Social Media Marketing Archives

10 Tips For Writing a Powerful Social Media Ad

Over the past decade, social media has become quite the marketing force, with businesses of all shapes and sizes expanding their ad game on multiple social platforms. But are all ads created equal? The answer is unequivocally “no.”

Physical therapy ads are targeting a unique audience – those in pain usually with movement disorders.

The Challenge with Social Media Advertising

The big challenge is that most patients don’t search for the help of a healthcare provider on social media. This is where ads come in. You put your message in front of a local audience that uses Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. You’re guaranteed to get your name in front of members of the community.

The only problems are that most of them:

don’t have a problem they think you can help them with,
don’t know if seeing a physical therapist is the right choice,
have to go through several steps before they become a paying patient.

You only have a second or two to engage the social media user, so your ads have got to stand out. While there are challenges as noted above, your ads will not result in any meaningful return on investment if they aren’t compelling, well-written, and have visual creative (pictures or video) that gets Facebook/Instagram/Twitter users to stop scrolling and click on your ad.

But how? Today, I’m going to provide 10 tips for writing a powerful social media ad.

#1 Don’t Forget About Your Brand Voice

You want your current and potential customers to recognize your brand voice everywhere, so consistency is key. If your business’s brand voice is light and carefree everywhere else, then you want to make sure your social media ad copy reflects that too. Be careful with this brand voice. Healthcare providers are professionals. If you are going to keep it fun, always remember to be professional.

#2 Keep It Simple

Remember: you’ve only got a second or two before the user will scroll on and forget your ad even existed. That’s why it’s important to keep your social media ad copy simple. If it’s possible, for example, to take your ad from 5 sentences to 1 and maintain the same message, then do it. “Longer,” in the case of social media copy, is probably not better, but you have to test. Only through testing short and long ad copy will you know what works best.

#3 Engage Your Audience

The real purpose of social media is socializing, so your ad copy needs to reflect that. Instead of promoting, promoting, promoting, you’ll want to engage your audience in conversation. Ask them questions, ask for their opinions, or start a discussion about a relevant topic and ask them to weigh in.

Yes, you can still advertise, but don’t forget to converse with your local market and prospective patients. No matter how you choose to do it, socializing is much more effective in helping you make human connections than just posting ads dry ads.

#4 Target the Senses

Enhance your social media ad copy with visuals like intriguing images or videos. Much of your audience will be attracted to what they see and not necessarily what they read, so make sure those images or videos are good!

Think about your scrolling habits. When you’re perusing Instagram, for instance, does the written copy or the visual image/video catch your eye first? Chances are, you chose the visuals, and chances are, so will your audience.

#5 Proofread and Edit

Nothing is more of a turn-off than an ad that contains typos. Even the best writers overlook an error or two, so don’t feel bad about running your ad copy past another set of eyes. Trust me: you don’t want your audience to catch them before your team does. After all, your credibility and professionalism are on the line every time you click the “publish” button.

And there are extra benefits to passing your work off to another set of eyes. For one, your colleague could notice inconsistencies with brand voice. And second, you could get a different perspective on the tone of your ad. Sometimes when we’re “too close to the project,” we can’t see where changes need to be made.

#6 Target the FOMO – Fear of Missing Out on Natural Care & Pain Relief

There needs to be a sense of urgency in your ad copy. If not, then what would stop a potential customer from scrolling past while vowing to themselves to come back later? Adding an element of FOMO, or the Fear of Missing Out, is a critical part of getting potential customers to click and buy in the moment.

So, how do you create this urgency? Offer educational information. If you are advertising and event, then use urgency and scarcity – deadlines and limited seating.

#7 Align Your Advertising

Instead of thinking of your social media ad as a stand-alone piece, you’ll want to take a step back and ask yourself how it fits into your strategy as a whole. Make sure that this ad — along with all of your others — is just a piece of a broader message about who you are, conditions you treat, how to prevent problems, and what patients can expect from your company.

#8 Your CTA

Once you’ve determined the goal of your social media ad (whether it’s for your potential customer to learn more, make a purchase, or refer a friend), write a call-to-action that encourages customers to take steps toward that goal.

Keep them simple and short, and make sure they deliver on the promise. In other words, if your call-to-action says “learn more,” then be sure that when they click on it, they learn more — avoid making your customers jump through several hoops by clicking on CTAs that don’t deliver.

#9 Use Emojis

If appropriate for your business’s tone, style, and feel, try incorporating emojis into your ad copy. Of course, if your audience isn’t in tune with emojis, then you should probably avoid them. But if you do decide to use them, make sure you’re consistent with which ones you use and how you use them. You can be funny and quirky and engaging if you choose the right emojis…but remember, you are a physical therapy practice.

#10 Analyze Your Ad’s Performance – Even the Best Advertisers Miss the First Time

As always, in advertising your physical therapy services, there is usually quite a bit of trial and error. If you’re not willing to put in the time and some budget, don’t advertise. However, as long as you keep an open mind and a willingness to test, you should be able to tweak your ads to reach a wider or more relevant audience.

Once your ad goes live, take a look at how well it performs. Analyze the “why” behind its performance, and use this information to make changes to future ads. Then, analyze their performance to see if your tweak worked or if you need to make further changes.

It’s All About Ads That Perform

Of course, every business wants to produce ads that perform well. That’s why it’s important to assess your current ad copy’s strengths and weaknesses and to incorporate the above tips as you write more. Trying the new and tweaking the old is essential to good copywriting, and you’re sure to see results if you keep pressing forward.

10 Steps to Market Your Physical Therapy Practice on Instagram

Are you trying to step up your social media game? If so, be sure to add Instagram marketing to your social media strategy. It seems that virtually everyone has an Instagram account these days, and users are engaging more and more with targeted ads. If you’re interested in jumping into the Instagram marketing game, read on to learn the ins and outs of marketing your practice on Instagram.

#1 Set Up Your Account Properly

First things first. To get started, you’ll need to set up a PT practice account on Instagram. Avoid using your personal account to conduct business. Instead, make sure you have a practice account. You’ll stay within Instagram’s Terms of Service, and you’ll get more tools and the ability to advertise with your upgraded account status.

#2 Add Your Website Link

In your Instagram bio, you’ll want to add a link to your website. This is your chance to turn interested prospects into patients. If they want to learn more about what you do and why you do it, the link to your website will give them that opportunity. Since the bio section on Instagram has a limit of only 150 characters, you need to make them count, and what could be more important than a link to your website?

#3 Craft Your Bio

Like I mentioned above, you’ve only got 150 characters to hook new followers, so craft a bio that gives them the goods right away. Your bio should be straight-to-the-point, telling potential followers what your practice does and how your specialty treatments add value to the feeds of followers. And remember: Instagram is not a selling platform… it’s for socializing. So, stay ditch the sales pitch.

One more quick note: Remember to update your bio when you’ve got something new to share with your followers, like an announcement about the physical therapy practice, a new offering, or a big sale, and then add a link so that they can learn more.

