Posts Tagged ‘ Chiropractic New Patient ’

What is the overall theme or message you send to the public with your Chiropractic marketing? Have you ever thought about it?

I would guess from most of the Chiropractic advertising I see, that many Doctors of Chiropractic DO NOT spend a great deal of time thinking about what message they are conveying with their advertising.  This leads to sporadic spurts of Chiropractic advertising confusion.

Most Doctors of Chiropractic simply don’t know WHAT they are trying to say.  It’s not because they have nothing to say.  It’s because as Doctors of Chiropractic we know how valuable Chiropractic is and we are passionate about telling the world!  We have so much to say we try to communicate all of our messages without much thought to order or consistency.  This all leads to two common Chiropractic marketing pitfalls: inconsistency and confusion.

One of the most common Chiropractic marketing mistakes is inconsistent advertising.  Many Chiropractic practices run many different ads in an illogical order.  While the ads themselves make sense, they don’t work well with the ad that ran the day before or the week after.  For example, one advertisement promotes Chiropractic as a treatment for back pain.  The next ad might focus on nutrition.  The next ad focuses on neck pain or headaches.  Another ad might discuss the importance of children receiving Chiropractic care.  If your ads run months apart it may not be much of an issue.  However, if you run many advertisements close together this can be problematic.

I’m not saying you can’t promote all of these aspects of your practice or Chiropractic.  I’m simply saying you need to do so in a logical manner.  If you want to discuss pain and injury then by all means pick one series of ads and focus on pain and injury.  Run your 3 or 4 different advertisements about pain and injury before jumping to another topic.   Another series of ads might discuss wellness and preventative care.  If you offer unique treatment or services like acupuncture, spinal decompression or massage then discuss those in a logical order in another campaign.

With some careful attention to detail you can even work in transition phrases to help ease your audience into the next topic.  While this may seem like overkill, it sends a well organized and consistent message to the community.

The second major mistake many Chiropractic practices make is trying to send too many marketing messages in one advertisement.  We’ve all seen (and probably ran) those ads that attempt to discuss all of our Chiropractic greatness on a postage stamp sized area.  One advertisement is not the place to list all of your skills.  Listing your practice name and a bunch of phrases like nutrition, pediatrics, acupuncture, laser therapy, decompression, geriatrics, sports injuries, auto-injuries, personal injuries, orthotics and underwater basket-weaving is not effective advertising.

Consistency is key in Chiropractic marketing.  If you are one of those rare jack-of-all-trades in the Chiropractic profession, by all means promote all of the benefits of your practice.  Just do yourself a favor, and do it in a consistent manner.  One of the worst things you can do is try to promote EVERYTHING about your practice in one advertisement (or even in one ad campaign).

Start by picking the top 2 or 3 aspects of your practice and focus on promoting those in a single ad.  Once again, if you have a lot to promote break it down into different ad campaigns.  Make a list of everything you want to promote and then design individual advertisements to promote everything on your list.

Last but not least, make sure you aren’t contradicting yourself with your marketing. Are you practicing what you preach?  Are you getting adjusted? Are you taking the supplements or using the same exercises you promote to your patients?  You’d better be, or at least be prepared with a good explanation why you aren’t!

Are your advertising messages contradicting each other?  I’ve seen Chiropractic practices say one thing in an advertisement one week and turn around two ads later and say something in complete opposition.  Nothing places doubt about Chiropractic, and your practice, faster than sending contradictory messages in your advertising.

Consistency is key in Chiropractic marketing. Take the time to design a logical and well thought out marketing campaign and you have a much better chance of creating Chiropractic marketing success!

About a month ago I requested and received a free sample of Chiro-Squad(R) Superheroes trading cards. Being a single dad of a third-grader I know first hand the challenges of communicating the Chiropractic message to children. That’s why when I saw mention of the trading cards on facebook, along with an invitation to receive a free sample pack, I decided to see what the cards were all about.

I was pretty amazed at how fast my free sample pack actually arrived. I expected to wait a week or two but actually received the free sample within 2 or 3 days!   When I opened the package my pleasant surprise continued.

