Posts Tagged ‘ chiropractic social media marketing ’

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!

We’ve had a lot of requests for more of our unique Chiropractic gifts, ties, posters, and other Chiropractic products on Zazzle.

We’ve heard your demands and we are in the process of working on some new designs in our “free time”. I use the term “free time” loosely since our free time seems to amount to about 12 minutes at 3:00 am before we collapse from sheer and utter exhaustion. Well….I can’t speak for everyone but that’s my “free time”!

Have something in mind for a great Chiropractic message on a product but don’t have the time or know how to pull it off. Post your thoughts or comments in the comment section below or email us and we might be able to bring your idea to life!

Anyway sit tight and stay tuned for some great new Chiropractic products. Here is just one of many new products to come. Our new “Chiropractic is specific” coffee mug! You can choose which color and type of mug you want this design on and preview it before you buy. Very cool!

The other night I sent a tweet on Twitter inviting ChiropracticPR followers to read our new article on Ezinearticles.com. Unfortunately, in my rush  I mistyped it “ezinearticels.com.” Granted, it’s not a huge mistake but it still doesn’t look so great coming from a site that offers Chiropractic article writing and other content creation services.

Although a minor typo is really nothing to lose sleep over, I still take it seriously. Whether or not we like it: our blog posts, facebook updates, tweets, and other contributions on the internet are all a direct reflection of us. This got me thinking about another very serious problem present in the world of social media and social networking: mixing personal life and business life.

Your accountant will tell you to not mix personal accounts and business accounts.  The same advice could, and often SHOULD, be applied to the world of Chiropractic social media and internet marketing.

Many younger Doctors tend to mix their personal and professional life together on sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Although this doesn’t have to be a bad thing, it often is. I network and interact with hundreds to thousands of Chiropractors and other professionals on a daily basis via the internet. I am often shocked to see some of the posts I come across from professional accounts Doctors use to promote their practices and services.

Very frequently I come across inappropriate jokes, sexual innuendos, nasty remarks, bragging about the crazy party last night, openly bashing the medical professionals and . . . well . . . you get the idea.  Now I’m no prude, but we all need to remember how public most of our internet and social media use actually is.  The majority of the time everyone can see what we post and what others post about us.

We are all human. As Doctors of Chiropractic we may say, or sometimes do, things in our personal life we would never dream of saying or doing within our practice. Most of us would  never dream of standing in the crowded reception area of our Chiropractic practice while using foul language or trading raunchy jokes with our buddies. Yet many of us do this very same thing on a daily basis on social media sites. Ethics and common sense should apply to the virtual world just as they would to real life.

The bottom line is there is a time and place for everything. We all need to realize when we post something online we are representing our professional identity and the Chiropractic profession as a whole. We should never jeopardize our professional reputation by posting questionable content online.

Mixing a little personal life in with your professional identity on the internet is not always a bad thing. Letting patients know a little about your family life and outside hobbies is a great way to establish trust and credibility. For instance, posting pictures of your children or the family pet, or a little information about that recent weekend family vacation are all perfectly acceptable and beneficial posts. The key is to spend a moment before you post and ask yourself what crosses the line.

Perhaps the most perplexing part of this whole dilemma for me is how easy it is to prevent the posting of unflattering content in the first place.  If you wouldn’t want to stand up in a crowded theater, or in church on Sunday, and say it…don’t post it online! The easiest thing to do is use a little common sense and discretion. Like Thumper was always told, “If you can’t say something nice . . . don’t say nothing at all!”

The second easiest way to prevent things is to create separate social media accounts for your professional and personal lives.  Keep your personal accounts private and only let your known friends and acquaintances read and follow your posts and updates.

One of the most wonderful aspects of social media and the internet is it let’s our personality show through. Things don’t always have to be stuffy and boring, but when we are representing ourselves in a professional capacity, we need to maintain a certain degree of professionalism. After all, would you kiss your mother with that mouth?

Without a doubt, the king of all Chiropractic patient testimonials is the video testimonial.  Recording a short video testimonial from patients is more time consuming than other types of testimonials, but also usually creates the greatest results.  Let’s take a closer look at some advantages and disadvantages of the video patient testimonial.

Disadvantages

• Time consuming: It takes time to film, edit, and post video testimonials (especially when you are first learning how to do the entire process).

• Expense: Video testimonials require you to invest in some equipment and computer software that you may not already have. This can make the initial expense more than other forms of testimonials.

• Permanent and Not As Easy to Edit: Although they all mean well, patients aren’t familiar with the legal and ethical issues facing the modern Chiropractor. They also may be nervous when in front of a camera.  As a result they may say or do things that aren’t in the best interests of your Chiropractic practice.  Making minor corrections to a video testimonial is more difficult than text. With a text testimonial you can quickly make minor changes and indicate the changes you made. A video testimonial doesn’t afford this luxury. Editing the middle of a video testimonial may be difficult, may require cutting or cropping, or might even require completely re shooting the testimonial.

