Archive for June, 2010
Chiropractic Marketing: Is Social Media Necessary for Your Clinic?
Social Media is the “hottest” buzz word on the Internet today. For those of you who would like to consider Social Media marketing as an adjunct to your overall chiropractic internet marketing strategy, but aren’t really 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 may seem familiar in some aspects to other chiropractic marketing strategies you’ve engaged in in the past, and yet unfamiliar at the same time. In the “familiar” category, you wouldn’t consider any type of marketing plan without making an effort to understand what you’re doing and what you want to get from it. What are your goals? Once you’re clear about what you want, you’ll be able to use social media to your best advantage.
When you are ready to begin your social media effort, but before you start, you will need to make certain that you “own your name” on all the social media outlets, i.e., make sure that your name or your clinic’s name is available so that you can use the exact same name on all of the social channels you desire to use. When you’re ready, there’s a service, which is totally free, that can assist you with your search. Knowem.com is the who to go to. This service will research where your name is and/or if it’s available or not on a large number of social media sites.
The next step, once you have all your social media accounts “locked up”, is to make a decision as to where you want to be active. Starting with only a small number of social media sites is preferable because, let’s face it, you have a clinic to run and patients to see. You won’t want to get involved in too many social media sites. 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 benefit of social media is for you to go out and network with the community. Of course, inform them about what you do, but do it by becoming a participant. There is truly no difference between the way social networking works and the way you normally network 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 talking about who they are and what they do, and then a person asks you what you do. Or, perhaps you begin 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!
Obesity: A National Epidemic That Needs to be Eradicated
As a chiropractor and healthcare provider, I cannot say enough about the crucial issue of excess weight and how it adversely affects every system of the human body. I “preach” to my overweight patients and hammer away on the subject in my blogs because in addition to the cardio-vascular diseases caused by obesity, much of the back pain, hip pain, and knee pain that people experience is influenced by the undue stress excess weight puts on the joints of the body. And, though it may not surprise you, an expert panel in a report out just today said that people in this country must slash their calories and increase physical activity because the obesity epidemic is “the single greatest threat to public health in this century.”
We all know that dieting isn’t easy, but the advisory committee for the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans gave this clear-cut advice: “People in this country need to cut the calories they consume from added sugars and solid fats (butter, marbled meats) and start eating a more nutrient-rich, plant-based diet.”
The report called for many changes in the food environment. To read more, go to: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/weightloss/2010-06-15-