I have to admit I wasn’t expecting much in the way of quality.  I anticipated some light weight stock or cheap paper used for the trading cards. I was shocked to see they are printed on an extremely high quality glossy and heavy weight card stock.  The cards are glossy on the front and back.  The bottom line is these are not the paper thin cards I was expecting. They are definitely designed to withstand daily practice life and the rigors of being collected and traded by children. You can clearly see the gloss and high quality of these cards in the digital photos I snapped of them:

Although I was very satisfied with the cards I decided to move on to the real test, my eight year old son.  As I am reminded on a daily basis. . . there are few things as critical and brutally honest in this world as my eight year old boy.  (I can only imagine what the teen years will be like.)  With that in mind I was prepared for the worst.

I announced that I had ordered him a sample of Chiropractic Superhero trading cards. I expected some eye rolling and groaning but as he flipped through them he instead uttered the single word phrase, “cool!”  That may not sound like much, but if you have ever interacted with a grade school aged male, you’ll recognize it for the glowing positive testimonial that it really is.

He further confirmed his love for the cards later that evening when we had to run some errands.  My son had to take his Chiro-Squad trading cards with him in the car. Another very good sign!  The ultimate compliment for the Chiro-Squad trading cards came a few minutes later when he was describing details he was READING on the back of the cards. Yes you heard me correctly:  An eight year old was voluntarily reading!

He proudly informed me Cervico is his favorite character “because he is from Davenport”.  (My son fondly remembers our days at the Palmer College of Chiropractic campus in Davenport, IA and often requests to move back there someday). He went on to describe some of the body parts supplied by the third cervical spinal nerve.

Although he occasionally needed help with reading some of the words on the back of the cards, he was genuinely excited about learning the information. The few times he had difficulty with reading or pronouncing a word provided a great opportunity to educate him. What a wonderful way to assist him with understanding Chiropractic philosophy and human anatomy!

Overall these cards were a hit with me, and most importantly, with their target audience.  My son has already requested (ok. . . DEMANDED) that I purchase the remaining two packs so he can complete the entire 30 card set.

I currently don’t see a ton of pediatric patients in my Chiropractic practice but I’m hoping these Chiro-Squad trading cards will help change that.  I think they are a great way to reach out to children of existing patients and their families.  I plan on ordering more of the trading cards and the Chiro-Squad practice marketing kit which consists of stickers, tattoos, office posters, and even Chiro-Squad Kids’ Club membership cards.

I think the trading cards are a fantastic idea and a great way to communicate the Chiropractic wellness model to entire families. I want to thank Dr. Vic Naumov, D.C. for creating such a great product at a great price. I’ll wrap up my review with our “what’s hot” and “what’s not” breakdown.  After that I’ll conclude with some more information about the trading cards and where to buy them online.

What’s Hot:

• Very high quality glossy stock
• Durable
• Very affordable
• Colorful and attractive designs
• Variety of purchase options: Buy individual packs or buy in bulk
• Internal marketing kits to support the trading cards
• Positive and Principled Chiropractic and wellness messages
• Both Male and Female Superheroes avoid alienating either gender
• Extremely easy to introduce and implement in the busiest of practices

What’s Not:

There really isn’t much to NOT Like about the Chiro-Squad cards but here are the few negatives we could come up with:

• Not for all ages. (Probably most effective for the 5-12 year age range)
• Although both male and female characters exist, the cards still will generally probably appeal more to boys than girls.
• Due to the nature of the topics addressed, some of the words can be a little challenging for early readers, but that’s where the Doctor and parents come in!
• And the final potential negative “What’s Not” comes from my son:

“No fully poseable Chiro-Squad action figures!”

The Chiro-Squad(R) Superheroes

“Connecting Kids & Chiropractic Across the Globe!”

Let’s look at the Chiro-Squad Superhero trading cards in a little more detail.

