We live in a world where just about everybody has an online presence. With a significant percentage of the world’s population spending a lot of time on the Internet, it’s only logical for entrepreneurs and professionals—dentists included—to use it as a platform to market their products and/or services to a much wider audience. These days, it’s pretty normal for dentists to have their own websites and social media pages to market their dental practice.

While some dentists are using their online presence to the fullest, a lot of them still make a lot of mistakes on their sites or pages. If you’re a dentist marketing your practice online, keep in mind that the Internet, however free it may seem, still has a lot of rules, many of which are unwritten. Here are five of the mistakes dentists should avoid at all costs to ensure the success of their marketing efforts for their respective dental practices.

1. Using Twitter wrongly

A lot of dentists have Twitter accounts, and many of them tend to use all 140 characters of their tweets for blatant advertising blurbs, which is just fine if they’re sending those tweets only to Twitter users they actually know. Make the mistake of tweeting people you don’t know to follow you, and you’ll be reported by these Twitter users as a spammer, which could lead to your account being blocked or suspended.

If you want to let people know that you have a Twitter account, you can put a Twitter button on your website, list it on your LinkedIn profile or even add it to your email signature.

2. Too much dental mumbo-jumbo

Remember that most of your readers are not in any way familiar with dental concepts, and that’s why you should always write your posts in a language that the man on the street can easily understand. Instead of writing for a dental concept, write for real people instead. It would also be good if you incorporate search engine optimisation or SEO techniques in your posts.

3. Badmouthing people on Facebook and Twitter

So you’re in the habit of talking about colleagues and clients on social media, and, more often than not, the opinions you share are a little on the insulting side of things. If possible, avoid doing this on social media. If you think you’re sharing these opinions only with friends or followers, keep in mind that the privacy protections of Facebook are not as secure as the company claims they are. All it takes is for one instance of you talking smack about a colleague or customer leaking to the public, and you and your practice will be in a lot of trouble.

4. Watch what you say in online forums

Let’s say you read a blog or news story about a certain subject matter, and you want to share the story and your views on it in an online forum that you’re a member of. Chances are, you’ll be very passionate about your comments, and that’s why you need to avoid speaking too freely in an online forum. Anything you say there could compromise your practice’s reputation or worse, your customers’ privacy. So don’t write anything you wouldn’t really talk about in a public speaking engagement or other public forums.

5. Ignoring queries on your website

What’s the point of having a website and social media accounts if you ignore comments or queries from readers? These people sending in queries are actually interested in your services, and not promptly responding to them or even acknowledging the message could be damaging to your reputation. Worse, you’ll be losing potential customers that way, and you can be sure that readers whose queries you ignored are never coming back.

If you’re too busy to actually monitor your website and social media accounts at least once every business day, maybe you can hire somebody to do this task for you.

Hopefully, these tips will help you come up with a more effective marketing strategy for your dental practice.