The Hottest Buzz: Social Media Marketing
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 talk a little about the “Who, What, When, Where, and How” of social media and you, that’s “Who.” Then you can decide if you want to add Social Media to your chiropractic marketing strategy.
Social media marketing may be very much like, and completely unlike, any chiropractic marketing strategy you’ve considered. In the “very much like” category, you wouldn’t try 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 know what you want, it’ll be easier for you to use social media to your greatest advantage.
Before you begin your social media effort, it will be highly important for you to make certain that you “own your name” on all the social media outlets, which is to say, be certain that your name or your clinic’s name is procurable so that you can use the exact same name on every one of the social channels you want to use. When you’re ready, there’s a service, which is absolutely free, that can help you with your search. Knowem.com is the who to go to. Knowem.com will research where your name is and/or if it’s attainable or not on a sufficient number of social media sites.
The next step, once you have all your social media accounts secured, is to choose where you would like to be active. Because you have a clinic to run and patients to see, starting with only a few social media sites is best and may well be 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 mission should be is to build a genuine presence in your community. What you should never do “sell” on your social media sites, in other words don’t sell your clinic, don’t sell services or 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 becoming a participant. There is truly no difference between social networking offline and social media networking. There is no getting around it, people on social media do not want to be sold to! Social media sites are a lot 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, maybe you begin the conversation by (just) stating, “Hi, I’m Dr. ____. With social media marketing, the same dynamics apply. 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!