The Chiro-Squad was created by New Jersey Doctor of Chiropractic, Dr. Vic Naumov.  The squad consists of a team of 5 Chiropractic superhero characters:

• Cervico
• Lumbardo
• Thoracico
• Thoracica
• Sacra

The Chiro-Squad Chiropractic superhero trading card set consists of 30 total cards available in 3 separate packs of ten cards each.  There are 24 cards representing each of the spinal levels and six bonus cards. Each of the 24 individual spinal segment cards features a Chiro-Squad character on the front and valuable chiropractic patient education on the reverse. The back of the card features a description of background information on the Chiro-Squad character, a spinal nerve chart, a description of the body areas supplied by the spinal nerve in question, and possible health conditions associated with the spinal nerve highlighted.

Each individual card also discusses a Chiropractic Principle and features a notable Chiropractic related quote from Dr. Vic Naumov.  The bonus cards feature additional bonus information. For example, the back of the “United” card in our sample describes the origin of the Chiro-Squad.

For more information, or to order your Chiro-Squad trading cards, visit the official website at:

http://www.chirosquad.com

You can also use the contact information below:

As we’ve already discussed you need proper procedures and protocols in place to effectively obtain and use Chiropractic video patient testimonials.

One important type of form is a consent and release form. This is the form where patients give you permission, in writing, to use their testimonial in your Chiropractic practice marketing efforts. Taking two minutes to have your patients read and sign this form can save you all kinds of headaches later on.

We also recommend testimonial forms that you can hand to those patients who may be camera shy, too busy, or otherwise unable to appear on a video testimonial. Having an easy to complete form will allow these patients to provide their valued feedback on your Chiropractic practice.

As promised, I’d like to provide links to our free patient testimonial release/consent form templates. Feel free to download and share these free Chiropractic patient testimonial tips and patient testimonial form templates.

We’ve provided the forms in both pdf and editable Microsoft Word doc format. Don’t worry, there’s no email sign up, no catch. Just grab the free forms and go! You’ll need adobe’s free reader program or equivalent to access and view the pdf documents. You can download Adobe’s free Adobe Reader program here: http://get.adobe.com/reader/.

DOWNLOADS:

• You can download the free Chiropractic patient testimonial tips e-book here.

• To download the editable chiropractic patient testimonial release forms in Microsoft Word format Click Here.

• To get the patient testimonial forms in pdf format: Click Here

You can either click to open the documents or right click and select “Save as” to save the documents to your computer or other location.

So now that we’ve covered the advantages and disadvantages of the Chiropractic video patient testimonial, let’s look at how you can get started.

What  exactly do you need to get started?

1. A Digital Camcorder or Mini-Cam. You may have an older tape style camcorder that you can hook up to a computer, but it will not work as well. It will require more steps to convert the video, and the video quality will be pretty terrible compared to modern digital and HD quality.

Digital is definitely the way to go here. I highly recommend a HD (high definition) camcorder. If you can’t, or won’t, afford a full blown camcorder you can purchase one of the smaller mini or pocket camcorders which are now available in HD. I’d recommend at least 720p HD quality but 1080p is better yet. You can find one of these smaller mini camcorders at your local superstore, office store, electronics store, and dozens of sites all over the internet. You can easily find one in the $100-$150 range.

One great place to start your digital HD camcorder shopping is at Amazon.com. They are probably the most trusted online store and a great source for some good deals on a huge variety of products. Use the search box below to search for digital camcorders or anything else you’re interested in. Chances are they have it!

2.  A Computer: You’re going to need to own, or at least have regular access to, a computer or laptop capable of handling some basic video editing tasks. You need the computer to access, edit, and upload the video files.  Processing, transcoding, and working with video files can be a pretty resource hogging task, so I recommend a newer computer and not the 9 year old dust box in the basement!

Minimum computer requirements will vary greatly depending on just how crazy you want to be with your video editing.   Newer Intel dual core processors, at least 160-250 GB of hard drive storage space, and 2.0 GB of memory are a decent starting point capable of handling the medium to basic video editing needs of the typical Chiropractor.

This is just  my personal opinion, but I highly recommend HP brand computers. Every HP I’ve owned has been extremely reliable. I still have one that has seen heavy daily use for 8 years!

