Hello. Welcome to another episode of Beyond the Arches. I'm your host, Dr. Daniel Noorthoek. With me today, we are blessed to have Nadia Davis yet again.

Thanks for having me again. Welcome. Welcome. Uh like, subscribe, all that stuff. Right. Yeah.

We haven't said it in a little while, but it goes without saying everything we talk about, everything I say is my opinion. There are no doubt other people that have different opinions that think that my opinion is awful, etc. This is not meant to be medical advice. Just wanted to kick it out there and be very very clear with everyone that this is meant to be sort of informal opinionated discussions with people that I hold near and dear to my heart in this whole world of full arch dentistry. So like full tooth replacement.

Today what we're going to talk about is mastery versus marketing. We already talked a little bit about marketing and the flash, but I kind of want to get a little bit more into the social media side. Nadia is a lot more on social media. Not that you're the social media, not an influencer or anything, but right. Like it's not like we said, "Oh, Nadia's on Instagram all the time. We got to get on her for being on her phone." Um but uh Nadia actually truly you you're a person that has been around dentistry a long time with me, seen my career develop and flow and as such has has seen a lot of dentists sort of come through the office when we were just a lab service. Uh you were a part of that when we would film you know implant compare we would film cases and live stream them right? So, you know, you have over the years seen a lot of different trends and moved through a lot of different platforms and talked to a lot of different doctors and maybe say followed them and such. So, I thought it was a good time to get you in today to talk more like from a social media angle, right? and talk about there's a there's a lot of different ways that that an office can be presented and most of the time what you're going to get is that sort of refined here's the really bright office and the smiley patient and thing you know those those kind of uh attitudes and and sort of portrayals. Yeah. But you seeing both sides and a lot, you know, different offices and things, I wanted to kind of bring you in and kind of get your sort of opinion on sort of the status of dentistry.

And I'm going to let you jump in in two seconds. Here's the stage that that I would like to talk through a little bit. To me, when I look through my Instagram, I see a whole lot of Dr. so and so is the greatest and they took care of me and I think if I had tooth problems uh earlier I should have gone in earlier right and you have that like sort of forced in a corner sort of interview right and then on the other side you have a couple let's say orthodontic clinics 'cause god I hope it's not the full arch guys but you have the whole office dancing in the middle of the the office behind the the door which we're never doing by the way please don't make us do that never ever ever uh and then the Third category is sort of dentist to dentist and what I want to sort of start this discussing with is do you think that's just a function of of this following that I have or not the following but the the feed rather that I have that I see that or is it a trend that a dentist immediately sort of jumps to when they get a little success or when they get a little traction with the system do they jump to talking to the dentist because I feel very much that if I was a patient I would feel a little alienated where most of these guys are talking towards just other professionals and there's definitely a need for that and we will get way into that in the future but do you think that that's the function or like if you look at that knowing what I'm saying do you see the same thing you know what are you I mean the way that I see it like you're saying like how does it come about or no do you see that same sort of do you see it the same way or do you see it where maybe it's just my feed that shows dentists talking to other dentists?

No, it I think it's like they they get a little good at at what they do and then they want to like kind of brag about it and then it turns into this kind of like showboatie. Hey, look what I can do type of thing at the expense of the patient. Like I've seen that a lot.

Say that in a different way like describe that a little bit better.

So different, not to name drop offices, but like when we used to like um go live with the surgeries, that was more um more towards fellow dentists, not not patients, 'cause that would probably drive a lot of them away watching the surgery. But in speaking to other dentists, it's like, okay, here's my process, this and that. And then it just from there, I remember seeing other dentists jumping on that bandwagon and live streaming their surgeries, whether it be a single unit implant or full arch or what have you. And sometimes it just it just looked chaotic. Like it it got to a point where it was chaotic. Like the patient is having surgery, the doctor's like talking, one hand in the patient's mouth, other one holding a sandwich. Like it would just look like a circus almost.

There's also a aspect of that now I know what you're saying. There's an aspect of that that also will generally tout when a dentist is looking for a case they'll generally do that as sort of a cheaper surgery cheaper or free less expensive or free and then they sort of try to make it a little bit of a media thing too. So you see that person sort of have to puppy dog around with them and you know on on show. Um that's a big problem too, right? And we've tried. It's inevitable that that happens and no doubt I'm guilty of what we're saying here. I streamed a lot of surgeries and a lot of them were free or low cost, but we've really tried to get away from that. I mean, we still do a ton of pro bono work, but I never ever try to put that in front of the patient and be, hey, you know, I helped you and why don't you help me? 'cause I feel like the consumer that's on social media is generally going to be able to see that see through that a little bit easier. But also, you don't have to do that. Like your patients jump up to do that. Like they're not, you know, Right. But it took a long time to get to that point.

