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A Simple Way to Organize Your Social Media Marketing for 2011 1. If you don’t already have one, start a blog. The blog should be integrated with your website. Plan to update the blog at least once a week. Blogging more often can improve your marketing outcomes, but once a week is sufficient as you get started. 2. Set up a Twitter account and follow people who are talking about subjects related to your clinical specialty. Use tweets to tell people about your blog posts (driving traffic to your website/blog). And tweet information relevant to your ideal clients. For example, if you support women with stress, it’s appropriate to tweet information related to how to manage stress, links to magazine articles, research or other blog posts on the topic of stress, etc. Make time to have short conversations with people. 3. Develop a Facebook business page and share similar information on your wall that you share on Twitter. Sometimes I mix up what I share on which social media site, so if someone follows me on both Twitter and Facebook they are always getting new, fresh ideas. A Facebook business page is not the same as your personal page. People can “like” a business page without sharing any of their personal information on your wall and you can isolate your personal account from current/former clients and potential clients. That’s it! Doesn’t that seem much more manageable than trying to stay active on all sorts of networking sites?
What’s the Point? Often people ask me why they should engage in all of this online socializing. The truth is, you’re building relationships that will benefit your business growth. Some of these relationships will be with potential clients. You’ll also be networking with colleagues who can refer to you, your services and products. Today people are more and more comfortable connecting with others online. They view many of their online relationships as similar to those they have offline. People will more likely do business with health care providers they can “vet” ahead of making an appointment and will increasingly expect to be able to see how you work and your professional philosophies before they engage in a working relationship. Social media is not a place to engage in therapeutic relationships, but a forum to engage in a similar way as you would at a community networking meeting or health information fair. So, go be where your clients are and get set up online and in social media. Get started and experiment with what works for your specialty and ideal clients. Social media can be fun and help you reach your business goals in a low cost, effective way. Susan Giurleo, Ph.D. manages www.bizsavvytherapist.com, bringing mental health support to people via social media and online technologies. She is based in Massachusetts, USA T I L T MAGAZ I N E j a n u a r y 2 0 1 1
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