If you are looking to purchase a laptop for your video editing, I’d highly recommend Toshiba laptops.  I’ve never owned anything else and have never had any issues. Check out some of their great deals currently available at the link below:

3. Video Editing Software: Some sort of video editing software is recommend but not absolutely required. Many of the digital camcorders come with some sort of very basic software to allow you to clip or crop out portions of your clips and combine different clips.   Many new computers also include free basic video editing software which may be enough for your needs.  These  may be all you need to get started if you don’t have the need or desire to make many custom edits to your videos.

Some of the more high quality third party video editing programs will allow you to add post production polishing touches like adding text over your video, adding background music and overlaying logos and other special effects.

4. A Clean, Attractive, and Well Lit Area for Filming. Many Chiropractors elect to dedicate a small room, or corner of a room, solely for the purposes of shooting patient testimonials. A sort of “mini studio” if you will. I think it is a great idea. Having your chiropractic video patient testimonials all shot in the same attractive area gives a sense of unity to your testimonials and looks very professional.

If you have a busy practice I highly recommend filming your video patient testimonials away from the action. Although you may be tempted to want to show how great your practice is, all of the foot traffic and patients performing active rehab exercises in the background is distracting. I’ve seen many great chiropractic video patient testimonials ruined by staff repeatedly walking in and out of frame, patients checking in and out, and other distractions.

It’s all a distracting mess that takes away from the happy patient telling the public about their success with your practice. Don’t let the procedures of your practice take away from the patient’s message. Besides, you can always shoot another video  dedicated to showing all of your practice action in detail!

5. A Website:
Although a website isn’t an absolute necessity it gives a great place to post your videos, and more importantly, more information about you and your practice.

6. A Free YouTube Account: Hosting video on YouTube is free and a MUST. It’s simply the most popular video site and allows you to create your own channel to host your videos. It’s a site with millions of members and you need to be using it to promote your videos and your practice.

7. Other Free Social Media Accounts. Once videos are posted on YouTube and/or your website or blog you need to promote them. You can link to and spread the word about your videos on social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, and more. Many of these sites also allow you to post your videos there as well.

8. Procedures. Like any other part of your practice you need to come up with a general game plan for your Chiropractic video patient testimonials.  Having a game plan for patient testimonials will make for higher quality and more efficient procedures.

9. Patient Permission. Many Doctors of Chiropractic overlook this. The fact is you should be getting written permission and a release form from patients. You need to be specifically getting permission to use their testimonials in your marketing. Asking them verbally isn’t enough. Some doctors choose to simply ask and get the release verbally on video at the beginning of the testimonial. While this is certainly better than not documenting the fact that you asked, I still recommend some sort of patient release form.  We’ll be posting a free sample form template soon!

10. Time and Creativity. Like anything else worthwhile; filming, editing, uploading, and promoting Chiropractic patient testimonials takes time.  You need to be willing to devote the time and effort to make your efforts successful.

11. A Written Alternative. While many of your patients are outgoing media hounds willing to jump at the chance of being on camera and potentially on TV or the internet, some are not. For a multitude of reasons many patients are camera shy and prefer to not give a video testimonial. Offer these patients a form to provide a written testimonial. A glowing written testimonial is better than none at all!

I’m often asked by Doctors of Chiropractic if I think patient testimonials are a good idea.  Done properly, I think they are a wonderful idea and one of the best ways to build social proof in the world of Chiropractic marketing. In this series of articles we’ll be discussing Chiropractic patient testimonials, video testimonials, social proof, and more. I’ll also be providing some handy tips along the way on how to best accomplish all of this. I’ll even end by providing FREE downloadable permission and release forms to allow you to legally and ethically use your patient testimonials.  So enough introduction, let’s get started!

Patient testimonials fit right into an area of Chiropractic internet marketing that has become a hot topic of late: Social Proof.  Social proof is nothing new. It’s simply a new buzz word and spin applied to an age old concept.  On the most basic level, social proof is little more than providing reviews ,testimonials, and other evidence to prove that your product or service is effective, accepted, and well liked.

Patient testimonials are obviously an ideal technique to build social proof. While print or text testimonials are effective, the best idea is always video. If you can’t or won’t work with video testimonials than you should try and at least use photos along with your testimonial.  Most people tend to dismiss plain text testimonials as simply being made up. A photo of the individual along with their testimonial is a better idea since it puts a face with the text and helps to establish a little more credibility.  The king of all Chiropractic patient testimonials is without a doubt, the video testimonial.