Yeah, I can see that. Um because I I think I'm biased, but I think we try to present it in a way that we're just trying to be excited and cool people, human to human. This is exciting that your life has changed. Yeah. Um this is exciting. You have to take a vacation to Bokeh. Yeah. This is exciting. It finally got done simply. And presenting that story is a whole lot easier than, hey, you're homeless and let's, you know, do you want to be my little follow puppy quite a bit, you know, around around town. Yeah. That always kind of ends up in a negative position and it does 'cause it's like it's like giving a a bum a couple dollars and like but while you're holding your camera doing it, it's like is it really a good deed if you're having to put it on camera?

Yeah. In terms of dental influence, do you Have you noticed any s like have you ever do you follow any social media accounts and you can tell me afterwards. Do you follow any social media accounts that you would say do a better job sort of presenting results and beforehands or is it just unfortunately the cookie cutter has to be I went to X office. I wish I did it sooner. This was awesome. That's all I've seen.

Yeah, it's not it's not as in depth, but do you think there's a better way that you were answering my question? I'm sorry. I jumped in there really quick.

It's fine. That's all there is is what you're saying.

Yeah, that's all I've seen.

Yeah. I wish there was better.

Mhm. I I try to rack my brain in the morning, you know, every morning about XYZ. And that's something that comes up in my brain quite often is is there a way to present this in a humble yet promotional type way that gets the message out. And I'll I'll parlay that with currently we're struggling a little bit with Google marketing not being as effective and the reason why and and it's and it's not just noticeable, it's worrisome noticeable. Oh yeah. And that is because we think or the the world is starting to see a big shift where people are searching things on AI more. Yeah. And they're sick of the social media feed, right? Like is there a social media burnout? Do you see social media burnout? Do you do you see social media burnout slash do you ever comment on any posts? Are you pretty silent followers?

I'm pretty silent. I just I just lurk in the background. Yeah. Um I don't I I don't know how to answer that question, doc. Sorry.

That's okay. Did um have you seen with all of the different tools and things that we have for capturing video? Have you seen social media get better for dentists? Have you seen overall quality of the message get better? Because that that could be something that's that's helpful too, right? If there's only one really way to get the message out, which is that person did awesome. Yeah. And before I could define it by having a $7,000 camera where, you know, the next guy over is using a a Razer flip phone. Yeah. I don't think it matters. You can see a big difference there. But can you see things sort of uh evening out in terms of the competition in terms of like quality of the video?

Yeah, I don't think the quality of the video matters because I mean we've had several patients um document their progress themselves and that proved to get way more views than what we got pushing our own stuff out. So yeah, user generated content is amazing. Yeah, whenever our our patients can generate content for us, it's so much better. Yeah. Um, word of mouth is the best type of advertisement that you could have that any office could have. So, yeah, you used to do a lot of editing for me when it came to videos and promotional stuff for the in I had a surgical Instagram account. Oh, like back in the um surgery, strictly surgery days. Strictly surgery. Those were my favorite.

Yeah. All the blood and guts. I missed that a little bit.

When when Naughty and I uh first started, we took a lot of pictures together. um a lot of surgical pictures. I still have them all on my computer, but when we were would take those, it required a it was almost a full-time job. I mean, I really respect the people that have the longevity and the and the main stay in the in the system to sit there and take those pictures day in and day out because it requires a lot of editing. Yeah. And a lot of vision and understanding. And sometimes your pictures just didn't turn out. Yeah. Yeah, it was frustrating because you'd never get that surgery, that moment in surgery back. Um, but it did provide us a lot of content to learn and and work off of. Of course, patients didn't like it either. You know, that was a that was another aspect. There's kind of two media personalities. You almost need to have the surgical side and then the the social personal side, right? Correct.

And you probably even working restorative and surgery through your time on social media, we'll call it Instagram, have had to sort of censor yourself depending on the people that are depending on my audience. Yeah. They're like, "Ew, I don't want to see this. What is that? Somebody's like gum tissue." Like, is that sutures? Yeah. Yeah. When when I started the Instagram, I had a lot of friends that were like, "Oh, implant Viking. Let me look at that. Let's I want to support you." All of that. They were great, supportive friends and family. And almost all of them were like, "I used to follow, but I just flipped through yours real quick or I ignore you or I blocked you or whatever 'cause I couldn't tolerate it anymore." Silent your stories.

