What are Instagram Influencers and Can You Really Get New Patients for Your Dental Practice By Using This Marketing Method?

 

Over recent years, Instagram and other social media platforms have taken over the world. You find something funny? You share it on Twitter. You take a really edgy picture? You share it on Instagram. Everything we do is published online for others to see.

This is something that is important for your dental practice as people will share you and your services online for others to see. This spreads more awareness and helps your dental practice grow further. That’s the goal, right? Raise awareness, generate referrals?

Therefore, it is important to get involved and use social media marketing to your advantage, especially Instagram. Many dentists and dental practices have grown and become more successful through this social media platform, simply through Instagram influencers.

 

What is an Instagram influencer?

Instagram influencers are users who have established credibility and built an audience who look to them for their opinions. This allows an influencer to easily persuade their audience, for example, to go and buy a product they have been asked to advertise. Therefore, influencers are an essential part of your dental advertising and marketing strategy.

They can be anyone. A blogger, celebrity, entrepreneur, teacher, photographer. Anyone. The key ingredient to an influencer is having the engagement and reach with their audience.

 

What is a micro-influencer?

Instagram influencer tier

Essentially, micro-influencers are Instagram users who have many followers but not to the same extent as macro-influencers. For example, they have around 1,000 to 50,000 followers rather than millions. They are more approachable and relatable to their smaller group of followers.

This means that they have higher engagement rates with their audience as they are more interactive and receptive.

As a result, they have built trust with their audience as they are not just selling a product; they are more humane. Therefore, micro-influencers are better suited to smaller dental practices as they can help showcase your services and encourage their loyal following to follow pursuit.

They can help promote your business for a fraction of the price for a larger influencer.

 

How to find the right influencer for you?

Before anything, you need to find the right influencer for you. This means setting time aside just for research because once you have an influencer that is right for your business, everything will escalate from there. Here are a few guidelines to help choose the right influencer:

Firstly, what is your budget?


How much are you willing to spend on an influencer? If you have a tight budget, then a micro-influencer is definitely the best option for you as they cost a fraction of the price

Are they relevant?


The right type of influencers to help your dental practice grow includes directors of local charities, business leaders, celebrities, media, bloggers, entertainers, etc.

The idea is to find someone who has the audience and reach that will help you gain more patients.

What about your existing followers?


Have a look through your own followers and analyse the types of people they are – what are their likes and interests, what will engage them the most?

This is where you need to establish your target market – are you trying to find younger or older patients? This all needs to be taken into consideration when choosing an influencer as people are influenced/persuaded by different types of people.

You never know, you may find a potential influencer within your existing followers!

Let them come to you if they love your services!


This is a good way to build a good relationship with the influencer as they will genuinely want to promote your services and help your practice grow.

#HASHTAGS


Create a hashtag for your practice and see who is talking about you, there may be some potential micro-influencers using your hashtag.

Find a good storyteller


Find a micro-influencer who is good at telling stories, rather than someone who just sells – this is more authentic and likely to encourage their followers to, for example, join your dental practice if given a good review of your services by someone they know and trust.

Recommendations are everything when it comes to gaining more patients, people want that reassurance that they’re making the best decision by using your services

 

How to contact influencers:

Engagement. The key here is to engage with the micro-influencers -follow them, like their posts, give them appraisal, dm them and ask about them, tell them about yourself. Be clear about why you want to work with them and why you would be a good match for each other. This should be a mutualistic relationship.

Now you’ve got the influencer…

Here is where you need to form a plan on how to approach this relationship with your influencer. You need to ensure your campaign plan is perfected before asking the influencer to start promoting your services.

This way there is a clear plan in which you can ask the influencer to spread certain messages to help achieve the overall objectives of the campaign.

Then you can offer the influencer some of your services, for example, teeth whitening or Invisalign. Let them try them and give an honest review to share on their Instagram. This will lead to their followers becoming potential patients as they have seen how well your services performed on this influencer, who is perhaps their role model.

Consequently, they will also turn to you for your services as a trusted recommendation lead them to this point.

Be careful!

Recently, ASA published an influencers guide to ads which means you need to adhere to these rules. The main being that both the influencer and your practice need to be explicit about the collaboration. This avoids any misleading information for the public.

For example, on the influencers Instagram post, they just clearly state that this is an ad in order to avoid any misconceptions.

Conclusion

Overall, Instagram influencers are an essential tool to help you gain more patients and grow your dental clinic. Working with them can be mutually beneficial which means it is definitely worth considering. Micro-influencers specifically are good to work with if you cannot afford major influencers, you just need to provide them with some of your services.

Let them try it and talk about it on their platform, then sit back and wait for the patients. Want to learn more about how you can get new patients through the use of Social Media Marketing? Read our guide on 6 Dental Social Media Campaigns You Are Missing!