The “hottest” buzz word on the internet today is Social Media. For those of you who would like to feel out Social Media marketing as part of your overall chiropractic internet marketing strategy, but aren’t quite sure what all the buzz is about, let’s take a minute to talk about the “Who, What, When, Where, and How” of social media and you, that’s “Who.”
Social media marketing may seem familiar in some ways to other chiropractic marketing strategies you’ve engaged in in the past, but still unfamiliar at the same time. In the “familiar” category, you’d never think of trying any kind of marketing plan without making an effort to understand what it is and what you want to get from it. It’s important to ask yourself, “What are my goals?” Once you’ve decided what you want, it’ll be easier for you to use social media to your best advantage.
Before you actually start your social media effort, you will need to make certain that you “own your name” on all the social media outlets, that is to say, make sure that your name or the name of your clinic is available so that you can use precisely same name on every one of the social channels you want to use. There is a service that is free and will help you with your search when you’re ready. That who is knowem.com. This service will check where your name is and/or if it’s attainable or not on a substantial number of social media sites.
The next step, once you have all your social media accounts “captured”, is to choose where you ought to be active. Starting with only a limited number of social media sites is preferable because, let’s face it, you have a clinic to run and patients to see. You won’t want to get active in too many social media sites. So, how do you choose the best sites for you? Choose the social media site where the most action is, which are facebook, twitter, linkedin, and Youtube
What your social media activity goal should be is to build a genuine presence in your community. What you don’t want to do is “sell” on your social media sites, that means don’t sell your chiropractic services, don’t sell products, don’t sell anything! The objective 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 participating in the conversation. There is truly no difference between the way social networking works and the way you normally network offline. It is important to be clear on this point, people on social media do not want to be sold to! What might be helpful 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 a participant asks you what you do. Or, perhaps you begin the conversation by (just) saying, “Hello, I’m Dr. ____. With social media marketing, the same kind of interaction applies. 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 let people know who you are and gets them interested in the who that’s you!