Monday, December 29, 2008

Chiropractic Marketing with Social Networks and Video

By Matthew Loop, DC

No one could have guessed how phenomenally successful social networks like YouTube, Facebook, and MySpace would become. The power and potential of these top sites are mind boggling. When in 2005 I began to introduce the power of these sites to chiropractors and show them the impact it could have on their marketing, I knew that web 2.0 could bring all of them phenomenal marketing success in these difficult times. Knowing all this, I still couldn't even fathom the remarkable success that was really still to come.

The amount of leverage that social media sites allowed me was tremendous. It was truly remarkable how much of my time was freed up by using the power of Web 2.0, and leveraging out the marketing work to other employees. This kind of marketing is absolutely free, so no longer was I in the hole due to overpriced marketing firms that yielded no results. I began 3 years ago to meet people in my community through MySpace, and the number of my new acquaintances grew to 50 people almost every single day. The traffic that this was bringing to my website was phenomenal. As I optimized my profile and experimented with different things, the phone calls from future patients just started to pour in. I was amazed by what was happening.

Marketing on social media can yield instant results but it's absolutely phenomenal for positioning yourself in the long-term! It's similar to planting seeds within the community and getting into every nook-and-cranny possible. If you set yourself up correctly, you can brand yourself as an authority in whatever specialty you choose and gain trust and credibility with your community. Then, you can keep tabs and consistently build top-of-the-mind awareness with the friends and subscriber lists that you've built. The avalanche occurs after you've amassed several thousand people that you keep in touch with regularly that need you or refer new patients to your chiropractic practice for the conditions that you treat.

One of the things that I was able to capitalize on very early in my social network endeavors was simple chiropractic video marketing. Making videos and uploading them is a fairly simple, quick process yet so few chiropractors have even thought to marketing to their community this way. A word of advice, though. After you shoot your video from a video camera or digital camera, many times you will need to compress the actual file using Windows Movie Maker (if you have a PC) or iMovie (if you have a MAC). Then, you will be able to edit or upload to a video sharing website like YouTube.

Videos get indexed extremely well by search engines, if you understand basic and advanced optimization strategies. I've been able to drive massive amounts of highly-targeted visitors to my website with video, which has basically made me a local celebrity. In conjunction, I've been able to bring in many new patients that have seen my direct response videos. They feel like they know me before they ever step into my office. They are able to follow me on my channels to get new health information, as I overwhelm them with consistent value and not spam-based advertisement.

There has never been a better time to begin to learn chiropractic video marketing for your practice. In fact, did you know that over 50% of all online content today is video? More and more folks turn to and search the internet every day for solutions to their aches and pains. If they begin to see you blanket the search engines, this will build social proof just by the sheer number of listings and videos that you have. You can be your own PR machine and untouchable by the competition.

Take people on a journey with you through your office and in many different locations. I always bring my video camera and tripod with me wherever I go because I never know when I'm going to have a great idea for an educational or promotion video for my chiropractic practice or other business ventures. I've shot videos at the office, at home, in Costa Rica, at the golf course, in the mountains, on the ocean, and many other locations. Viewers love to tag-along with you on your journey and see a change of scenery. Also, in my opinion, natural light is the best and most flattering.

It's important that you put out 1-2 videos a month as a minimum. This is how you can canvas the search engines and come up in multiple places. You must keep pumping out material so that your position stays strong in search engines. There's no need to outsource your videos because it will cost a lot of money and it's so easy to do yourself.

The important thing to remember is to relax, have fun, and to not be pretentious. Your videos should not be fake or give a false impression of who you really are. Convey your genuine feelings about wanting to help people and be the go-to person for their specific problems and this is what you will attract. With that in mind, provide a large amount of use value that your followers or people that see your video can implement that same day. This will give you even more credibility and build faster rapport with your community.

Lastly, find a chiropractic coach with a proven track record who's been leveraging social media and social networking the past several years. Since the social media landscape is so vast, it's a good idea to find a consultant that solely specializes in this type of chiropractic marketing. This is not the type of material that can be effectively taught for an hour at a multi-topic seminar. After you find your mentor, hang-on for one incredible ride. Your chiropractic practice and business live may never be the same again! - 16928

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