Yeah. And I think that that negatively affected me because I I now have that that people come in when I tell them about the podcast. Yeah. They kind of instantly go, great. Um I Well, I guess I'll listen maybe. You know, they're not as supportive because they think that we're going to be sitting here talking about, you know, you ever have that bone just crack underneath your hand and that feeling, you know, they they don't want to be grossed out. Yeah. And and that's tough part, too, is we're trying to sell surgery. to to a population that needs it. But we are trying to sell it. We're trying to sell something that hurts to take care of a problem that is going to require pain that does require risk and big financial commitment. We're trying to sell that as something that's sexy and fun and you can only go so far with that, you know. Yeah. But it's the reward. It's it's what comes at the end of that. It's they get their smile. They get their respect back. They get their their health back. So, yeah,

there's the other side, too. I'm speaking directly of our prior work experience. The the cameras and the lights don't always tell the whole story, right? Yeah. Even if you're watching this today, you can't tell whether or not I run a really tight operation or a sloppy one. I'd hope that people would assume that it's a it's a tight one. It's a tight good one. But, you know, we've been a part of some some offices that were pretty really flashy and great marketing wise. I mean, we had, you know, remember Chris, he he did video for um he I think he did some work on Avengers. Yeah. Uh he did some work with um was it Avengers or like Walking Dead? I know one of them there were a couple different camera crews and one of them worked on The Walking Dead. That was cool.

Some of that I don't remember exactly what movie it was. Maybe he turned down Avengers. He He's I know he specifically did the video for most of the John Ham Mhm. Um uh what do you call narrated Mercedes commercials during that time with those. So he did some really high high-end level work. Yeah. And then behind the scenes tended to be somewhat more chaos than you can imagine, you know, and we fought through it and got through as best we could. But sometimes those cameras and that flash don't always tell the whole picture. And so managing that like we may know that that's not that important, but is it important to the patient, right? Is that something that's required for success is having the budget, if you will, to afford the high-end sexy lights?

I would argue that through this process, I've found that the world is sort of changing. Yeah. to the point that it's really just if you can get a person, a real person and a camera in front of them and they say this is awesome and it went fine, that's a whole lot better than how beautiful blue, yellow and strobing lights your you can make your machinery look. Yeah. which is a big change since I started because when I first started that was what you got patience with is yeah how tech forward you were how beautiful the camera shots and the angles were very minimal user generated content of sorts. Yeah.

I've always wanted to do a segment or wanted to really get focus on getting content. This is for patients if they're listening. shoot a video because it's amazing stuff for us. Well, I think one of your surgeries was like recording or we've had a couple come in and like just record themselves and make a little montage of their experience here. Yeah. And passing that on to us so we can repost it or do what or whatever you want to do these days. But, you know, social media is a a great foundation for sort of grassroots movements. I mean, we're still grow we're we're still very much grassroots movement. And so, it's been important for us because it allows us to get a presence without having to justify this insane budget or sell our souls for said camera time or um so it's been great because we can kind of be small and kind of create this little community. You know, we we've got the community of Facebook and so social media is very important. it is. Um, but I think that there again going back to it the first thing that always hits me when I open my Instagram is I don't know if I'm just the only guy that doesn't see that it doesn't work or something, but there's this huge category of dentists speaking to other dentists, selling their advice and selling their the way that they do their morning huddles or whatnot, any number of things. And they're not even masters at what they do. Like they potentially. Yeah. Um Right. I mean there's there's usually a reason why somebody's looking for extra income selling a conference. Yeah. Um because I can tell you um I am not a rich person and I'm not like overly filled with cash, but I can tell you that I'm not looking to go teach dentistry or conferences to groups of people any longer. There was a period of time. Yeah. But um I always actually this is random but I always had a um I had a professor and I would talk about or I mentioned one time this guy's got three offices. He has one in Tampa, he has one in, you know, North Tampa, he has one in East Tampa. I don't know where they were, but uh he looked at me dead in the eye. He goes, "If you have to have three offices with your time to make one income with all of the the outflow of money that it takes to run three, then you're probably not very good at your job because you should be really busy at one." Yeah. That it kind of always stuck with me.

