Social Media - A Boon to Dental Profession

Abstract

Social media is computer mediated technology that allows people to share information, ideas, interests with each other through virtual communities and networks. Nowadays social media has become an essential part of modern life as everyone has busy routine and people primarily communicate with each other through electronic social media. Presently, various social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Telegram, LinkedIn and Snapchat have gained popularity. As social media is so much integrated in daily routine of people, so it cannot be excluded from dental professions also. Social media is effective and economical tool for advertising dental practice and educating people as people are keen to know about their dental treatments and they search on social media for different options of treatments, dental clinics and check for social media reputation of dentist. Therefore it is time to understand power and applications of social media as it is a new approach to reach patients by dental clinicians. This article will discuss about various common social media platforms, their uses, shortcomings and overall impact of social media on dental profession.