Social media marketing for a dental practice is a handful of post types, published two or three times a week on Facebook, Instagram and the practice's Google Business Profile, with a dentist reading each post before it goes live. The posts answer what a new or nervous patient wants to know: what a visit is like, what a treatment is for, whether their insurance works, who they will see and when the office is open. Patient photos need the patient's HIPAA authorization, and every claim has to fit the ADA's advertising standard and your state dental board's rules. If you want to stop doing it yourself, a team member, an agency or software that writes from your website can take the writing, and the dental social media services comparison sets them side by side. This page covers what to post and how to keep it out of trouble.
What to post: six pages you already have
Patients choose a dentist on trust, and many of them arrive nervous. They are not looking for a dance trend, and you do not need to learn one. They want a calm office, a friendly hygienist and a plain answer to the question they were too embarrassed to ask. A practice website already holds most of those answers, which means it already holds most of a month of posts. The six pages below are among the ones Boomp reads when it writes for a dental practice, and they are the right place to start whoever does the writing.
The example posts in this section are illustrations written from a hypothetical practice website. They are not from a Boomp customer, and the practice, its people and its details are invented.
The services page: what a treatment is for
Pick one service and explain it in the words a patient uses. What a crown does. How a cleaning differs from a deep cleaning.
A filling repairs a small area of a tooth.
A crown caps the whole visible part of a tooth when there is not enough healthy tooth left to hold a filling.
Which one you need is something we work out together after an exam, not something a post can tell you.Illustration from a hypothetical practice's services page.
Have a dentist check every clinical sentence, because the post is the practice speaking.
The new-patient page: what the first visit looks like
New here?
Plan on about an hour for your first visit.
We start with a conversation about what is bothering you and the health history we need, then X-rays if you need them, then the exam and cleaning.
Bring your insurance card and a list of your medications.Illustration from a hypothetical practice's new-patient page.
It works because it is specific, so keep the specifics current.
The insurance and financing page: can I afford this
Not sure whether we take your insurance?
Call the front desk with your member ID and we will check your plan before you book.
No dental insurance?
Our payment plans are on the financing page.Illustration from a hypothetical practice's insurance and financing page.
Never promise coverage or a price in a post. Plans and participation change, and the post will outlive the fact.
The team page: who will I see
Maria has been a hygienist here for nine years.
She is the one who will tell you, kindly, that it is fine to have been away for a while.Illustration from a hypothetical practice's team page.
Ask each team member before their face or name goes up, and keep credentials factual.
The FAQ page: the question they were afraid to ask
"It has been years since I saw a dentist.
Will I get a lecture?"
No.
We start where you are, and the first visit is about what you need now, not how long it has been.Illustration from a hypothetical practice's FAQ page.
The FAQ page is the richest source a practice has, and the patient FAQ guide turns one into a month of posts.
Office hours: the practical post
We open at 7 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so a cleaning fits before work.
Illustration from a hypothetical practice's contact page.
Hours, parking and early appointments earn a post of their own, and the post changes when the hours do.
What a finished post looks like
A finished post runs longer than these illustrations and comes with an image. Here is a real one the software wrote for a paying customer in another trade, a listing agent on the West Michigan lakeshore, shown without her name.
A dental explainer reads the same way: the thing people confuse, what it actually means, and why the difference matters to them. For thirty more specific topics, see social media post ideas for dentists.
Where to post and how often
Three channels cover most practices.
- Facebook suits a family practice whose patients live nearby.
- Instagram suits the team, the office and the look of the place.
- Google Business Profile is the listing a patient sees when they look the practice up on Google. Google's help page says a business can post updates, offers and event details to its profile, and those posts show on Search and Maps.
The same Google page says a business in a regulated industry can use posts but should not include content about the products, and its list usually includes pharmaceutical products and health and medical devices. Read Google's posts content policy before a post about a specific product, such as a take-home whitening kit or a brand of aligners.
Two or three posts a week is enough. Pick the count you can keep in the busiest month of your year, not the quietest. The fix for a feed that keeps stalling is not more willpower from the dentist; it is a source of posts that does not depend on the dentist's evenings.
The rules: patient photos, claims and specialties
What follows summarizes the sources as read on September 23, 2026. It is not legal advice, and your state's rules can add to it.
Patient photos and smiles
The HIPAA Privacy Rule says a practice covered by HIPAA may not use or disclose protected health information without a valid authorization, unless the rule otherwise permits it (45 CFR 164.508). It also requires an authorization for any use or disclosure of protected health information for marketing, apart from face-to-face communication and promotional gifts of nominal value. The rule's definition of marketing (45 CFR 164.501) leaves out some communications about a practice's own services, so the general rule above, not the marketing clause, is what makes a patient's photo or story in a public post need the authorization. The rule's de-identification standard lists "full face photographic images and any comparable images" among the identifiers that must be removed (45 CFR 164.514).
In practice:
- Get the patient's HIPAA authorization for the specific use before their face, smile or story appears in a post. A general photo release may not be enough, so have whoever handles HIPAA at the practice confirm the form.
- A cropped smile can still identify someone to the people who know them.
- Keep patients, screens, charts and the day's schedule out of the background of team and office photos.
- Check with whoever handles HIPAA before any reply to a review or comment that confirms someone is a patient or mentions their care.