And now now as we're I go to Tampa for the surgeries currently, I'm thinking like uhoh, am I that guy? No. Um but uh very soon that'll be gone. Um, but you know, it's it's interesting to watch as the the world and the landscape changes and social media changes and and what works with patients changes, right? Yeah. What is it going to be? I think that there's going to be a little bit of a surge of the local the local results with the local dentists or in terms of like I'm sorry since we started this podcast I've been sick twice. I I haven't been sick in like three years. I've been sick twice. So I'm all congested every single podcast we've done so far. Um, but I think with AI, you know, if you go on and you say, um, I don't know, let's just say that you're looking for who to get your hair done with, right? And you say like what to look for in a hair salon. In AI, it's not allowed to advertise yet. So, it can't say you should go to Sally's hair salon or some big, you should go to Supercuts. I'm not saying that. I know you're a woman in all particular, but for example, it can't say and it can't have a sponsor lick for super cuts at the top. And so what you're going to get is you're going to find out the questions to ask and what to do and how to do it without this algorithm until they allow advertising there. Sort of pushing you towards really what is at hand to you, which might be your local dentist. Yeah. So, I think we're going to see a little bit of a surge to the local dentist to be honest with you, because if I can't advertise to a guy in Idaho as well, then that means that the guy that's in Idaho, he's not going to just not get full arch, more or less, he might do a lot of research, but I think that there's a higher likelihood that he ends up he or she ends up in that local area. That's my own gut feeling because they're not able to if you can't push your agenda from across the country and where people are getting the resource the AI suggestion through chat GPT of who to look for and what to look for you'll probably keep your circle a little bit smaller because you don't even know that those other things exist just random thoughts from D. I see it's all good.

Yeah. So, um, as we kind of look towards wrapping this sort of, uh, topic up, is there anything in full or in, uh, social media that is being done that you think that we should do? Any dances? Any trends?

No dances. No trends. Um, thank God you said that. Yeah. Sorry, I'm not I mean, I'm a big dancer, but at home, like, not not here. Not for work, not for the cameras. But um no, I think maybe just more authentic um footage like when patients do their own and they put up their own stuff that that I don't know that just stands out to people more than you popping up on the camera saying, "Hey, look, this is Tim and we did his teeth and look how great he looks." like Tim was good-looking, but it's better if Tim goes on and says that himself.

Right. Right.

And I agree. And and I want that to be I I want our social media and our presence in the world to be this very um grassroots movement of these people do good, therefore send work there. Yeah. Rather than me trying to push the agenda or you trying to push the agenda. Yeah. It creates, as we talked about before, it creates less stress on us and our relationship. I don't have to say, "Hey, Nadia, I thought you were going to think of great ideas for XYZ." And it allows us to get along better. It allows us to work better together and allows I think that the the patient to get better information, you know. Yeah. Because I mean on our Facebook page, patients are talking to each other and they're getting information from each other. Um you know, advice from each other. Hey, you know, I'm about to have my surgery. What should I pack? What should I take with me? What advice do you have for me? Um and and to to parlay on that, it's a very sort of strange connection I just made, but I'm thinking through creating that community is is hard enough on its own. Yeah. But keeping that community or sustaining it and keeping them happy and fans is much harder. And it's sort of one of the main intentions of the lifetime warranty that we're doing. It's not for it's not a play on finances. Yeah. It's keeping both parties responsible to you know there are is work involved to keep these things clean and taken care of. Yeah. But it also keeps that connection and it creates and builds that community feel such that if there is a problem, we'll know faster and can fix it faster. Yeah. I just did a case on a guy who I did his surgery many many years ago in a different office. We restored it in different teeth and we redid his case for free full set of teeth and u because he hadn't taken care of them or come in for cleanings and such. Yeah. And then disappeared again for what amounts to essentially two years and I had to redo it again. And um that that problem is more or less created because of the absence not because of the process itself. And so keeping that community sort of tight knit and communicative and willing to record things has been very difficult but I think we're getting better at it and that's sort of like the point of the everything that we're building like doing this y like you know the lifetime warranty things that allow people to sort of stay engaged and be mentors to the new people and I think it also helps them to just my opinion um keep each other accountable like hey You know, Dan, it was really nice to do this for you. Like, you weren't there for two years.

Like, great point. Mhm.

I hadn't thought of that. Well, it's an interesting topic. Social media is always an interesting one and always an interesting view. But yeah, um, I appreciate you coming in and talking to us and giving us some insight.

Thanks for having me. I don't feel like I said much. Like, it's okay. You don't have to say much. It's it's comfortable, easy conversation. Um, but it's always good to have you in the office and I really do this heartfelt do appreciate you coming back and giving us a shot and being the leader master of our awesome results. So, um, it's been a been a pleasure to have you back.

Well, it's been a pleasure to be on the podcast. Yeah. So, it's been fun. Like, subscribe, smash the red button. Again, this is only our opinions. There are lots of lots of them out there. Probably better ones, probably worse ones. Uh but continue to listen in because we're going to keep delving back and or delving into and pulling back the layers of the onion of full arch dentistry. And uh we look forward to your listen next time.

Thank you.