#4 Stay Consistent

If you’re trying to increase brand awareness and engagement through social media, you’ll need to make sure your message, your bio photo, and your name are consistent across all social media channels. You want your prospects to be able to recognize you immediately, whether they’re scrolling through their Facebook feed or searching hashtags on Instagram.

#5 Learn More About Your Audience’s Engagement Patterns

Instagram Insights gives you all kinds of information about content views, website clicks, follower activity, video views, and saves. Instagram Insights allows you to understand what’s working and what’s not. Armed with this knowledge, you can adjust your marketing strategy to expand your reach.

#6 Socialize!

Like I mentioned earlier, socializing is the main intent of a platform like Instagram, so instead of trying to sell, sell, sell, just socialize. When people comment, respond! When people ask questions, respond! Give your take when an interesting topic is posted. Share or reference another post that you found interesting. Show your audience — not to mention, your future audience — that you’re involved, engaged, and interested in what matters to them.

#7 Create Some Competition

Another great way to increase your social media presence on Instagram is to hold contests. People love to compete, and they LOVE to win, so holding contests gets people involved who may have otherwise scrolled past your page. Create a fun hashtag for your contest to get even more engagement, and share the winner and maybe even some of the close contenders with your audience. What a great way to engage people and boost brand awareness.

#8 Add a Promo Code

If you’re trying to boost sales, you can always count on an offer to help you out. Try adding a promo code to your Instagram page (and don’t forget that link in your bio so they know where to go to take advantage of it). Everyone loves to save, so a free exam or a free massage might be the very thing that turns a hesitant prospect into a first-time patient. Promo codes are also great for measuring engagement and sales because when the patient uses it, you can tell exactly where they came from.

#9 Tell Stories

Instead of relying solely on your profile to engage your followers, take advantage of Instagram’s Story feature. You can string your pictures and videos together to tell — you guessed it — a story about your brand. Whether it’s a behind-the-scenes look at your clinic or a testimonial from one of your loyal patients, you can engage your followers like never before with your Story. A quick note: each image or video in your Story is only visible for 24 hours, after which it disappears.

Get fun and creative with your Story, and be sure to offer your followers something that isn’t available on your regular Instagram page. This original content will keep them coming back for more.

#10 Work With an Influencer

In the Instagram world, Influencers are people with special expertise in a given field, and their endorsement of your product or service is a HUGE asset to your physical therapy practice. Before linking up with an influencer, be sure that he or she has a large following in your industry and that they’ve got a track record for influencing others.

You can get an influencer to work with you by offering them incentives and free samples to try. You can also pay an influencer to tout your business. Either way, getting an influencer on your side can cause a monumental increase in sales.

The Bottom Line

Whether you’re just starting out or you need to step up your social media game, Instagram is a great asset to your marketing strategy. It’s time to get out there and turn those likes and follows into new patients.

Physical Therapy Marketing Tip: How to Use Micro-Influencers To Grow Your Practice

What are Micro-Influencers?

Micro-influencers are people with a distinct social media presence, typically between 1,000 and 100,000 followers, that are in your local community. They know a lot about your community and people look to them for recommendations and advice about what matters and what to purchase.

Since micro-influencers resemble more of a trusted friend than a slick salesperson, they have some serious marketing power that you should capitalize on.

The Data on Micro Influencing

A 2017 Consumer Content Report surveyed 2,000 adults in the US, UK, and Australia about their unique perspectives on the consumer buying process.

When it comes to engaging with a brand, it turns out that what matters most to 90% of Millennials is authenticity. And what do they consider “authentic”? Certainly not perfectly packaged branding.

Instead, people prefer to consult a trustworthy source to decide where to spend their money, and 60% of them find that content created by consumers themselves is where they can find it.

Furthermore, a study conducted by HelloSociety found that survey respondents were 3x more likely to follow an influencer than an actual brand.

What does this mean for you? That micro-influencing is a powerful tool to reach potential patients, no matter what their age or demographic.

A Powerful Tool in Your Local Market

We all know that word-of-mouth is the most powerful tool to win new customers. Well, micro-influencing takes it to a whole new level by combining word-of-mouth with social media.

Micro-influencers have “influence” because they’ve built a rapport with their audience and, in many cases, some of that audience is made up of a local community of followers. By connecting with micro-influencers in your area, you can create buzz and really raise awareness about your physical therapy services.

How to Find Micro-Influencers for Your Physical Therapy Practice

Ok, now that you know how powerful local micro-influencers can be, let’s discuss how to find them.

Here are three simple recommendations:

Check out a micro-influencer online properties such as Facebook Groups in your neighborhood and the Nextdoor app.
Search keywords and hashtags on Instagram, Twitter, or other social media channels to find influencers that fit your practice and have a local audience. For example, #SanDiegoRunners or #HanfordSwimmers .
Use Google to manually type in [YOUR CITY] + [PRACTICE SPECIALTY] + [BLOGGERS or INFLUENCERS] and scan the results. For example, if you treat runners, you could search for “San Diego Running Experts or Influencers.”

Look for local influencers that have a good-sized general audience similar to your patient base and let them strategize creative ways to share your practice…that’s what they do!

Tips for Using Micro-Influencers

Invite them to try your practice “on the house.” If they love your physical therapy services, you may get some good (and free!) exposure as they could respond to your efforts by mentioning them in their Facebook Group or posting a “thank you” on their blog.
Reach out and ask if they are open to doing paid posts or shout-outs. Prices could vary depending on their amount of influence, so determine what you’re willing to pay ahead of time-based on what their influence could mean for your practice.
Let them be authentic… don’t try to guide their campaigns too much. Remember, your potential patient base is looking for genuine interactions with your practice, and the micro-influencer will provide just that.
Use a variety of micro-influencers. Rinse and repeat! The more positive exposure form multiple avenues, the more awareness for your brand. But don’t use them all at once or it will be very clear to your community that it’s a paid campaign, which defeats the purpose of using influencers for more authentic feeling marketing.

Your Turn!

It’s time to get off the fence and commit to putting in the time and effort to find micro-influencers that can drive you more business!

Use the tips outlined above to launch your first local micro-influencer campaign!

Physical Therapy Social Media Marketing Tips

With just a few improvements, your social media profiles could become the crown jewel of your digital marketing strategy. By switching up your approach and committing to a higher level of quality, you could soon be generating more leads, revenue, and interest in your physical therapy practice with minimal effort.

The great thing about social media marketing is that it doesn’t have to take a lot of your time to work wonders. If you plan ahead and use social media to reinforce your other marketing activities, you can achieve huge ROI through both organic and paid social campaigns.

So, to inspire you to improve your social presence and go beyond expectations, try implementing the following five highly effective social media marketing improvements.

Create a Social Media Marketing Strategy Document

Writing down your marketing ideas matters. According to CoSchedule, professionals who document their planned marketing strategy are over five times more likely to achieve success. Also, 88% of people who set marketing goals actually achieve them.

Documenting your social strategy involves both high-level and low-level considerations.

