Why You Should NEVER EVER Rely On Facebook For Your Dental Marketing & New Patient Generation

“Oh we’re not gonna take it
No, we ain’t gonna take it
Oh we’re not gonna take it anymore”

Twisted Sister, “We’re Not Gonna Take It”

***

WARNING: Prepare for an EPIC rant.

Facebook really ticked me off this morning. And it’s certainly not the first time.

I was getting ready to run an ad on Facebook’s platform that would market our company. I put ample time and care into creating one that described our service and how we provide world famous value to our clients.

When it came time for the image selection, I wanted something that would resonate with dentists. So, I chose a tasteful, and pretty close-up image of someone’s teeth and their great smile. Simple and harmless.

10 minutes later, I received a notice that my ad had been rejected.

After some digging (because far be it from Facebook to make it easy to understand how to do something on their platform, even when you want to give them money), I found out I had violated Section 19 of their TWENTY-NINE (!!!)-section Prohibited Content policy.

Here’s the text from that page*:

“Ad images focusing on zoomed body parts”

Ads must not contain “before-and-after” images or images that contain unexpected or unlikely results. Ad content must not imply or attempt to generate negative self-perception in order to promote health-related products.

Really, Facebook? “Negative self-perception?” I’m trying to capture the attention of dentists by showing them pictures of great looking teeth. This isn’t about appealing to self-worth or perception. And I’m certainly not promoting a health-related product.

I was simply trying to promote the ONLY 4X-Inc. 500/5000 Magazine Approved dental marketing agency that’s been recognized by thousands of world-class dentists and industry professionals…and pay you to do so!

GRRR! 🤬

This is why I NEVER EVER rely on Facebook as a main source of marketing and neither should your practice. How is a dental practice supposed to market themselves as the “go to” dentist in their city without showing what they do for a living and use images of teeth?? It makes it nearly IMPOSSIBLE to show off your clinical skills and amazing services, not to mention your ad won’t get the mass appeal to your audience and your ad will get ignored. 

Case in point, I was doing a private consulting day the other day with a very successful dentist from Illinois who told me a few months back he hired a very prominent and well known dental social media/website company to “promote him on Facebook” and other social sites. Can you guess what happened? He lit a few thousand dollars on fire 🔥! The ads constantly got rejected, no one was interacting with his social media posts… it was a total money pit. He’s happy now because we’re now handling all his marketing efforts, but that is beside the point. 

The powers that be over there are dramatic, flakey and unpredictable. Their terms of service and “community standards” seem to change on a daily basis, depending on who’s reviewing the ads and posts that day…which is a total and utter joke, as they don’t actually give you a way to contact them easily or directly!!

And talk about the pot calling the kettle black… have you seen this? News just broke that Facebook admitted it gave tech companies access to users’ personal messages!

It’s one thing to monitor activity on your platform for safety issues, but to flat out sell that content — personal content that users thought was being kept private — for financial gain?? Where does it end?? This has impacted peoples trust with Facebook and they simply don’t trust what they see anymore, which results in your practice not getting any Return On Investment via social media. That is common sense at this point!

(Breathe, Graig. Breathe.)

It simply reinforces why I believe so strongly in Google’s search and review platform to be the cornerstone of solid dental marketing. There are no games. No wonky rules or shifty, inconsistent regulations. It’s simple and consistent. You don’t even have to pay to play, as Google’s platform is free to use for all dental practices. 

Google reviews are based on something you already have; happy patients who can’t wait to refer you to their friends and family. Using Google’s platform, you have the ability to create your own solid and long lasting online property that is a better marketing asset than anything else out there. It’s 1000X more powerful than your website (which is nothing more than a glorified brochure in this day and age!). It’s the true evolution of “word of mouth”, which has moved from offline to ONLINE and unless you’re taking full advantage and owning your Google search and review platform, you’re missing out on thousands in patients and production. The high-quality fee for service patients are on GOOGLE, not social media, you need to be where the people with interest and money are and the data tells us that is just plain ol’ Google! 🙂

Dump Facebook and their nonsensical rules. It’s time you invest your time and effort (which isn’t nearly as much as you think) with a platform that can result in a windfall of new Pay/Stay/Refer patients.

