In just two months, we went from 430-something likes to over 1,000 — 1,015 at the time of this writing, to be exact. How did we accomplish this amazing feat? We combined the efforts of our employees with the goals of ChariTNT to accomplish multiple goals at once. Not only did our campaign help more people get to know TNT Dental, but we spread the word about our ChariTNT beneficiary for the holiday season, the North Texas Food Bank — and we managed to gather A LOT of food to contribute to the North Texas Food Bank, too!

The challenge? If we got to 1,000 likes by the end of December, our founding fathers The Tims would double the donations brought in by TNT Dental employees for the North Texas Food Bank. We put the word out, with every TNT Dental employee spreading the word and donating food. As you can see, the boxes filled up…

Once we hit our 1,000 likes, The Tims doubled what was in the boxes! Thanks to the generosity of our employees who brought in a lot of non-perishable food items, our food drive was a success! And, of course, we couldn’t have done it without all of our raving Facebook fans!

So thank you to everyone who liked us, to all of our employees for getting the word out and bringing in canned goods for the North Texas Food Bank, and, of course, The Tims for their generosity this holiday season. And our new year’s resolution? To keep coming up with fun and exciting ways to let more people know about TNT Dental and help our community through ChariTNT!

The program is simple. Participating dentists buy back candy from kids in a variety of ways–cash, coupons, toothbrushes, partnerships with local businesses for giveaways…the list goes on. Your kid still gets a Halloween treat in the form of whatever payment your dentist has chosen, and you get to rest assured know that they aren’t eating all that candy! And the candy? The candy is then sent to Operation Gratitude or other military support programs.

So this Halloween, don’t scare your dentist–help him or her help troops enjoy some sweet treats with the Halloween Candy Buy Back Program!

We’re starting off with a bang with two separate projects: the ChariTNT Food Drive benefiting North Texas Food Bank and ChariTNT Volunteer Day at Minnie’s Pantry in Plano.

And you can help no matter where you are!

The food drive is off to a great start, but you can help us double the impact we’ll have on hunger this holiday season. If we get 1,000 Facebook likes by Christmas, The Tims–our fearless leaders and the founders of TNT Dental–will double the number of cans we donate! All you have to do is like our Facebook page to help feed hungry people in North Texas! Visit the North Texas Food Bank’s website to learn more about all the wonderful work this organization does for families in North Texas.

While we steadily gather food for our food drive, we’re also having our first ChariTNT Volunteer Day! We’ve joined forces with Minnie’s Food Pantry right here in Plano. On November 11, 2011, we will be heading over to Minnie’s to lend an extra hand–or sixty of them!–to help with heavy lifting and handing out supplies.

These two projects are only the beginning–we’re looking forward to more volunteering opportunities and finding ways to give back to our community. Our ChariTNT motto? We can’t do everything, but we can do something.

What does this mean in non-geek speak? It means that if your site is more than a couple of years old, it’s probably time for an update.

Get Current To Stay Relevant

As TNT Dental grows and changes, we want to see your online presence grow and change as well. In the next few weeks we’ll be unveiling something new. It’s how we stay current in the web world. And to help you stay current, we offer reskins of existing sites. In order to keep you relevant, we refresh your copy, redo your look, and renew your efforts to reach the heights of search engine results for dental practices in your area. Remember how you wanted to relax and get back to what you do best–providing patients with oral health care instead of worrying about your online presence? Well, with a reskin from TNT Dental, you can.

Keep checking back to learn more about how TNT Dental can help your practice grow online…and get ready for our upcoming surprise!

So how did TNT Dental all begin in the first place?

Tim Kelley and Tim Healy (affectionately known around here as The Tims) met while working for a dental lab management company. They were given the task of finding someone to create a website for their employer. A simple enough task, right? Well, they quickly discovered that no one they interviewed understood their business well enough to create the right online brand presence. As they say, necessity is the mother of invention, and it was this difficulty that was the spark that eventually blew up into TNT Dental.

The Tims set out to create the website themselves. Once they finished, they decided to fill a need: they started TNT Dental to create websites for dental practices made by people who actually understood dentistry. That was 11 years ago, and TNT Dental hasn’t stopped growing since.

Now stay tuned for our big surprise…

We want to congratulate our client, Trillium Dental, on the success they’ve had since starting the Practice Growth Relax program.

TNT Dental rescued Trillium Dental’s website in January of 2011. They decided to sign up for the Practice Growth Relax package, meaning they could just…sit back, relax, and let us take care of their social media management. In the beginning, they had no Facebook presence. Practice Growth Leader Mary set up Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube accounts and designed custom branding for each. Then she got to work on building Trillium Dental’s fan base.

In just one month, Mary was able to grow Trillium Dental’s fan base from 42 to 182, an almost 450% increase. How did she do it? She used advertising promotions in conjunction with a giveaway of a $100 gift certificate to a local restaurant to create awareness and draw attention.This campaign yielded over 1.2 million impressions, helping Trillium Dental make quite an impact in just the first few months of social media activity.

Trillium Dental was so pleased with these results, they’ve started a new promotion, offering a gift certificate to a local spa. At last count, Trillium has 199 likes, and they’re only going to continue to…well, grow!

