applicable) to be accessible by
everyone.
The website is free to users and generates
revenue from advertising.
Because you choose your friends on
Facebook you can control the messages you
receive, unlike with email – up to 90% of
email is spam.
Facebook photos
The photos application is one of the most
popular on Facebook, allowing users to
upload albums and images. Facebook is the
most popular photo-sharing website, with
over 100 million photos uploaded to the site
each day.
Another feature of the photos application
is the ability to ‘tag’ users in a photo. For
example, if a photo contains a user’s friend,
then the user can tag the friend in the photo.
A notification is then sent to the friend to
indicate that they have been tagged, providing
a link to see the photo.
Create a Facebook page to promote
your dental practice
Facebook provides unique, and free, ways to
reach its 600 million users. Over 1.6 million
businesses now have Facebook pages.
People have a ‘profile’ on Facebook,
whereas a business has a ‘page’. You and I can
have ‘friends’ on Facebook, while a business
has ‘people who like this’.
Terminology on Facebook
Profile Page
Represents a person Represents a business
Has ‘friends’ Has ‘people who like this’
You can begin to participate in social
media by creating a free Facebook presence
for your dental practice. First of all, go to
www.facebook.com/pages. In the upper right
corner of the screen, select ‘United Kingdom’
from the drop-down menu and, right above it,
click the ‘Create Page’ button.
Look out for a step-by-step guide to help
you make the most of using Facebook and
other social media sites in the next issue of
Implant Dentistry Today. I
Ted Janusz is a professional
speaker, author and marketing
consultant. He has presented
nearly 500 full-day seminars
on a variety of managerial
topics. His website can be
viewed at www.januspresentations.com.