On the high level, you want to include your overarching goals for social. You want to describe how social media fits within your overall digital marketing plan. You want a few guiding pointers for brand voice and the type of values you want to express.

For low-level strategy, consider how often you want to post per week or per month. Plan a budget for the next quarter. Describe publisher sources for shared content you want to write.

Getting all of this down in writing helps you stay focused and consistent. It also makes it easier to communicate your intended strategy to others, such as employees or contract marketers.

Most importantly, it keeps you from approaching your social media activities haphazardly. Having intention and purpose is the key to achieving better results.

Coordinate Social Posts With Specific Campaigns

If you want to push your social media marketing to the next level, try a couple of test campaigns. These campaigns should start with you posting about your expertise and in time and with repetition, branding yourself in your areas of expertise.

Then, you should tie your brand expertise (i.e. clinical expertise) into special events, promotions or campaign pushes so that they can have an express purpose beyond “just posting because.”

For instance, if you have a promotional offer like a free consultation, your social campaigns can convert audiences into leads or customers. If you have an event, like a lower back pain seminar, you will be aiming to increase foot traffic over the seminar period.

Connecting social media activity to campaigns in this way ties them to concrete goals. Your performance can be benchmarked, helping you seek out ways to improve your next campaign based on past data.

For each campaign, create custom graphics and a variety of post ideas. For example, you can plan to develop a few beautiful photo-based posts as a way to turn heads on a platform like Instagram. You can also create a few strong call-to-action posts to generate interest and early signups on Twitter or Facebook.

Creating special, limited time campaigns like these helps you learn quick lessons and improve rapidly with your social media use. The data you generate and experience you gain gives you skills that make you better at using social media, helping you improve and accomplish your goals more consistently over time.

Create Content Marketing Assets and Landing Pages Just for Social

You can significantly upgrade your social media marketing returns by creating assets specifically designed to complement social posts.

For instance, you can create a lead capture landing page for specific target segments to use with targeted promoted social media posts. That way, your call to action can take 18-year-old college students to a different page with different appeals than your page aiming to convert 70-year-old retirees.

You can also create assets that you know will perform well on social, such as infographics. Infographics get around 41.5% engagement, on average, making them the content with the second-best ROI behind video.

Developing assets like these help connect your social media presence to customer actions that actually generate revenue. They also ensure you have a best-fit destination for each outgoing click to your website, as opposed to shoehorning a single “contact us” page link into every post or something similar. Since each asset is custom-made for social, they’re better suited to their individual purpose.

Invest in Professional Grade Social Video

Speaking of developing visual content with high ROI, now is the time to start considering using video within your social media marketing strategy.

Businesses that use video marketing generate 66% more qualified customer leads and earn 54% more brand awareness compared to those that don’t use any video. Even more impressive, 77% of small practice owners who use video report significant benefits and positive ROI.

These assets get attention and shape the way people see your practice. They serve as a form of social proof for the quality of your services when they include live testimonials. They give you something to link to within other campaigns and to embed within your blogs. They also serve as brief sales pitches that can be far more convincing than any chunk of text.

For best results, plan ahead for when and why you want to use your video assets and how you can repurpose them in multiple ways for future campaigns.

Need a Complete Online Marketing Strategy for Your Physical Therapy Practice? We Can Help.

For a free, no-obligation consultation, you can contact us at (760) 585-9097. We will discuss what you are doing know, your goals, and show you how we might be able to help.

Facebook Marketing for Physical Therapy Private Practices – How to Stay Engaged

Woman Clicking Like Button. She Likes It!

No doubt you have already set up a Facebook Page for your practice and hopefully you have a number of fans that have joined your page since then.

Your goal now is to build a relationship with these fans and interact with them. You want to let your fans know that you value them and they are special. By doing so, you will encourage them to continue to read and interact with your posts. You need to consistently give your fans a reason to care about what you have to say.

Here are six ways to make your fans feel special and encourage them to stay loyal to your practice:

Fan of The Month

This is a great way you can make your fans feel special. There are so many variations of this theme. For example, it could be a fan of the month or a birthday of the month. Or if you want to take it a step further, crown a patient of the month for someone who has improved significantly over the past month. You get the idea, but whatever theme you use, your fans will love it.

To make it fair, you could make a random drawing where you pick a name out of a hat. Some people even video it and upload the video to YouTube and then post the link on their Facebook page.

Or it could be a reward for a fan that you think has made the most valuable contribution to your page. Or you could come up with a short-list and encourage other fans to vote and base it on how many “likes” a particular nominee has received.

This type of promotion is very simple but works well by highlighting individual fans on your page and putting them in the spotlight.

Here are some examples from companies who do this well:

The beauty with this kind of promotion is that you don’t have to give any prizes out other than the recognition they get from being featured as a “fan of the month.”

It is a good way to interact with your customers and fans. It shows that you appreciate and value them. It also encourages them to stay loyal to you and your patients as well as interact on your Facebook page.

Ask The Physical Therapy Expert

This can be excellent way to drive traffic to your site and to provide valuable information for your fans.

For an example of a good ‘Ask The Expert’ topics, take a look at this web page: https://csspt.com/ask-a-pro/

Now consider making these topics live events.

Here’s one from PRO PT that we really like:

https://www.facebook.com/PROPTPHYSICALTHERAPY/videos/1855558364473172/

This is how it would work:

Choose a day where you or another physical therapist from your practice shares their expertise about a certain topic. Have another employee (or even a patient, if possible) interview the expert with some general questions about physical therapy treatment, general health or exercise tips. Change the topic a couple times per month and use it as a platform to open a conversation about something you feel patients can benefit from.

This is a win-win situation for everybody involved. Your fans will be happy because they can learn more about physical therapy and have some important questions answered. You win because your fans are happy and more educated, and you may have also managed to draw in new patients.

For this to work effectively of course you will need to have a decent amount of active fans or you will not get enough participation.

All About the Fans Day

This is a similar theme to the fan of the month as it is yet another way to make your fans feel very special and appreciated.

A great way to do this is to allow your fans to promote themselves on your page. So if your fans have a website or a blog, let them post a link.

Create a special day each week or month where your fans can post anything they like about themselves. It can be their site, a picture of their kids, pet, car or whatever they want to post.

Obviously, you will be around to moderate the posts and make sure that they don’t violate any rules or directly compete with what you are offering, but it is a great way to encourage interaction.

Three More Ways to Turn Your Fans into Ambassadors:

Run a Live Event & Feature a Fan
Promote a Local Cause & Increase Their Reach
Use Facebook Live Video to Share a Topic of Interest

Make Sure Your Message is Seen – Boosting Posts

You may have read that Facebook has essentially eliminated organic reach of Facebook Business Page posts (Reference) . At the time of this post, that’s exactly what we are seeing. For example, if you have 100 Facebook Page fans (Likes), and you posted something this time last year, 20-30 of your fans may have seen that post in their news feed. Today, that number has been reduced to single digits.

Side Note: if you do get your fans (hint, hint your staff members for example) to share your page posts, you will still get some organic reach.