Google’s only agenda, from its inception, has been to provide the best and most balanced search experience for its users. That’s why it is a constant “beta” state — refining the search algorithm and its practices every minute of every day.  All to create a platform that people trust.

The Modern “Word Of Mouth” Referral Has Moved From Offline to Online!

Trust me… you are 100% losing referrals, production, market share and PROFIT (pure cash flow) to other doctors down the street who have their “Google House” in order, with loads of FRESH AND CURRENT Google reviews, videos of their best patients bragging about them, blogs, photo websites and other online reputation marketing that they’ve been doing for over 10 years, while you might be relying on “outdated” marketing methods, like a “website” (which is just a glorified brochure in this day and age), word of mouth, playing on Facebook, or worse yet, you’re doing NOTHING to attract referrals and new patients.

Please allow me to explain, let’s say Kelly, a great patient of yours refers you to Suzy down the street because she just moved into the neighborhood. Does Suzy ever call to book an appointment? Maybe, maybe not. Data from Comscore tells us that 93% of the time she is going to Google you and your business. If she goes on Google and sees that you’re branded as the best dentist in town, using the tools I referenced above, then she’s going to call. There is instant trust. I was just talking about this with Dr. Nathan Ho, who is a tremendously successful dentist in the Dallas area and influencer in the industry to over 6,000 dentists on his podcast, called Dental Win-Win. He consistently gets large cashing paying cases because the patients already come in trusting him because his “google house” is 100% in order. In the modern era we live in, you have NO CHOICE but to do these things or you will go the way of the “dodo” bird and become the next Kmart or Blockbuster…EXTINCT. And I don’t say this to scare, the data backs up my statement, you simply will not survive, and I’ve seen this all too often over the last 15 years!

Tools and systems have arisen to help standardize trust, and thereby facilitate better decisions when it comes to picking your dentist based on what their patients have said about them.

The best local platform on the planet to facilitate this process, bar none, is Google. No other media outlet (yes, Google is that prolific that it’s now considered part of the media!) has the traction, respect and transparency they do.

Google’s “local business” platform is the best avenue for establishing your practice and yourself as reliable, hardworking and honest. The reason behind this is that Google encourages your existing patients to leave an honest review of their experience with you. By doing so, they are helping define you as a service provider, and whether other folks in the community should use your services.

There’s no better time in history to create a windfall of business for your practice through Google. Instead of falling victim to public suspicion of dentists and other doctors in the community, use Google to build an aura of trust and quality. Plus, the entire thing is free!

Patients don’t understand the difference between a respected service provider and “the cheaper, easier alternative.” That is unless you actually show them why and how there’s a difference.

Too many doctors believe that
“What used to work will keep me successful forever”.

This is why it’s so essential that you control the conversation between you and your prospective patients. And the best way to do that is through your own powerful marketing, led by loads of FRESH and NEW beaming Youtube videos and Google reviews from real patients of yours bragging about how you impacted their lives and made everything simple and easy.

You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take and it’s time to take action and let me help your practice improve profit and cash flow via more quality fee for service patients…

If you’d like to learn more about how to utilize Google and other online platforms to attract more highly qualified patients WITH MONEY…click here for a proven practice specific dental marketing game-plan => https://lsfd1.wpenginepowered.com/game-plan

Have Fun & Do Something Great!
Graig Presti
CEO Local Search For Dentists ®, The ONLY 4-TIME Inc. 500/5000-Approved Dental Marketing Agency
CEO New Patients For Life™
#1 Best Selling Author
Dental Economics Magazine Author & Contributor

PS- Life does get in the way but THIS is the simplest way to keep patients on track, reactivating patients and SPARKING that REFERRAL fire all in one fell swoop with almost ZERO effort what so ever….

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So, if you’re struggling with making heads or tails of what to do that can specifically help you grow your practice then this action plan is a “glove fit for you”.

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