As a therapist, you have probably realized that you need to advertise your practice to gain new clients and be seen by community partners. Why else would you be here on my marketing blog for therapists? But where and how do you start? My last post was a breakdown of referral marketing for therapists, and below I will discuss social media marketing for therapists.
In this post, I will be focusing specifically on Facebook and Instagram. Other social media networks like Twitter, TikTok and Linkedin can be used to market your practice, but these platforms require a specific audience and may be less widely used by your client base. Of these three, Linkedin would be a good place if you are targeting active professionals on the platform.
Facebook Marketing For Therapists
Despite the potential advantages of using Facebook marketing, many therapists perceive managing a Facebook page as a cumbersome task with little benefit. Alongside concerns regarding adherence to the Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA), specific clients may feel uncomfortable leaving a comment, expressing their approval, or sharing a post about their particular condition.
With all the above information in mind, how can therapists maximize the benefits of utilizing Facebook for marketing purposes?
The answer depends on your objectives, circumstances, and promotional approach. As a therapist, you are more likely to succeed on Facebook if you adhere to my below recommendations for Facebook marketing.
How To Grow Your Facebook Page Views, Follows, and Likes
If you want to use your practice’s Facebook page to its maximum potential, you’ll want to promote it as often as possible. Here are a few ways to do that.
- Email – If you have an email signature, add your social media icons to it and link them to your page.
- Website – Have your social media accounts and icons front and centre on your website.
- Invites – Invite friends and family to like your page.
- Personal Profile – If you have a Facebook account, share any posts you create on your practices page to your personal feed.
- Cross-promotion – If you have friends or colleagues, see if you can partner up and cross-promote each other’s Facebook pages to your audiences. Try and choose someone with a similar audience or client base.
Profile Picture & Cover Photo
One of your Facebook page’s most commonly underestimated elements is the profile picture and cover photo. Choosing and uploading a standard stock photo to your page is not enough. Choosing the perfect photos helps to make Facebook marketing for therapists that much easier, so please make these images stand out! The above example is perfect as it has their branding, both therapists and a tagline listed.
Be sure to think about colours or backgrounds that match your brand. Get some professional photos done, choose one that stands out, and use that as your profile picture. As for the cover photo, here are some great tips from AppSumo.
Instagram Marketing For Therapists
If you believe that Instagram is where your ideal audience is, then take a look at these tips below.
If you do not have a business account on Instagram, consider getting one. Having a business account permits you access to valuable analytics that will help you expand your practice’s presence on the platform.
It’s easy to get an Instagram business account, and there are two options to do it. You can opt to change your personal account into a business account through the following steps: Navigate to your profile > Edit Profile > “Try Instagram Business Tools,” or alternatively, you can create a new account specifically for your business and then follow the same steps. The decision is wholly up to you. Many social media gurus suggest that if you already have a reasonable number of followers, then transmuting your personal profile into a business profile is the recommended course of action as it helps you avoid building a whole new set of followers.
After creating a business profile, ensure your username corresponds with your therapy practice name. It’s possible that the name you had in mind might not be available – if this happens, try and make the username as close as possible to your business name. You can do this by adding your location or another unique element to your username (for example, if GreatTherapy is taken you could use GreatTherapyVancouver). In addition, I recommend writing a profile bio that explicitly mentions what you do and who your clientele is. Remember that there is a character limit so keep it short and to the point. It’s also essential to add your website URL in the “website” field since the ultimate goal of any social media promotion is to direct traffic back to your website.
Generating More Clients From Instagram
Let’s start this section with an important note: the number of people that follow your Instagram account is insignificant. Quality over quantity is the goal!
So how do you get more quality followers on Instagram? You can follow the steps I’ve already discussed above to grow your Facebook page and apply them to Instagram. After that, there are two other strategies that you can use specifically for Instagram. I’m going to operate under the assumption that you are looking to target clients locally for in-person sessions.
Hashtags For Instagram
Hashtags have become an integral part of the Instagram culture, with a hashtag for almost every topic imaginable, from #marketing to #poolcleaning.
Hashtags are more than just a passing trend – they also serve an intentional purpose. Instagram allows users to search and follow hashtags, making it possible for users to view posts that use the hashtag in the caption, even if they don’t follow the account that used the tag. This presents a fantastic opportunity for service-based businesses to broaden their reach by incorporating relevant hashtags into their Instagram content.
Each city has tons of hashtags that you can use. I use a website called Best Hashtags and here’s an example of some popular hashtags for my city of Victoria, Canada. When you post, try and use some broad hashtags for your city and add them to the bottom of your post. Below is an example.
Location Geotagging
Using geotags can also increase your chances of being featured in Instagram’s Explore section, which is viewed by 200 million people daily.
The above image shows the city location tagged for the post below the name of the Instagram page. Here’s how to add a location to an Instagram post.
Using hashtags and location geotagging helps your page appear when people search and follow those hashtags or locations. This gets your therapy practice more exposure to potential clients.
What Types Of Content To Post On Facebook or Instagram?
Now that you have determined what network you will post on, it’s time to think about your content. Most of the workload of managing a Facebook or Instagram account is focused on determining which content to post.
If you already have a blog on your website or via newsletter, it is a great idea to increase engagement and drive traffic to your practice’s website by sharing your blog posts on Facebook or Instagram.
If you don’t have a blog, what else can you post? You can provide a snippet of information you learned from your most recent conference, share your views on new research, statistics, or modality, or share external articles about the problems you address (ensure that they are precise and presented optimistically) in your practice.
Having a point of view or a specific client base in mind and aligning your content accordingly will give you an advantage over therapists striving to appeal to every client. Comparable to other marketing efforts, your objective on Facebook is not to reach everyone but to aim for your ideal audience.
Fortunately, manual posting is not challenging. And because you can schedule posts in advance, you can plan out a week or a month’s content in one afternoon.
Lastly, avoid sharing confidential information about your clients. Even if you believe you have removed all identifiable data, prospective clients may come across such information on Facebook and become anxious about the confidentiality of their sessions.
Cross Sharing Posts
If you plan to use both Facebook and Instagram, you can post your content on Facebook directly from Instagram. This saves some time as you only have to post on one application.
I hope this blog on how to grow your private therapy practice on Facebook and Instagram has helped provide a starting place for you to build your clientele. If you want to grow your practice, I help therapists like yourself grow their practices with my digital marketing for therapist services. Contact me to book a free consultation.