To combat your loss of organic reach, you will want to boost your Facebook posts. It’s fast, easy and for a few dollars (i.e. $10 – $20) you can still reach a significant number of people. Therefore, when you do post something of value as described above, make sure you use the boost function to get the message out.

Physical Therapy Clinic Marketing: Using Social Media to Learn About Prospective Patients

If you haven’t already noticed, we’ve reached a point where the process of physical therapy clinic marketing now has to include social media, almost by default. While this should hopefully be clear to you, what it means may be a little different from what you might expect.

Why You Need Two Accounts in Physical Therapy Clinic Marketing

Many experts are now recommending that if you own a physical therapy practice, you should create two separate accounts. One is a personal account for yourself that connects to another account, which is designed specifically for your clinic. You can see the logic in this, even if places like LinkedIn consolidate both of these onto one page. [pullquote3 align=”right” textColor=”#000000″]Nurturing relationships online is a growing way to generate leads on social media so you have a more targeted audience for your later marketing content.[/pullquote3] Nevertheless, you give yourself an advantage by having a personal account because it’s there where you can start conversations with prospective patients. Nurturing relationships online is a growing way to generate leads on social media so you have a more targeted audience for your later marketing content.

But when you start conversations on places like Twitter, how do you approach talking to someone? Instead of trying to hard-sell your physical therapy practice, the best approach should be a more natural conversation that simply proves your expertise in the field of physical therapy. At the same time, you can use these social media conversations as a way to create a patient persona so you understand what they’re looking for in doctors providing the best physical therapy techniques.

Where Should You Start Your Social Media Conversations?

Conversations can take place on any social media platform, though Twitter is one of the best places to search for discussions and join in. Through a simple hashtag search, you can find conversations underway related to physical therapy.

Because Twitter has discussions underway about virtually everything, you likely won’t have trouble finding numerous people discussing physical therapy issues. When you join in on a conversation, make it a natural progression without mentioning how you’re a physical therapist or own a clinic. Any hint that you’re trying to sell yourself could risk you being blocked.

This is why it’s important to write a compelling Twitter bio so those who click on your profile can see that you already have credibility. As you start a conversation, you can start to learn some things about the type of patients you want to connect with. Here’s some things to find out about prospective patients so you can further target your marketing toward them.

What You Can Determine from General Information

Once you become friends with the above people on Twitter, they’ll start following you. Don’t let the conversations end, though, because you’ll be surprised at how much you’ll get to know about them as you continue talking with one another.

You’ll want to know a few things outside of general points like their age and what they do for a living. Here are some areas to focus on:

1. Pain Points

Finding out the pain points of a prospective patient is essential because you determine exactly what kind of physical pain they’re experiencing and how you can help solve it. Once you get to know your followers, you can find out what kind of physical pain they’re having and how it affects them during their work day.

2. Is Pain Stopping Them from Reaching a Goal?

As an adjunct to pain points, is the physical pain in any person above preventing them from accomplishing something? Find out what that pain is, because your marketing content can hone in on this to prove your techniques. You can do this later by showing past examples of solving pain problems so patients could function physically again in their careers.

3. What They Expect from Physical Therapy

Try to find out what physical therapy techniques these prospective patients are looking for in particular. Can they wrap their busy schedules around yours? Finding out what they expect can help you tweak things further in your physical therapy clinic marketing content so you attract like-minded people to your social media accounts without seeking them first.

[info_box]If this is a new pursuit for you and your practice, it may sound a bit daunting at first. This response is normal, but that’s exactly where we can come in to help. Contact E-Rehab once you’re ready to take control of your physical therapy clinic marketing, so we can assist you by finding unique social media marketing tactics for your physical therapy practice.[/info_box]

Why You Need a Blog to Improve Your Physical Therapy Reputation Marketing

Are you struggling to create a successful physical therapy reputation marketing approach? If so, you should strongly consider writing blogs if you’re not already doing so. Although blogs are often treated like an afterthought by many businesses, they can be a powerful tool for boosting the reputation of your physical therapy practice.

Why You Should Blog to Improve Your Physical Therapy Reputation Marketing

Business owners often neglect the importance of a blog when it comes to reputation marketing, but that is a huge mistake: [highlight4]blogs are actually one of the most effective ways to spread your brand and reach a potential audience.[/highlight4]

This is even true of a physical therapist like you: a well-written, fun, and informative blog can provide your patients with information about common physical problems, easy self-fixes, unique personal stories, and treatment angles they would have never considered otherwise.

Build Your Authority

By way of illustration, marketing expert Steve Olenski of Forbes magazine delved deeply into the world of blog-based marketing and found that it offered a unique approach to the following: content strategy; demographic marketing, and authority building.

The latter point is especially important: if you come across like a true expert on physical therapy (by offering well-researched and engaging blog content), your reputation will grow by leaps and bounds.[blockquote align=”center”]Blogging also offers a unique way for your patients to interact with you via the comment section found in most high-quality blogs. Here, they can praise your blog content and your services, which will create a positive feedback loop that will continually enhance your reputation for years to come.[/blockquote]

Even if they come to your blog to complain, you can still turn that into an advantage by directly addressing their concerns and soothe their fears by offering a free examination. You will come away looking humble and willing to fix your mistakes: a major reputation boost.

Researching Blog Topics

Consistently updating a worthwhile blog requires finding topics you want to write about. That’s actually much trickier than it seems, especially as a physical therapy expert, since you already have an extremely extensive understanding of the subject matter. On the other hand, the audience of your website doesn’t have this same understanding, and figuring out what they’d like to learn about can be a struggle.

In this circumstance, it’s best to step back and think about an industry or service which you know little about, such as auto repair, and consider what confuses you about it. Then, you should brainstorm similar topics for your blog, such as:

Common injuries or painful conditions
Relevant treatments used to address these issues
Other techniques and services you may use during treatment
How long each treatment session takes, and how many sessions may be needed for certain injuries

Next, try to center each of your blogs around these ideas, such as ACL tear rehabilitation, to create a plethora of possible blog topics. If you get stuck trying to find a good topic, use a tool like Google AdWords to pinpoint commonly searched keywords that are relevant to physical therapy.

For example, keywords and phrases like “torn ACL” and “did I break my ankle?” commonly show up in Google searches. Pitch your blog around these keywords, adding a unique twist, such as “home remedies for a broken toe,” and you have a potential blog topic.

Always Utilize a Reputable “Author” for All Content

Creating a blog without a reputable author is one of the biggest ways you can destroy the effectiveness of your physical therapy reputation marketing. Don’t farm it out to just anyone: either write the blog yourself, find a skilled intern willing to do it for some extra cash, or find reputable physical therapists willing to occasionally guest blog for you.

Focusing your blog on truly informative and knowledgeable writers creates a sense of “author authority” that will make your blog stand out in an over-saturated market. People will immediately trust what you have to say and, as a result, your blog—and your reputation—will grow exponentially.

