The Facebook Marketing Crash Course for Therapists
If you run a private therapy practice, relationships are central to your business. You and your clients need to have a culture of trust.
Often, therapists underestimate how social media can help this process. Platforms like Facebook are new clients’ first introduction to your practice. You can use it as a tool to lay a foundation of trust before ever meeting them in person.
In this article, we’ll give you a Facebook marketing crash course. So, you can grow a community around your therapy practice online.
Unleash the Power of Facebook Marketing
Facebook is the biggest social media platform in the world. Which gives it a massive reach across a large and diverse population. Today, 69% of Americans use Facebook and 73% of users visit the site daily.
There are more than 2.8 billion active monthly users on Facebook. Many of whom want to connect with healthcare businesses. In fact, almost 90% of baby boomers use social media to find and share health information. While 68% of parents use social media to access health information for themselves or their children.
As a marketing tool, Facebook offers a wide range of opportunities. From free organic marketing to paid advertising and industry partnerships. There are lots of ways to spread the word.
For example, you can build a local community around your brand. Or use keywords and relevant content to attract a global audience.
The benefits depend on what you post. This huge platform allows you to inform, entertain and motivate in equal measure.
If you aren’t sure how to get started with Facebook marketing, keep reading.
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Valuable and Diverse Marketing Opportunities
Facebook’s large user base is a major draw for businesses. But it also provides niche marketing opportunities through local and industry-specific pages.
This is great news for therapists and counselors. You don’t need a huge audience to achieve impressive results on the platform. To build a community around your business, you need to find the right people. Then, offer them something of value.
For example, you could present weekly updates on your private practice. You could offer incentives to bring people through your door. Or start loyalty programs to galvanize your existing client base.
You can also present information from your latest conference. Or you can share new research in your field.
There is also the avenue of collaborating with other healthcare providers in your area.
Facebook is a fantastic tool in its own regard. Especially as a way to drive traffic to your therapy website. Facebook offers opportunities throughout the marketing lifecycle. From conversations and feedback to sales and branding.
Building a community around your brand can take time. But it offers many rewards that expand and evolve as your practice grows.
Effective 5-Step Plan to Ignite Your Facebook Marketing
The following 5-step plan is a great place to start to jumpstart your Facebook marketing.
1. Don’t Be Afraid to Use Your Personality
As a form of social media, Facebook is more than a website.
Your Facebook business page should be personal and enticing. From the cover photo, you choose the content you upload and subjects you link to.
Yes, it’s always important to always be professional. But Facebook gives you a great opportunity to showcase your personality to the world.
2. Take Advantage of Free Organic Marketing
Unlike print advertising, Facebook marketing is free when you use search engine optimization or (SEO).
SEO is a variety of online best practices that help you rank on Google searches. Ranking is incredibly valuable. It increases the amount of traffic and visibility to your site.
Best of all, it’s free.
You can always get involved with paid ads down the track. But first, build an online community through organic traffic with SEO. It’s the foundation of online marketing success.
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3. Spend Time Building a Facebook Community
Facebook is more than a marketing channel. It’s a community of like-minded people who enjoy spending time together. For your private therapy practice, this aspect of Facebook is very beneficial.
Grow your community by engaging your followers. Engagement on Facebook requires a variety of actions.
You have to post content relevant to your audience. Always respond to comments on your page. And ask conversation-starting questions in your posts.
4. Integrate Facebook with Your Website
Like other forms of social media, Facebook does not exist in isolation. To get the most from this platform, you need to integrate it with other online and offline tools.
For example, setting up your Facebook posts to sync to your Instagram. So, you get cross-platform engagement with every post.
Also, posts signs in your office with your Facebook page. Use your physical space to get patients to your digital space.
Don’t forget to direct traffic to your website through Facebook. This can be indirect, like having your website info on your page. Or directly, through posts that feature your website URL.
But be conscious of not asking too much of your Facebook followers. Your page is about building a community. Don’t lose their interest by being too sales-focused.
5. Leverage the Power of Paid Facebook Ads
There are many ways to generate traffic on Facebook, including paid advertising.
Sure, it isn’t free like Seo. But paid advertising allows you to target your counseling practice’s ideal clients.
Using Facebook’s paid ads tool, you can build a specific audience for your ad. Filter who will receive your ad by factors like age, income, education, geography, and more.
What demographic do you specialize in helping? You can reach them with Facebook ads. It will just cost you
Final Thoughts
Facebook marketing offers a huge opportunity to counselors. You can build a community around your practice on the platform. By growing an audience online, you can help your business in the offline world.
This Facebook marketing course is a great place to begin. If you want more in-depth help, you can work with digital marketing experts.
The Brighter Vision team is ready to amplify your business’s Facebook marketing. Contact us today!
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