Social Media is the “hottest” topic on the Internet today. If you’ve been thinking about getting on board, but you’re not sure where the platform is, let’s take a minute to talk about the “Who, What, When, Where, and How” of social media and you, that’s “Who.” Then you can make up your mind whether or not to add Social Media to your chiropractic marketing strategy.
Social media marketing may seem familiar in some respects to other chiropractic marketing strategies you’ve thought about in the past, but also unfamiliar at the same time. In the “familiar” category, you’d never consider trying any type of marketing plan without taking the time to understand what it is and what you want to get from it. What are your goals? Once you know what you want, it’ll be easier for you to use social media to your biggest advantage.
Before you begin your social media venture, you will need to make sure that you “own your name” on all the social media outlets, i.e., make sure that your name or your clinic’s name is available so that you can use the exact same name on all of the social channels you desire to use. When you’re ready, there’s a service, which is entirely free, that can assist you with your search. That who is knowem.com. Knowem.com will research where your name is and/or if it’s available for use or not on a sufficient number of social media sites.
When you have secured all of your social media accounts, the next step is to choose where you want to be active. Because you have a clinic to run and patients to see, in the beginning only a few social media sites is preferable and may end up being all you’ll need. That way you won’t get unduly busy in too many channels. How do decide which sites are best for you? The big ones (where most of the action is) are facebook, twitter, linkedin, and Youtube.
What your social media activity goal should be is to build a true presence in your community. What is definitely ill-advised is for you to try to “sell” on your social media sites, in other words don’t sell your chiropractic services, don’t sell products, don’t sell anything! The purpose of social media is for you to have an addition channel through which to network with the community. Sure, inform them about what you do, but do it by becoming a participant. Social media works the same way as social networking offline. People on social media sites don’t want to be sold to, plain and simply. What might be useful to think of social media sites like a neighborhood backyard barbecue. People are standing around having a conversation about who they are and what they do, and then someone asks you what you do. Or, perhaps you begin the conversation by (just) saying, “Hi, I’m Dr. ____. The same dynamics apply with social media. Social media sites should be handled the same way you’d “work” offline networking opportunities to promote yourself, i.e., answer the questions and concerns that get potential patients interested in the who that’s you!