[squeeze_box5]By now, it should be apparent that you simply can’t avoid setting up a blog for your physical therapy practice. The boost to your reputation will be too immense for you to ignore. However, if you’re still struggling to set up a good blog or come up with a great reputation marketing strategy, please don’t hesitate to contact us at E-Rehab right away. Our physical therapy reputation marketing experts will help fine-tune your marketing approach, help you design an eye-catching and memorable blog, and get you on the road to success. After that, the hard work of keeping up with your blog should be a heck of a lot easier.[/squeeze_box5]

A Simple Physical Therapy Social Media Marketing Strategy

Digital marketing has quickly become the most common and fastest way to reach a wide audience. However, simply having a website isn’t enough to reach a vast audience. We recommend you have a simple physical therapy social media marketing strategy. A 2014 study performed by Social Media Examiner found that a whopping 97% of marketers were using social media to expose and sell their services; meaning that if you aren’t currently using social media to market your business, you are already behind. But it takes more than just opening a Facebook account to succeed at physical therapy social media marketing. Here are some things you need to know about social media marketing so that you can take your physical therapy clinic to the next level by reaching and impacting a wider range of audience:

Use Multiple Social Media Sites

It might seem like everyone in the universe has a Facebook account, but this isn’t necessarily true. Individuals tend to favor one social media outlet over the others, so someone who is very active on Twitter might miss your Facebook announcements and promotions. To optimize your business’s outreach, set up accounts on all the major social media outlets: Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

Stay Active

Simply having social media sites isn’t enough to draw attention or business from followers. You need to update regularly with new information, exciting news in your office, and any news events that are relevant to your practice, your community, and the profession. But don’t panic if you don’t have time to personally make these updates. E-rehab takes care of Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ updates for you so your pages will always be active and current.

Engage With Followers

Consumers are more likely to trust brands and companies they follow on social media than those that they don’t, largely because social media offers a personal, human factor that just isn’t present in direct marketing or even commercial campaigns. People are likely to lodge complaints or offer high praise on your social media sites, and these need to be addressed. Apologizing publicly to a dissatisfied client on Facebook or Twitter demonstrates that you listen to your clients and care about their feedback. Further, you can openly discuss any new policies or strategies that will take place based on the feedback. Likewise, accepting compliments and graciously saying Thank You shows followers that your business takes the time to read and respond to clients long after they have left your office.

Word of Mouth

We all know that personal referrals are the most important way for PT practices to generate new patients. When your patients respond to your social media announcements, they end up referring you to their followers, meaning you are reaching a much wider range of audience than through other forms of marketing. The best part is, you don’t have to do any extra work to reach this audience.

[info_box]Is Your Competition Already Ahead of You? Do a quick Google search for your competitors, and you will likely find that they are already using social media to market their business. Don’t waste any more time giving them the social media advantage and taking clients away from you. Contact us today, and let E-rehab work with you to develop a complete social media campaign for your physical therapy office. We will develop and maintain a customized Facebook account, a customized Twitter account, and a customized Google+ channel. “Not having time” to keep up with your social media accounts just isn’t an excuse anymore since we do all the work for you. All you have to do is sit back and reap the benefits of getting additional business for your physical therapy office thanks to your social media marketing campaign.[/info_box]

Why Every Private Practice Should Use Google My Business

Google has made life much easier for physical therapy practice owners with the launch of its exciting new tool, Google My Business. It combines:

Google Places,
Google Maps,
Google Analytics & Insights
Google+

They are all under one easy-to-use dashboard and now, managing multiple Google accounts has never been simpler and the marketing advantages are endless.

What’s more, it’s free with no hidden costs. Here’s a quick summary of some of the services included in Google My Business:

Google+ (Google Plus):

Google Plus Page for Physical Therapy Marketing — Here’s a Google + Page that’s great for your physical therapy online marketing

G+ (Google Plus or Google+) This is Google’s answer to Facebook. It’s a social networking platform that allows you to share messages, photos, videos and links to your followers, directly from the My Business page.

Reviews: Google is the number 1 business review platform online. Google My Business has an entire review platform that gives practices a place to manage ratings and reviews in one location.

Google Analytics: You can very quickly and easily see all of your websites stats right on your business dashboard.

Insights: Insights gives you vital information on your visibility, engagement and trends in the market.

Maps: Manage your businesses location and information available on Google Maps.

YouTube & Hangouts: Video chats with key members of your physical therapy practice (think expert interview, patient testimonials, doctor interviews, etc.).

As mentioned earlier, this is all a free service. If you currently use Google Places for business or Google+ Pages to manage your online presence, you will already have been upgraded.

Not only that, but they are fine-tuning the My Business platform for mobile use too, and it is available in both iOS and Android.

6.5 Ways That You Can Take Advantage of Google My Business
Right Now and Quickly Overtake Your Competition

1. Be easily found on Google
Brand awareness is vital for any practice. How can you gain patients if people don’t know who you are or what types of services you offer? As a small private practice, you know how hard it can be to get high rankings on Google, especially if you’re in a big market with corporate and hospital brands.

So in order to create better brand awareness your first step would be to create an effective search engine optimization (SEO) strategy to make your site more searchable on Google. Research has proven (and you probably know from your own personal experience) that 75% of Google users never scroll past the first page. This highlights how without good Google rankings, you are simply missing new patients.

This is where Google My Business comes into play. When you create a My Business account, fill out all of the information Google requests, as it will increase the odds that your practice will show up on a Google Search, Maps and Google+.

You’ll need precise information about your location, your office hours, contact information, website address, email and fax numbers, and at least 10 pictures of your practice.

IMPORTANT: Make sure that the information you put on Google is the exact information NAP (business Name, Address, Phone number) that you have on your website and any other places where your practice is listed online. Consistency is very important in SEO and it can affect your search engine rankings if there are any inconsistencies.

The more information you add, the more Google’s search algorithms will work to help your search ranking.

Together, all of these features will give your patients an inside look at your practice. As a result, when potential patients are comparison shopping or simply doing a broad search for “physical therapy and a location”, they will be more likely to find your Google My Business listing and visit your website.

2. Connect with existing and potential patients
Not only can you manage your practice listing (AKA Google online phonebook listing), you can also manage your Google+ page from your My Business dashboard. It has taken a while for people to get used to the Google+ social network, and most people still prefer and use Facebook and other social media sites, but bear in mind that your Google+ business page increases the trust in your practice name and gives you significant boost to with respect to your Google Local SEO listings.

Google is always trying to provide its users with the best, most relevant experience. As such Google takes note of those who comment, shares or +1 your G+ page posts, captures this information, and identifies your audiences identity, activity and interests. From there, they can even deliver your Google+ page content to your followers in the organic search results. It’s truly amazing how Google provides users such a customized experience.

The other advantage of using Google+ is this; while other social media sites place a “no follow” tag on any link you post, Google+ doesn’t. So if you posted a link on Facebook for example, any links that you put in your posts (to your website in attempts to improve search engine optimization) will not influence your practice’s Google search results. Google, on the other hand, treats them G+ posts as web pages, which then helps increase your sites visibility and page rank.

