It’s difficult to remember a time when the internet wasn’t part of the everyday fabric of our collective lives. The Yellow Pages, let alone the regular white pages phone directory and countless other hard copy publications are a thing of the past.  Social media, Twitter, Facebook, Yelp, and LinkedIn are now as ubiquitous as the personal computers, macs, smartphones, tablets etc. that are used to access such outlets of connectivity and instant information.

It was about seven years ago that I first collaborated with Betsy Kent, now a dear friend, but then a professional marketing strategist and early social media expert whose help I needed to create a website and establish an internet presence. It was during this process that she first suggested that I write a blog.

“A blog?” I said incredulously. “What could I possibly write about?”

Betsy suggested that I just be myself and find my voice. So after some thought and a lot of procrastination, I began to muse about The Dental and the Incidental which became, in fact, the name of my blog. On my blog I dispense useful information about a broad range of topics in dentistry, especially first aid advice for common dental mishaps. I share entertaining vignettes about life both in and out of the office, and sometimes share personal insights gained from the many inspiring people I have come to know in my over 30 years of practice.

Over the years, I have posted 125 blog posts (actually, I write them and Betsy’s team posts them along with the accompanying artwork and photographs). Betsy is quite the marketing guru and has literally put me on the internet map. It blows my mind that literally hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world have read my postings and that my website is visited by thousands (no exaggeration) of new visitors each month.

What follows is Betsy’s account of what recently happened to me as a result of her guidance and expertise. All I can say is,

How cool is this?”

Sometimes a content marketing strategy gets some pretty unexpected results. But when a blog post gets a New York City dentist into a Google commercial on TV in the U.K., well, it’s something pretty rare.

About five years ago I took on a new client, Dr. Michael Sinkin. Dr. Sinkin is a dentist in New York City…and he had a problem. His patient base was getting older and older and he had to find a cost-effective way to attract younger people to his practice.

When I recommended to Dr. Sinkin that a good strategy might be to start a blog, he looked at me with astonishment. He couldn’t begin to guess what he would blog about, why anyone would read his blogs, or imagine how blogging would have an impact on his practice.

Since starting his blog, Dr. Sinkin’s website has experienced an increase of 500% in visits. But the important thing is this is: 30% of the new patients walking in the door found him directly through his blogs.

OK, so that’s all great, but how did Dr. Sinkin get into a Google ad in the UK?

A few months ago, out of the blue, I was contacted by an advertising agency in Amsterdam in regard to Dr. Sinkin’s blog. The agency had been hired by Google to create a campaign for the mobile app, Ask Google and they wanted permission to use one of his blog posts in an ad.

Dr. Sinkin has a great sense of humor. In between penning blogs such as 7 Home Remedies for Toothache and What To Do If Your Tooth Cracks Or You Lose A Crown (which by the way have been read together over 150,000 times) he often drops in something a little lighter. An example of this is 7 Ways To Stop Brain Freeze, published in 2012, which is what the ad agency was interested in.

It went like this: the agency in Amsterdam searched for an article about brain freeze. Dr. Sinkin’s blog post came up on Google at the top of the list. (If you’ve ever wondered if blogs improve a company’s visibility, wonder no more!). They decided that it was perfect for the ad. And we said yes.

So, beginning a few weeks ago and for the next 6 months, Dr. Sinkin’s blog will be on the TV screens of millions of people across the UK. And strangely enough, his office has received quite a number of appointment requests from Brits who will be visiting New York City in the near future.

OK, maybe Dr. Sinkin isn’t really a star, but…this is still pretty cool, right?

To Dr. Sinkin from Betsy: it’s been a pleasure to be your guru, Dr. Sinkin. First New York, next THE WORLD!

Betsy Kent is the president of Be Visible. She can be reached here: betsy@bevisibleassoc.com.