Chiropractic Marketing

Social Media is the “hottest” buzz word on the Internet today. For those of you who would like to explore Social Media marketing as an adjunct to 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 could possibly be very much like, and entirely unlike, any chiropractic marketing strategy you’ve contemplated. In the “very much like” category, you wouldn’t consider any kind of marketing plan without making an effort to understand what it’s about and what you want to get from it. It’s important to ask yourself, “What are my goals?” Once you’re clear about what you want, it’ll be easier for you to use social media to your biggest advantage.

Before you actually start your social media venture, it will be highly important for you to make certain that you “own your name” on all the social media outlets, that is to say, be certain that your name or the name of your clinic is attainable so that you can use precisely same name on each and every one of the social channels you decide to use. There is a free service to assist you with your search when you’re ready. Knowem.com is the who to go to. This service will check where your name is and/or if it’s available or not on a substantial number of social media sites.

The next step, once you have all your social media accounts “locked up”, is to choose where you would like to be active. Because you have a clinic to run and patients to see, in the beginning only a few social media sites is best and may well be all you’ll need. That way you won’t get caught up 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 real presence in your community. What is definitely a no-no is for you to try to “sell” on your social media sites, which is to say don’t sell your clinic, don’t sell services or products, don’t sell anything! The objective of social media is for you to go out and network with the community. Sure, inform them about what you do, but do it by participating in the conversation. Social media works the same way as social networking offline. There is no getting around it, people on social media do not want to be sold to! Social media sites are very much like a neighborhood backyard barbecue. People are standing around chatting about who they are and what they do, and then a person asks you what you do. Or, maybe you start the conversation by (just) stating, “Hello, I’m Dr. ____. The same kind of interaction applies 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 let people know who you are and gets them interested in the who that’s you!

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