But even without the SEO benefits, Google+ is also a terrific way to engage with past patients and build a long term relationship with them, which will increase the trust in your company.

Just as on any other social network, if you expect any kind of results on Google+, you need to be consistent and post regularly. If you have a practice blog, post the links on your page and ask your audience to read and share them. Post fun pictures of you and your employees so that your followers can get to know you better and have a clearer picture of who you are. It will encourage brand loyalty.

It is worth reminding you that any content you share should be relevant and interesting to your audience. You don’t want to keep posting promotional offers like Free Screenings or Discount Massages. The point of Google+ is not to push your physical therapy services on people, but to create a close-knit community, which will inspire trust and loyalty in your practice.

3. Hang out with your clinicians
If you are not already familiar with it, Google Hangouts are another great way to demonstrate your clinical expertise. You can hang out with up to 15 people at a time.

It’s the perfect way to build an online video marketing strategy for free. Use it to answer questions, share information about your new services or even give online demos of treatment.

4. Check the Performance of your activity
It’s helpful to post on Google+ and host Hangouts with your patients, but it could all be a waste of time and effort if they are not producing the desired results.

This is where the Insights tool comes in for your Google+ page and Analytics for your presence across all Google platforms. Both of these tools make it very easy for you to see how many views you’re getting, and you can even see how many people are reading your specific Google+ posts. It even gives you information on how many people have checked out your practice on Google Map searches.

5. Encourage and Respond to Patients’ Reviews
Whether you love them or you hate them, some patients want to leave a review about your practice. It’s part of online culture and people will either want to rave or complain about any experiences that they’ve had.

Side Note: the most common “bad reviews” are about patient billing and payment. It’s worth knowing this and making a little extra effort to make sure patients understand your physical therapy billing practices and policies.

Since online reviews are the second most trusted form of advertising, it’s worthwhile to make it easy for patients to post ratings (0-5 stars) and reviews (text comments about your practice). Chances are positive reviews will generate more business for you too, as many patients decide to make decisions based solely on what their peers have to say about your practice. Google My Business makes it easy by allowing you to claim your practice listing so that patients can add their rating and review by simply by Googling your name and clicking on the blue Google+ page link under your business listing.

The dashboard even makes it easy for you to promote the reviews on your Google+ page and monitor reviews on other platforms like Yelp. This will help you to easily respond to positive reviews, while professionally and politely dealing with any negative reviews. You will have a great pulse on the online reputation of your practice…certainly an asset for any physical therapy practice these days.

6. Create an AdWords Express Account
It probably won’t surprise you that at the bottom of the My Business dashboard, there is a button that will bring you to an AdWords account. After all, advertising is where Google makes 95%+ of its money.

The “express version” if AdWords, in my experience is very easy to use for private practice owners, but your ads will often show up for keywords that aren’t related to your business. This will result in unnecessary clicks and expense. Nevertheless, it still super easy to quickly create ad campaigns. It’s very similar to the right-side and inline Facebook ads, where you simply write your ad and set your budget and then Google AdWords will do the rest the work.

6.5 Stay Informed on Your Mobile Device
Just as 30-40% of your patients are likely to visit your physical therapy practice website while browsing on their smartphones, Google My Business will allow you to do manage My Business with either both iOS and Android apps. The mobile streamlined dashboard makes it easy for you to simply swipe through all of your tools and data, allowing you change dates, manage ads and modify your online presence from wherever you are.

Claim Your Page Today

With Google My Business, you will find all of the best Google tools are right in front of you by simply by logging into your dashboard. It makes management of your online presence easy.

[info_box]As you can see, Google My Business is a robust practice brand management platform; but, as with all aspects of online marketing, your web performance is only as good as you can make it. It’s very important that you include as much relevant information about your practice as you can. If it’s done right, it really can make a difference between your online success or failure.[/info_box]

If you are in any doubt or would like more helpful tips and advice on how to make the most from this great tool, please don’t hesitate to contact us today.

Using Twitter to Promote Wellness Services – a How To

Jack Dorsey sent the very first Twitter message at 9:50 pm on March 21st of 2006. Ever since, Twitter has become a vital means of communication for many and has grown into the one of the most popular social networks online.

Twitter is such a hit because it’s so easy to use. Unlike other social networks, you don’t need to set up detailed profiles or author 500-word posts on your profile. You simply Tweet up to 140-characters, which then leaves you plenty of time to focus on your practice while still taking advantage of the massive potential on Twitter.

Growing your tribe of followers on Twitter is also a snap.

Twitter to Promote Wellness Services

In this post we will show you how to set up an effective marketing campaign on Twitter that will significantly maximize your exposure and bring new wellness business to your practice.

It Starts with Your Twitter Account

Your profile is the place where potential followers go to learn about you and what you have to offer. It’s just a simple one-page outline that includes a short bio and your website address, so potential customers will know where to go if they want more information about your practice.

Set up your page so that those visiting it will be motivated to follow you. It’s vital that you make it work for you. You can do that by including a direct link to a specific page on your website that includes and offer or valuable content. Don’t make the mistake of trying to push your services or products immediately from this page. The most effective campaigns begin with establishing in the community as a leader in the delivery of a particular wellness service, and you do that by offering valuable incentives. This allows you to be able to keep in touch with them and build a relationship with them so that they will come to you services in the future.

Make sure that your brand comes across on the Twitter profile page. Be authentic and friendly and offer something valuable based on your niche service. A picture of your face is also recommended as it helps establish trust with your followers.

Important – Twitter is the Top of the Funnel, Not the Bottom

Many businesses seem to forget that Twitter is a social network and most users Twitter users follow others to learn about their expertise and passions. They generally don’t sign up for Twitter and follow you for special offers, so be smart and build your Twitter relationship first.

One way to do this is to create a newsletter focused around your wellness specialty. Then set up a simple landing page that offers the newsletter or a report. For example, “Five Different Kinds of Massage – Which is Best for You?”

Your subscribers will then receive instant access to your report once they confirm their email address.

The next step is to build relationships with your subscribers, and you do this by following up with additional free content and resources. Resist emailing them promotional-based offers until you’ve established a rapport with your readers and connected with your audience. People need to trust you and see that you offer professional, relevant information that they are interested in. Building trust and proving that you can deliver quality information takes time, but if you can deliver results before recommending your services, it will only make your recommendation far more effective when you eventually do promote something.

To get the most potential, make sure that you include a direct link to your squeeze page right on your Twitter profile account and then once you’ve established a following, you can start posting updates on your website so that you can begin directing traffic there.

Growing Your Follower Base

It may seem strange to create a squeeze page and blog first and then going looking to find followers on Twitter but it actually makes good business sense. It is far easier to establish a following within Twitter when you have something to offer.

Not only that, but if you are just starting out on Twitter and people see that you don’t have many followers, they might be hesitant about following you themselves. But if you have established a website, blog or squeeze page and you have somewhere to direct your followers, it makes it a whole lot easier to achieve the success you are looking for on Twitter.

