Instagram is the No. 1 social media platform for millennials.

If you aren’t currently using Instagram to promote your dental practice, then you are missing out on a huge dental practice marketing opportunity!

There are roughly 80 million millennials in the United States, and they grew up during the digital transformation. As all millennials are adults in their mid-20s or later, they are quickly becoming the largest population in need of dental care. Meeting their needs and preferences is vital for dental clinics. For millennials, digital is a need. These patients expect dental clinics to keep up with modern technology and communicate with them where they are: on their phones.

Millennials spend an average of 2.25 hours per day on social media, making this an excellent place to reach them. Instagram in particular is a powerful tool to leverage in your dental practice marketing strategy. Here are 5 reasons why.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Instagram is known best for photos. We’ve all heard the phrase: “A picture is worth a thousand words.”

When it comes to promoting your dental services, photos and videos are extremely powerful. Showing patients what you can do for them is much more effective than just talking about it.

Instagram is one great place to share photos of your dental work. Smiling patients with testimonials and other relevant photos are great ways to promote your practice.

Some dentists may be tempted to show dramatic before-and-after transformations or share scary photos of what can happen to teeth that are not properly cared for. While this may seem logical, it generally fails to form an emotional connection with the audience. The end results are Instagram unfollows and less reach, so we advise you to keep your imagery generally positive and upbeat on social media.

Personal Connections

When choosing a dental home, people want to feel connected to the dentist. It can be a scary process for many, so humanizing your dentists and dental practice is a great way to bring in new patients and strengthen your bond with existing ones.

Instagram makes it easy to connect with patients in a personal way. For example, you can post behind-the-scenes photos of your dental clinic or share lifestyle photos from your team’s lives away from the office. There are many different ways to grow personal connections with your patients on Instagram.

Sharing Announcements

Whether you have an upcoming holiday closure or a new service announcement, you want to ensure your patients are seeing dental updates.

It’s certainly important to send email reminders, especially for older patients, but Instagram is another effective place to share announcements and news. Create a static post for major announcements, and then provide reminders via Instagram stories.

Some examples of dental announcements to share include:

• New dental team members
• Dates you will be closed
• New services, like orthodontics
• Satellite office openings or changes
• Changes to patient forms or processes

Educating Patients

In the same way you can use your dental blog or email newsletters for patient education, you can use Instagram. The good news is that it’s much faster to craft an Instagram caption than a blog post!

If you already leverage these other forms of dental office marketing, you can easily repurpose content for Instagram and reach a wider audience. For example, turn one blog post into several different Instagram posts. If you have a list of five reasons to visit the dentist regularly, you could convert each reason into a separate post.

Since younger patients favor Instagram, this is an important channel for educating your patients on dental care basics and common dental services. Ideas for patient education on Instagram include:

• FAQ posts, especially on Instagram stories
• Polls to engage patients and gamify dental education
• Facts about dental care and oral health issues
• Tips for taking care of teeth at home
• Signs and symptoms of various oral health concerns
• The purpose of various dental treatments
• Year-end dental insurance benefit usage

Video Content

In addition to photos, Instagram is starting to encourage video content as well. As they aim to enter the video-app space, the platform often prioritizes this content. This makes it a great social channel for sharing office videos.

Videos on social media are highly engaging and are great at drawing in more patients. There are many different ways to use video content on Instagram, like creating a virtual office tour. Showcase the latest dental tech and introduce a few team members. Or post patient success stories for strong social proof.

You can post videos in several areas on Instagram, including static feed posts, Instagram reels, and Instagram stories. Experiment with video content on several features to find out which your patients resonate with most!

Start leveraging Instagram for your dental practice.

Instagram is an excellent place to reach both new and established patients. It’s a place where many millennials already spend time each day and is an easy way to reach them where they are. As millennials become the largest population in need of dental care, dental offices must adopt modern tech and digitize their outreach efforts.

If you don’t already, now is the time to use Instagram to promote your dental practice.

Add an orthodontic specialty to your dental practice!

If you browse the competition on Instagram, you’ll see that many general dental clinics offer orthodontic services. Many patients, including millennials, want a dentist who can handle most of their oral health care needs.

Completing a basic orthodontics course allows you to treat the most common orthodontic cases and help your patients achieve the smiles they want. It can help you provide the best possible dental care while staying on top of the competition.

Synergy Orthodontic Seminars provides comprehensive orthodontic training programs for dentists. You’ll gain all of the knowledge and skills you need to expand your practice offerings. Then you’ll have even more services to promote via Instagram! Posting about orthodontic services is a great way to attract new patients and grow your dental practice. View our upcoming orthodontic training courses today.