We have become a very visual society. We tend to place more trust in something we can see and hear for ourselves rather than simply reading.  Video testimonials are probably one of the best ways a Doctor of Chiropractic can build social proof. Although they require more work than other types of testimonials, it is well worth the extra effort.  We’ll  take a look at some of the benefits and disadvantages of video testimonials in our next post.

In part 3 of this series we discussed some examples of how unique article and content creation tools can mangle an original article or post and create an embarrassing mess of a revision.  In the world of Chiropractic marketing this can have devastating effects. If you are an affiliate marketer or spammer your main concern is probably just creating backlinks and getting your link published as many time as possible.  You may not be concerned with the quality of the content you are publishing.  As Doctors of Chiropractic we do not have this luxury.  As a Chiropractor your reputation is key to the success and growth of your career and practice.

When I come across a terrible article, post, or comment that was obviously generated by some automated program I can’t help but develop a negative opinion of the publisher and author.  It looks lazy, sloppy, and unprofessional.  I hold this point of view and I actually understand how  and why the horrible content ended up being published.  Most likely a busy and well intentioned Doctor of Chiropractic simply plugged their original content into some magic unique content creation tool and went on their way without ever examining the quality of  content created.

Meanwhile most of the people who come across this sub-par content won’t have this understanding.  When they come across some jumbled up mess of illogical text containing a link or two they are going to quickly question the professionalism (and sanity) of the author.  Worse yet, they’ll most likely end up disregarding any other content from the same source in the future.

I’d like to take a moment to point out that I haven’t tried every automatic article revision or unique content creation tool available.  I have worked with and tried enough of them to know they need to be closely monitored.  As a Doctor of Chiropractic you are ultimately held responsible for the Chiropractic marketing content you publish. Used without caution these tools can cause more harm than good to your Chiropractic practice.

I’m not discouraging the use of all of these tools.  I’m simply saying the Chiropractic profession needs to focus on quality control and make a sincere effort to monitor the quality of the content being created.  I’ve had pretty poor results so I choose to spend a few minutes now and then and rework articles on my own.  Once you’ve done it yourself a few times you can generally rework an article pretty quickly.  The time spent doing it right yourself the first time is usually less than the time required to track down and fix illogical junk regurgitated by an automated program.

Another option is to pay someone else to rework your content for you.  This route is sometimes even more cost effective than the high cost of many of automated programs.  There are entire sites devoted to article and content revision.  The internet is loaded with freelancers who specialize in article revision and unique content creation.  We even offer article revision and reworking and content creation services in our store.

The bottom line is to use caution and choose content revision and unique article creation tools that work best for you and your Chiropractic practice.

In this series of posts I’ve refused to specifically mention any tools, websites, or examples of any any specific content.  This was done out of respect for my internet and Chiropractic colleagues.  This was meant to be an informative series of posts, and not a venue to slam specific individuals and I intend to keep things that way.

What do you think? Am I  totally off base?  Have you come across a unique content creation or revision tool that works well for you?  Let me know! I’m definitely open minded and willing to try recommendations of my colleagues.  Voice your opinion by posting a comment below. Agree, disagree, blast me or anything in between.   All comments are moderated and require approval, but I simply ask that you keep it clean and not attack others.

As we were discussing in  part 2 of this series, we are intelligent enough to infer the different meanings of words when used in a different context but unique article creation software often is not.

Many of these programs create unique versions of an article simply by swapping words for their synonyms which can produce some sad content.  Let me drive my point home by examining how these unique content creators can take your content and chop it up into an ugly mess of meaningless text.

Let’s suppose you wanted to rewrite the following sentence and produce some different variations of it:

While walking the dog, Bill saw a bug and smashed it.

Now let’s say in an effort to save some of your valuable time, you simply plug this sentence into a unique content creation program or website.  For the sake of this article we will assume the only words that would be reworked would be the words “walking”, “dog, “bug” or “smashed”.

I decided to head over to one of my favorite sites, http://thesaurus.com, to pull up some common synonyms for the 4 words in our example. Here are a few examples of what I found.