Don’t Be Shy, Tweet Often

When it comes to tweeting, don’t waste time worrying whether your tweet is pithy or interesting enough.. Once you have become an active member of the Twittersphere, you will find it much easier open up and provide your followers with creative Tweets and you will also be able to respond to ongoing discussions from those who you follow and who follow you.

So, in the beginning, post what’s on your mind. Think of it as joining a conversation at a party. If you worked with an interesting customer, tweet about it. If you had a success, tweet about it. If you found an interesting blog post about something pertaining to your wellness services, tweet about it. If something made you smile or angry today, tell them about it. Consistency is the key and posting often enough so that you become comfortable how to use Twitter is very important.

Once you’ve posted your first Tweet, it’s time to start following people on Twitter so that you can build up your Twitter presence and encourage people to follow you in return.

Just as you would in your offline business, you need to develop a reputation on Twitter as someone who is interested in helping others, while developing your own Twitter presence.

Finding People on Twitter

The great thing about Twitter is how easy it is to quickly locate other people who are involved in your target market or industry. You will be able to find people who share an interest in nearly every topic and subject online, no matter what niche you’re in.

Twitter is all about building connections and relationships, and Twitter helps you do just that. You will soon be able to engage with your followers and make friends so they’ll be more likely to buy your products or services.

Three Apps That Make It Easier
Twitter is like public texting and texting is done on mobile phones. As such, there are a number of great apps to help you manage your Twitter profile. Here are three we recommend:

That’s it for this post about Twitter marketing for your physical therapy cash-based services. We hope this information gave you some foundational information on how to use the giant social network…Twitter to generate some interest in your wellness services.

Physical Therapy Social Media Marketing: The Big 3 You Need to Know About

Marketing yourself and your services online isn’t just about setting up the right website and an occasional blog post. The internet is huge, and you have to know how to utilize it to get the most effective results for your physical therapy private practice.

Currently, a very effective way to stay in touch with current and past patients to is by taking part in social media. Social media is everywhere. People from all ages and backgrounds use it, including the majority of your patients.

There are a number of social medial platforms that you could be part of, but here are the big 3 that you need to know about for physical therapy social media marketing. These three essential social media platforms are:

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn

LinkedIn is one of the best social networking groups to become involved in if you own a small private physical therapy practice. LinkedIn is like having your little black book of business associates, and their little black book of business associates, all rolled into one neat little package.

LinkedIn allows you to not only tell the world about yourself and your practice but also learn how other PTs like yourself are solving the challenges of the current health care system. It’s quite different than the other less formal social media platforms.

Think of it as a type of résumé that anyone can follow. You give details about yourself in reference to jobs you’ve had, your current endeavors and a short bio and business portfolio for others to see. Then you ‘link’ your peers and partners to your bio.

You can then see your associates’ ‘linked’ business associates and create a
larger business-based social network based on these assets.

You might be wondering what this does for you and your practice? After all, why would you need to have your business résumé online for the world to see?

Let’s look at this from a different standpoint. If you are trying to get your name out there as a successful business person, you will want to have as many people on your side as possible, because the business world is all about the networking.

The larger your portfolio of people, the more networking options you have available to you. Let’s say, for example, you want to expand your business into a cash-based service. For the sake of the scenario, we’re going to suggest you want to expand into sports performance.

In order to make this expansion, you can reach out to other successful PTPP owners that have not only had success but often times, they will share the secret sauce too. More often you will find like-minded PTs that also want to start cash-based practice, some that have failed, some that are struggling and have found solutions too. LinkedIn in is a fantastic way for professional people to come together.

[warning_box]NOTE: buyer beware. Many of the groups out there are simply setting up groups to capture your contact info and sell their services to you. Hang around in enough groups and these people quickly reveal themselves.[/warning_box]

Facebook

Facebook is more familiar and less formal than LinkedIn.

We tend to think of Facebook as a way of hanging out with your friends, without actually meeting any of them.

As a practice owner, it’s important to know that Facebook is also a very easy and effective way to market your practice culture and stay in touch with select patients that enjoy this social channel. Using this method of social media in a similar way to how you would use a blog is the key to getting yourself out there.

The key to creating a good Facebook page for marketing is not only to make sure your page is up-to-date and accurate, but to keep posting engaging content on your Facebook page. Engaging means content that will motivate the fans of your page to Comment, Like and Share. Take a look at several Facebook pages created by PTs. Without question, photos of your practice culture and involvement in the community get the most engagement.

What’s the point of all this if you already have a blog on your website? Facebook is different than a blog because some people check their Facebook pages constantly throughout the day.

Have you ever watched a teenager play with their phone? These kids are constantly social networking. Not only do they look for cool memes to show off to their friends, but they’re telling their friends what they are doing, what they like, what they don’t like and who they are with. To this point, one often overlooked opportunity is to have your patients review your practice on your Facebook business page. The fact is that Facebook is now the number 2 online review website, passing Yelp a couple months ago.

What exactly does this mean for you as the owner of a private practice? This means that you have to communicate through channels that your patients use. The quickest way to market yourself is to make sure you have a Facebook business page.

There are two things you need for your page. The first is an actual Facebook page for your practice and the second is a profile page for yourself.

Your Facebook profile is the place people are going to start when they’re looking for you, because almost everyone uses Facebook. Not to worry though if you don’t want to personally participate on Facebook. Your Facebook “profile” is simply the account through which you manage your Facebook business “page”.

Twitter

In addition to Facebook, Twitter is another social media platform you need to take advantage of in order to tell the world about your practice.

Twitter is different from Facebook in two main ways:

• Your message is limited to only 140 characters
• Hashtags are essential

The first way that Twitter differs from Facebook is that there are a limited number of characters you can use to create a Tweet. In other words, this is the perfect place to speak when you don’t have much to say or you can get your message across in a short, pithy way.

Twitter allows you to send people little messages about what’s going on in your life or at your practice. You can’t get into a long description, so it’s an ideal place to drop quick, informative messages to patients and other followers.

Facebook users have higher expectations than a two or three sentence post. Twitter users know you won’t go into those kinds of details. They will expect to see very basic information.

How does that help you and your practice? For one thing, it’s easy to Tweet. Instead of having to come up with long, informative and interesting posts or blogs, all you have to do is write a sentence or two.

While you won’t generate a bunch of new patients on Twitter, like LinkedIn, it’s a great place to find physical therapy thought leaders…and those thought leaders often share great bite-sized pieces of information; moreover, they share links to valuable information that can better help you manage your practice.

Another reason Tweeting is good for you is, much like Facebook, people can follow you on Twitter. Twitter allows you to follow an unlimited amount of people, read quickly what everyone is up to, respond when you want to, and then move on to other things. It’s all done very quickly, too.

One thing that really stands out from the Facebook social network is that Twitter users use ‘hashtags’ in order to find things that they are interested in.

Hashtags are a way of grouping conversations into more organized methods of communication. Let’s say, for example, someone posted a great tweet with a link to an article about physical therapy business and you need to keep the ball rolling, so to speak, and make sure your Twitter followers are aware of the link to this article. Putting a hashtag (#) in front of the tweet (e.g. #bizpt) will keep the Twitter conversation about this article organized.

