What’s your take on using social media to promote your therapy business?
Is the jury still out on the subject so far as you’re concerned? Let’s go back to basics.
Marketing in any medium is simply a numbers game: the more people you meet, the better chance you have to tell them what skills you have and how you can help them. Surely then, social networking could be a real marketing opportunity for you?
Let’s look at a definition of social networking. It’s:
”The online activity of a group of people who exchange information, contacts, and experiences for professional or social purposes”.
OK, you may need to find out how to use the different sites, but then you simply behave as you do in face-to-face networking meetings.
And if you don’t go to organised face-to-face networking meetings, think about how you exchange information and contact details with colleagues on training days – it’s all networking however and wherever you do it!
The most important ‘rule of the road’:
Avoid being the person everyone dislikes because they’re boring or selling! And position yourself as the helpful person who’s an expert in their own field…
Then you can:
- Quickly and effectively give your clients – and potential clients – the heads up about your service, including availability, training seminars or special offers.
- Demonstrate that you’re someone who genuinely cares about building relationships – and isn’t effective therapy all about building relationships?
- Shine – by sharing hints, tips and helpful advice from yourself and others – what works for you?
- Let your community know you’re there so they can more easily recommend (or refer clients to) you.
These things can take a little time but they may just persuade potential customers to give you a chance in the future…
OK, so where do I start?
Here’s a list of some of the social networking sites you might like to try. All of these are free to join at least at the most basic level. Why not have a look and see how many of your colleagues – and competitors! – are already out there…?
- Twitter - one of the top ten ‘most visited sites’ on the internet, according to Wikipedia, and the place to share snippets of information and news about your practice
- Facebook - not just for keeping in touch with friends and family, Facebook has a number of pages devoted to supporting counsellors, psychotherapists and complementary practitioners. One place to start is the Business and Marketing Skills for Therapists page. You can also set up your own business page on Facebook, separate from your personal page. You can find the Marple Cross Facebook page here
- LinkedIn - mainly used for professional networking, LinkedIn offers you the opportunity to build a network of professional contacts, which you can expand by asking contacts of yours to recommend you to contacts of theirs. There are also discussion forums for people in like-minded professions where you can discuss issues and promote events etc, for example you could take a look at the Counselling & Psychotherapy group.
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Tags: Business building, Marketing, Networking, Professional practice
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Good stuff – particularly the tip about avoiding an image of you only using social media when you want to sell something (hello Twitter folk … you know who you are: (**silence for weeks** … “I have a free appointment tomorrow” … **silence for weeks**)).
As I am wont to tweet from time to time:-
Social Media is not your Personal Billboard… :p
© Dean Richardson
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