• Walking: advance, amble, ambulate, canter, escort, exercise, hike, lumber, stalk, shuffle, stroll
• Dog: canine, bitch, cur, doggy, bow wow, hound, pup, puppy, mutt, pooch, flea bag
• Bug: disease, germ, virus, bacterium, failure, error, insect, malfunction, glitch, annoy, harass
• Smashed: bang, blast, clobber, shatter, pound, intoxicated

You can probably already identify the problem. Most of these sites and programs just aren’t intelligent enough to know when and where to properly make changes to content.  They will often just blindly swap out a word for its synonym with no regard for context or proper usage. The results are frequently awkward and often even somewhat comical.  Using our list of synonyms many of these unique content creation programs would alter our original sentence and create gems such as:

• While ambulating the canine, Bill saw a insect and intoxicated it.
• While hiking the bitch, Bill saw a error and blasted it.
• While strolling the fido, Bill saw a annoy and banged it.
• While shuffling the hound, Bill saw a germ and shattered it.
• While escorting the pooch, Bill saw a disease and pounded it.
• While cantering the mutt, Bill saw a malfunction and clobbered it.

While the content above is definitely 100% unique, it is also 100% useless. Keep in mind this is only one sentence.  Just imagine this mess occurring on a larger scale and garbling text everywhere within the content of that 1500 word article you wrote. Yikes! Although you may be able to get this useless drivel and a link published, it is probably eventually going to cause more harm than good. This content will be shared, discovered, and read by your prospective patients and clients.  What will they think when they read it? I’ll leave you to ponder over that question and I’ll be back to wrap things up in the next post!

In our last post we discussed the need to create and publish unique content.  Although content should be unique it doesn’t need to be entirely new. You can rework an article and edit it to make it significantly different and unique from it’s parent article.  In other words, you can make minor changes to content to convey the exact same message in a different way.  With that in mind we can begin to understand the logic behind unique article creation software.

The idea is simple. Write one unique and original Chiropractic article, post, or blog comment.  Next, simply upload that article to a site or software program and let it automatically and instantly churn out dozens of unique variations of that article. You do the work to write one article and get dozens of unique versions in return.  Some of these sites and programs will even automatically submit these unique versions to various sites for you too!  Sounds too good to be true right?  I think you see where I’m heading with this.

It’s a wonderful idea if it could all be properly executed. The problem is most of the software and sites out there are marginally useful at best. Why? They often produce variations of articles that are either awkwardly worded, or downright unreadable.

Although I’m not familiar with all of the unique content creation software out there I can tell you how many of them work.  In most cases the software simply rewrites an article the same way you or I probably would; they make minor changes to word order and swap out words for their synonyms. For instance, the may take the word “dog” and switch it to “canine”.  Not too big of a deal right? After all the meaning of the word is still the same. So what’s the problem?

Unfortunately, English is a very complex language.  The same word can often mean something totally different depending on the situation or context in which it is used. Take for example the word, “bug”.  Used as a noun the word can refer to an insect.  The word “bug” can also mean a glitch, error, or malfunction (such as a bug in a computer program).  If used as a verb, the  definition of the word “bug” would change to “annoy”.  While we are intelligent enough to infer the different meanings of these words when used in a different context, most of these magic article revision software programs are not.  In fact, they can produce results that are pretty pathetic.

We’ll discuss some examples in our next post!

Lately I’ve noticed a lot of Chiropractors using software to automatically generate numerous unique articles from an original article they wrote or to create multiple blog posts or comments from an original.  I totally understand the concept, but the problem is most of these sites and programs often end up spitting out garbage. While these tools live up to their name and create unique content, it may end up doing more harm than good.  In this 4 part series I’ll be discussing what unique content creation software is, why it’s around, and my personal opinion on its usefulness and effectiveness in the world of Chiropractic marketing.

Let’s start with the basics.  Why would someone even need to create unique variations of content like an article or blog post? It all boils down to the old saying “content is king”. To stay at the top of the Chiropractic internet marketing game you need to publish original and unique content on a regular basis.  You might think writing one article would be enough, but that just isn’t the case.