Twitter hashtags are also a great way of keeping up to date on the latest Twitter trends. Hashtags are a means of tracking what’s popular. For some businesses trying to market their goods or services, hastags can be very important to know what people are looking for, and a very easy method of tracking those markets.

While at first the concept of hashtags may be confusing to some people, it does get easier. In fact, most television programs now use hashtags frequently, so fans of the show can follow the conversations about the program in real time while they are watching it.

The one thing to remember when creating a hashtag is to make sure your it’s relevant to your conversation or to ensure that people understand the hashtag you’re trying to create, and don’t confuse your followers by using too many hashtags in one post.

If you hashtag your practice, do so in a sentence. Simply put the # symbols before your company name or a keyword that represents the theme of your tweet and a hashtag is automatically generated for you.

The fact is that so few Tweet about their physical therapy problems that in most cases, there’s no way to consistently drive new patient business from Twitter at this time. Nevertheless, Twitter is an excellent place to share ideas and learn from the collective intelligence of this social network.

[info_box]Take home message: while social media marketing can be a time sink, there is value in building your PT private practice’s social presence on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.[/info_box]

Help is at hand to show you how to run a successful social media campaign

We can show you how to optimize your social media channels for maximum practice exposure. We can show you how to plan your time and, crucially, how to monitor and measure the results of your campaign, or we can even run the whole campaign for you.

We will help you select the right tools, walk you through the rules and etiquette of social media to ensure maximum visibility, set targets, decide what metrics to measure and help you calculate your Return on Investment (ROI).

We can advise and guide you on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blog, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+ or YouTube campaigns.

Give us a call at E-Rehab and let’s talk about how we can help you. We look forward to hearing from you.

The Top 7 Questions Private Practices Ask About Social Media

More and more of the private practices we work with are starting to realize how important social media is for their business and recognize the need to have a presence on social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Google+.

Some physical therapy practices who are too busy running the day-to-day affairs at their physical location, though, might tend to find social media marketing and the technology surrounding it a bit intimidating.

Social media can seem daunting at first but because many small businesses realize social media is not a fad and it’s here to stay, they generally have some questions that they would like answered before they decide to get involved.

Here are some of the most frequently asked questions. Hopefully a question that you might have asked is included in this list:

1. What is Social Media Marketing?

Social media marketing involves interacting with your customers and other users on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

You do this by sharing information, opinions, knowledge and interests. This process allows you to build online communities or networks, encouraging patients to participate and engage with your practice, which will promote their loyalty to you and your brand name.

2. Why Does My practice Need to Get involved with Social Media?

The way that your customers communicate and use the Internet has changed dramatically. Most people now access the Internet via their smart phones and tablets, where the information is literally there at their fingertips. There are billions of people of all ages now using social media, and they expect your business to be there too.

[note_box]By embracing social media your practice will:

• Increase your online presence
• Raise awareness of your services and treatments offered
• Build loyalty with existing patients
• Build trust with prospective patients
• Increase website traffic through social sharing
[/note_box]

Not only that, but you could also see an increase in your search engine rankings. Likes, shares, tweets and social authority are all taken into consideration in the search engines’ algorithms.

3. HELP! I Don’t Know Where to Start

Marketing on social media sites is not really much different from other marketing campaigns that you may have run. It is a good idea to start with a plan. Write down your goals and objectives you want to achieve with your social media campaign.

With a well-structured plan, you will be able stay focused and not get distracted, which is so easy to do with social media.

4. How Much Time Should I Spend on Social Media Each Day?

It does not have to be particularly time-consuming, especially if you set off with a clear objective about what you want to achieve.

The only time it gets time-consuming is if you allow yourself to get sidetracked by all of the ‘noise’ and activity happening on the site. You can easily have a profitable marketing campaign by spending just 10-20 minutes in the morning and 10-20 minutes in the evening.

5. When Should I Post on Social Media?

The best time is when your target audience is likely to read your posts. In order to determine the best time to post, consider the lifestyle of your target audience. For example, if you want to target people who work, post in the morning when they are most likely be on their way to work and check their messages on the journey. You could then post at lunchtime and again when they are travelling home again after 5pm.

If want to target an audience that is retired or does not work, post mid-morning, mid-afternoon and mid-evening.

With practice and experience, you will soon be able to decide when the best time to post comments for your patients. The secret is to test and to measure the responses and comments that your posts generate (or the lack of them). Over time, you will discover what works best for your practice, industry and patients.

6. Which Social Media Platform Should I Use?

There are a number of popular platforms you could choose from. Facebook is the most obvious choice with well over 1 billion users and more new ones daily.

Facebook is a good choice for businesses as you can target audiences with a variety of advertising options. Not only that, but Facebook is now part of people’s daily routine, and they check their accounts many times a day.

Twitter is another platform that’s part of people’s lives. It’s fast-paced and gives users access to information and news much quicker than traditional news channels.

As tweets are limited to just 140 characters, you need to learn how to get your message across using as few words as possible. It is a reminder of how people’s attention span on social media and the Internet in general is extremely short because there is just so much information out there. People tend to scan information online rather than read huge amounts of it at once.

Three relatively new social media platforms are also becoming incredibly popular.

The first one is Pinterest. Pinterest is a visual platform used to upload and share photos of literally any subject you can think of. It has a huge female following, but is starting to level out as more men are discovering and using it.

Google+ (Google Plus) is starting to flex its muscles now, too. Online giant Google owns it, so naturally it has huge financial backing. Google+ is widely tipped to be the social media channel to challenge Facebook as the king of social networks.

LinkedIn is a business-to-business social media platform, and is a lot more formal and corporate than the other social platforms. It’s an excellent way to connect with peers and network professionally within a specific industry such as physical therapy.

There are many more platforms out there, but these are the ones that are more widely used by businesses.

7. How Much Does Social Media Cost?

If you are a private practice with little or no marketing budget, then the only cost is the time you need to buy out of your busy working day.

If you have a modest budget and would like to increase your practice’s exposure, then you could consider Facebook advertising, which can be affordable and very effective.

We Can Help Get You Started with a Social Media Marketing Strategy

As we said earlier, social media is not a fad and it is here to stay. Your patients are using it on a daily basis. Also, it’s worth mentioning that social media is not just for big brands, either.

You don’t have to be a global conglomerate to get involved with social media. In fact social media platforms give all businesses, no matter what their size, a level playing field. Small private practices like yours can reap terrific benefits from the range of opportunities that social media has to offer too.

The list above is merely meant to present some of the most commonly asked questions, but is not a list of all the possible answers provided.

[colored_box bgColor=”#788794 ” textColor=”#ffffff “]If your question has not been answered, then please don’t hesitate to contact us at E-Rehab, and we will be happy to share our experience and expertise with you.

We hope that this article has provided you with enough information to see how important social media marketing is and how it can reap great benefits and boost business for your practice.[/colored_box]

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