Want to tap into the potential of social media marketing with a Practice Growth package from TNT Dental? We offer the Coach, Share, and Relax packages, allowing you to choose the one that best fits your practice growth goals. See Trillium Dental in action here, and visit TNT Dental on Facebook. Questions about how TNT Dental can help your practice grow their social media presence? Contact us today!

Happy Halloween from TNT Dental!

Proper Dental Care for Werewolves

Werewolves are people, too.

Sorta.

We at TNT Dental know that werewolves have special oral healthcare needs. After all, what kind of toothbrush is really the best for … well, canines? And regular floss isn’t going to do the trick, especially after those all-you-can-chase-and-eat buffets on full-moon nights. Read More…

Before you can see where you need to go, you need to know where you are. To this end, TNT Dental announces our 100 Point Internet Presence Evaluation, a service that lets you know just how much of an impact you’re having with all your online efforts. Our evaluation measures the effectiveness of the content on your current site, how the features on your site help with patient conversion, the site’s online visibility in terms of SEO strategy, your social media presence, and the level of innovation on the site.

After we’ve analyzed your online presence, we give you your score and let you know where you need improvement. With so much to consider–you need to have an impact on both real live human potential patients and mechanical search engines–you want an expert eye to discover whether or not your current online strategy is working. TNT Dental provides the expert eye.

Want to know how you rate online? Contact TNT Dental today for your 100 Point Internet Presence Evaluation and find out how you can get current–and get noticed–in this ever-changing online world.

For a dentist or a member of a dental team, an office blog can seem intimidating. How do you know what tone to take? How much do you need to write? How do you cater to search engines?

What should I post on my blog?

If your ultimate goal is to attract new patients, then you can follow these simple steps to master your blog and entice not only new patients, but also search engines. (Skip to Ghost Posting)

1. Create Compelling Content – What’s the MOST IMPORTANT aspect of your blog? That people actually read it! And maybe they’ll even find it so interesting that they’ll pass it along to their friends via incoming links. The tricky part here is the “compelling” part. What will appeal to your patients? The answer will be different for every practice, but here are a few ideas:

• Answers to questions patients frequently ask.
• The latest dental news, technology, or equipment.
• New services or continuing-education courses.
• Patient profiles (photos or videos).
• Local/office events.

Chances are, if YOU find it interesting, your patients will too, and don’t be afraid to have a little fun every now and then.

2. Use Keyword Phrases and Headlines – While your main focus should be creating interesting posts that capture your patients’ attention, you also want Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Bing to know what your post is about. You can achieve this by creating focused content with clear headlines and targeted keyword phrases. Don’t go overboard, though. Remember rule number one: Your post needs to appeal to your patients by answering a question or posing a benefit. For example:

GOOD: You Can Have a New Smile with Veneers
BETTER: How You Can Achieve Smile Makeover Success with Porcelain Veneers

If your post is about porcelain veneers, pepper this key phrase lightly throughout the text. Search engines typically look for about a 5% keyword density, so if your post is 300 words (the preferred length), that means your keyword phrase should occur roughly 15 times.

3. Include Links and Tags – If compelling, targeted content is the meat in this blog pie, then links and tags are the delicious, flaky crust. They’re not essential to the meal, but they do hold everything together nicely. Search-engine spiders will actually follow the links you place within your post, so you’ll want to link to interior pages on your site, link to relevant websites, link to photos of your cat on Facebook. Actually, that last one is a prime example of what you should not do, unless of course, you’re post is about cats. Then by all means, go for it.

Tags are pretty self-explanatory. Include key phrases and your primary locations in your tags. Google considers these tags when deciding on your blog-post rankings.

4. Get the word out! You can sit back and pray to the Google deities that eyeballs will rain down on your blog post – or you can take matters into your own hands! Post your blog on your Facebook fan page. Tell your patients about it when they come into the office. Offer to feature them on your blog. Write guest posts on your colleagues’ blogs. The more outlets the better!

If you have any questions about your blog or you’re just looking for someone to brainstorm with – call TNT Dental! We do this all the time, and we can help.

If you’d like to skip all the learning, and just let the experts do it for you, TNT Dental offers Ghost Posting, meaning we post SEO-friendly blog posts based on your services, technology, and suggestions. Call 877-882-3211 for details.

If you’re still uneasy about what to post on your blog, you can take a cue from some of these popular blogs, maintained by TNT Dental and TNT Dental dentists:

• Best Dentist News
• Smiles by Arnold
• McKinneyDentist.com

Up next: Where to Find Photos for Your Blog.

Dr. Brown’s gold platform website includes a gallery of cases, which important since a picture is worth a thousand words. In addition to the gallery, the site includes detailed information about dental services and the team. Patients can quickly access registration forms to complete at home before their first visit. An interactive map on the contact page makes finding the practice convenient for new patients. And every page of any TNT website features the doctor’s name, address, phone number, and email.

Dr. Songstad’s website is a silver platform, the perfect starter site for any dental practice. Also called a brochure site, our silver website inlcudes all the basic information a patient needs when looking online for a dentist. The site has a completely custom design that incorporates the practice logo, colors, and photography. All of the text is original, as well.

TNT Dental offers three levels of websites: silver, gold, and platinum. We can help you determine the best type of site for your practice. If you currently have a website, we will analyze it at no charge, then help you determine how to improve the site’s appearance and effectiveness on search engines. TNT offers an effective search engine optimization plan, complete with hosting and support, at a very reasonable rate. Call today: 877-868-4932.