Social media for dentists and dental practices

In dental care, marketing is bound by professional rules. The KNMT applies rules under which public communication has to be truthful, must not give a misleading picture and must not contain comparative claims about other dentists. In practice that means: no suggestion that a treatment is painless, no promise about the result of an implant or a veneer, and no persuasive language that suggests your practice is demonstrably better than the one down the road. On top of that, dental tariffs in the Netherlands are set by the Dutch Healthcare Authority, so price is rarely the distinguishing argument. What you can show is how you work: your approach with anxious patients, the explanations you give beforehand, how you can be reached in an emergency and the people behind the practice.

The second point of attention is visual material. Photos of teeth or of a patient in the chair are health data and therefore fall under the strictest category of the GDPR. Before-and-after images may not simply be shared, not even anonymously cropped, without explicit permission that specifically covers publication on social media. We record that permission per piece of content and otherwise work with team content, practice images and animation. No recognisable patient or diary may be visible in the background of a spontaneous shot either.

Finally, the goal differs per practice. Practices that are not taking on new patients gain nothing from content that attracts them; for them the value lies in keeping existing patients engaged, fewer no-shows through good information, and above all in recruiting staff in a tight labour market. Practices that are growing focus instead on the group that is not insured for cosmetic treatments or orthodontics, where the choice is made much more on trust and impression. We set that direction in the strategy stage, so the content calendar matches what your practice really needs.