• Difficulty: Although not extremely difficult, video testimonials require more effort and knowledge than a basic text or audio Chiropractic patient testimonial.

• Patient Reluctance: Many patients are reluctant to appear on video and thus these patients are less likely to agree to a video testimonial.  You may find less people willing to provide a video testimonial versus a text testimonial.

Advantages

• Trust and Credibility: This is without a doubt the biggest advantage of the video patient testimonial.  In fact it’s such a huge advantage it pretty much trumps all off the disadvantages we mentioned above!   The social proof value of a video testimonial is much greater than that provided by a text testimonial.  As a society we generally place more trust in something we can see and hear firsthand. There is simply no substitute to watching and hearing a person provide their personal account of something.   Seeing a patient provide a glowing testimonial of Chiropractic care and your practice is truly priceless.

• Validity: A video testimonial reduces the chances that you can be accused of falsifying or editing the actual content of patient testimonials.

• Requires Less Time and Commitment from your Audience: Let’s face it, we have become an instant gratification society. The general public doesn’t like to read anymore than they have to, especially when it comes to things like advertising. The sad truth is many people will disregard text testimonials simply due to the fact that it requires their time and effort to read.

• Versatility: The video Chiropractic testimonial is highly versatile. It can be used in a variety of different venues and media outlets. Video testimonials can be used on your Chiropractic website, chiropractic blog, in DVDs and other chiropractic marketing materials, in television commercials, on social media accounts and more. Video allows you to be much more creative than text.

• Website Search Engine Optimization and Increased Site Traffic: Prospective patients and the general public aren’t the only ones who value video. Google and other internet search engines love it too! By regularly updating video to popular  sites such as YouTube you can improve your Chiropractic website’s position in internet search results and drive visitors to your Chiropractic blog or website.  Thanks to Dr. Jason Ulsrud over at RockStar-Chiro for pointing out I should indeed add this to the list of advantages!

These are just a few of the main advantages and disadvantages of the video Chiropractic patient testimonial. What are your thoughts? Do you have something you feel I left off of the list? Let me know by leaving a comment below. I’d be happy to add your input to our discussion and even provide you with the credit!  Feel free to leave your comments and feedback in the comment section below.

In our next post we’ll begin taking a look at the actual process of the video testimonial along with tips on how to pull off some of the best Chiropractic video testimonials around!

Until then keep promoting yourselves and our profession!

-Dr. James

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!

While looking for new computer chairs for at home and the offices, I recently came across a site called Sitbetter.com.  It’s a very cool site with an expanding catalog of over a thousand products to meet nearly any seating budget. They offer a ton of cool ergonomic seating and some ergonmic workstation accessories I never even knew existed!

They have a huge variety of chairs to pick from including affordable basic task chairs, ergonomic chairs, to top of the line executive style office chairs. Chairs aren’t the only thing the site specializes in. Check out the awesome “Ergonomics accessories” section for dynamic foot rests, workstations, and much more! They even have a special section devoted to lumbar supports and chairs for back pain.

This isn’t your average office chair retailer. The site also provides expert ergonomic advice and recommendations for seating and client workspace. It’s no wonder they have so many high profile clients. According to the site they serve clients such as: Digg.com, The F.B.I., AT&T, Proctor & Gamble, Walmart Vision Center, Macy’s, Dunkin’ Donuts and many more!

The sad reality is we spend more time sitting than we ever have. We need to make sure we are sitting with proper posture and ergonomics in mind. Sitbetter.com has a huge variety of products to help us accomplish this.  I thought I’d pass this information along since it can benefit both your practice and your patients. If you have a patient who needs a new computer or task chair this may be a good place for them to start their search.

Here’s something else to ponder.  What kind of chair is your Chiropractic office staff sitting on? Are you leading by example and providing top of the line ergonomic seating or are they stuck with that $19.99 value special?   Maybe it’s time you update to some more ergonomic seating and workstation accessories for your valuable Chiropractic practice staff members. This site is the perfect place to start your ergonomic seating and workstation shopping!

We know you’re strapped for time, so here are just a few products we recommend you check out:

• FM500 Humanscale – Rocking Foot Machine
• The Original Evolution Exercise Ball Chair
  STO-Ball-Chair
• Allseating TheraPod Therapist – High Back Ergonomic Office Chair: ALL-501
• Allseating Chiroform™ Ultra 24:7 – High Back Task Chair: ALL-97111-T2
• 571 Allseating CPOD™ – Mesh Back Ergonomic Office Chair
• WallTrax1 Anatome – Wall Trax Computer Mounting System
• 345 Kore Stool – Ergonomic Rocking Stool
• SMUSB Humanscale – Switch Mouse SMUSB Ergonomic Mouse

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