What the ADA code says about advertising
Section 5.F of the ADA Principles of Ethics and Code of Professional Conduct (the edition with advisory opinions revised to October 2025) reads: "Although any dentist may advertise, no dentist shall advertise or solicit patients in any form of communication, including via social media, in a manner that is false or misleading in any material respect." Its advisory opinions spell out what that means for a feed.
- 5.F.2 lists statements to avoid, including any "likely to create an unjustified expectation about results the dentist can achieve," and any claim that the practice's services are superior in quality to other dentists' that is not subject to reasonable substantiation. It adds that subjective statements about quality can raise concerns too, so "the best dentist in town" is worth leaving off.
- 5.F.7, on social media, says promising superior results, or claiming a product or service is safe and effective without supporting scientific evidence, is false or misleading. It names unsupported fluoride claims and claims that dental services remove toxic substances from the body as examples, and it says anyone endorsing a product must disclose a paid partnership.
- 5.F.1 says a dental health article or message published under a dentist's byline without truthful disclosure of its source and authorship is a false or misleading representation. Posting in the practice's name, rather than as a named dentist's byline, keeps this simple.
- 4.E.1 says paying a marketing vendor a specific amount or percentage of the fees collected from patients is fee splitting, and it names social media coupons and influencers.
The code of professional conduct is binding on ADA members. Your state dental board's rules govern your license and differ from state to state, so check your state dental board as well.
Before-and-after posts and specialty claims
Before-and-after photos carry both sets of rules at once. They are patient images, so they need the patient's HIPAA authorization. They are results claims, so under 5.F.2 they must not create an unjustified expectation about results. The before-and-after guide covers permission and framing.
Under 5.H, "specialist in" is for dentists who meet the educational requirements of a recognized specialty, such as orthodontics, periodontics or pediatric dentistry. Under 5.I, a general dentist may announce the services the practice offers, implants or aligners for example, as long as nothing expresses or implies specialization, and "general dentists shall also state that the services are being provided by general dentists." So "implants, placed by our general dentists" fits the code, and "our implant specialist" does not.
State dental boards differ on before-and-after images, disclaimers, results claims and specialty claims, so check your state dental board before posting any of them.
Four ways to get it done
If the person posting now is you, at night after the last patient, this is the section that matters. Costs below are typical ranges, not survey figures.
| Who does the work | Monthly cost | Who writes | Who reads before publishing | What tends to go wrong |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The dentist | Evenings, typically two to four hours a week | The dentist | The dentist | The feed stops the week the schedule fills and does not restart |
| A team member (office manager, front desk, treatment coordinator) | Part of a salary, plus a scheduler (Buffer has a free plan, read September 16, 2026; Metricool is $25 month to month, read July 29, 2026) | The team member, from the website and the dentist's notes | A dentist, if the practice sets the rule | Posting slips on busy days, or drafts wait on a dentist who never gets to them |
| A dental marketing agency | $1,500 a month and up, typical range, usually as part of a retainer with ads and search | The agency's writers | The agency's process, with the practice's sign-off if the contract says so | Paying for campaigns the practice did not need in order to get the posts |
| Software from the practice website (Boomp) | $9 to $275 | The software, from the practice's public pages | A dentist, each post, in the app or by email link; Boomp's founder on done-for-you | The practice treats the read as optional |
The full comparison of these options, what each one takes off the practice and what it leaves behind, is on the dental social media software and services page. Read that one if the decision in front of you is who, not what.
What Boomp reads, and what stays with the practice
Boomp is software. It reads the pages a practice has already published, the services pages, the new-patient page, insurance and financing, the team page, the FAQs and the office hours, and writes posts from them: a caption and an image for each, plus carousels and short videos on paid plans. It does not see charts, the schedule, the patient portal or anything else that is not on the public site. It publishes to Facebook, Instagram, Google Business Profile, LinkedIn, TikTok and the other channels it supports, nine in all. No plan runs ads, replies to comments or messages, shoots photos or holds strategy calls.
These stay with the practice:
- Patient authorization. Any patient image or story is the practice's decision, made with the practice's own HIPAA authorization. If the website shows patient reviews, testimonials or smile photos, the software can read them, so a post drawn from one needs the same authorization check before anyone approves it.
- Clinical claims. The website is the source, so a claim on the website becomes a claim in a post. Keep the website accurate, and have a dentist check what the posts say about treatment.
- Approving every post. On Packs, and on Core with auto approval off, a dentist reads every post before it goes out. On done-for-you, Boomp's founder approves instead, so if a dentist must read every post, choose Packs or Core.
- Perishable facts. Hours, insurance participation, fees and who is on the team.
- Replies to comments, reviews and messages.
The three doors at Boomp
Every Boomp plan starts the same way: the software reads the practice website and writes posts about the practice. The price follows how much of the work leaves the practice: the writing, then the publishing, then the approval.
- Packs, $9 a month. Ten finished posts with images, by email link. A dentist reads them and the practice posts them. Nothing to connect.
- Core, $39 a month. Twenty posts, one carousel and one video, published to the practice's connected channels after a dentist approves each one in the app. About ten minutes a week of approving.
- Done for you, $275 a month. The same content, with Boomp's founder approving every post before it publishes. The practice never opens the app. The approval is Boomp's founder's, not a dentist's, so choose Packs or Core if a dentist must read every post. It is not an agency: no ads, no replies, no photo shoots, no strategy calls.
No contract on any of the three.
Before any of them, the free step: enter your practice's website and your email, and a link to ten finished posts made from your own website arrives by email, with images, a carousel and a short video, before any account or card, so a dentist can read them the way any other draft would be read.