To compete in the world of internet marketing you need to publish a lot of unique content to a lot of different sites and locations. Why? Although there are dozens of reasons we’ll focus on two main reasons. One is to simply create visibility and awareness of your name and website.  The other reason is to create backlinks to boost your website page rank and your site’s position in internet search results.  Generally, the more links you have published to your site the better. Therefore many Chiropractors and affiliate marketers publish as many articles as possible with a link to their website included in the text.

Now comes the next obvious question. I should just publish my one article to dozens of websites, blogs and article sites right? Wrong. While this would be the easy way to do things it won’t work.  The top article submission sites and other content rich sites usually require the content you submit to be 100% original and unique.  You won’t get away with publishing identical content in mass (at least not for long.) Yes, these sites really do check. Publish the same article dozens of times and you’ll not only find yourself labeled as a spammer, you’ll also find your articles deleted and yourself banned from many submission sites.

To further complicate matters is the fact that Google frowns upon duplicate content. So much so that they recently began taking steps to penalize sites in their search rankings that appear to publish deliberate or malicious duplicate content. Getting into all the details is beyond the scope of this post, but let’s just say you need to publish unique content and not the same old stuff over and over again!

Pause for a moment and imagine what BJ Palmer would have done with the power of the internet. Envision the Chiropractic marketing tactics he would have employed if he had access to the entire world via instant electronic communication. Can you even fathom what BJ would have done with YouTube and Facebook? Can you imagine the insane SEO domination campaigns Dr. Palmer would have waged!? What I wouldn’t give to read BJ Palmer’s Official Blog! Just imagine what he could have accomplished with access to millions of people with a few clicks of the mouse or some simple keystrokes.

My point here is the vast majority of the Chiropractic profession is missing the boat. I’m amazed how many practices still don’t have a website. I’m even more amazed how many practices are content with using the same website they had designed in the mid 1990s. I’m probably just as puzzled and perplexed by the large number of Chiropractors who simply dismiss web 2.0 and social media as a passing fad.

Many Chiropractors are happy to dismiss the internet and social media as unimportant, a waste of time, or a passing fad. If that was true would huge corporations and fortune 500 companies like Coca-Cola, Wal-Mart, or Boeing even bother with a Twitter account or websites?

Wal-Mart, by the way, currently has no less than 15 official Twitter accounts and profiles in use to promote the U.S. side of their business alone! I haven’t even touched on how many major corporations and huge companies have blogs, or facebook accounts. That all seems like a lot of time, effort, and money to invest if social media and the internet aren’t beneficial forms of marketing!

Even those Chiropractic practices with a website and accounts on most of the main social media sites probably aren’t using these tools to their full potential. Chiropractic internet and social media marketing is a dynamic and immensely powerful tool if used correctly. However, a stale website or social media profile that sits without attention or updates for months are essentially as useless as no internet presence at all.

With the internet and social media, we have at our disposal the most powerful marketing and patient education venue we’ve seen in our lifetime. Ask yourself if you are using these opportunities to their full potential. What would BJ do? Would he sit on his hands and let these amazing opportunities pass him by? Would he half halfheartedly fumble together a website or blog, leaving it sit without attention, and call it good?

I’m confident BJ Palmer would tap into the immense reach and power of the internet and social media and take it to the next level. Not only would he fully utilize all of the Chiropractic internet marketing opportunities available, he would create revolutionary new opportunities for himself and our profession. BJ Palmer would have used the internet and social media to promote Chiropractic care across the globe and he would have done it in bold new ways amazing even by today’s standards.

Are you using the unique opportunities provided to you with the internet and modern technology? Are you seizing the moment and fully immersing your Chiropractic marketing plan in the internet and social media pool? If you aren’t, NOW is the time to start. If you ARE doing something, now is the time to step up and double your efforts! Yes, keeping up with the constantly changing demands of Chiropractic internet marketing is a challenge, but it’s a challenge worth meeting.

BJ was fond of the saying, “Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise”. Would his attitude be any different toward Chiropractic internet marketing? The opportunities are there, we all just need to spend more time seizing them and less time making excuses.

-”Nuff said”