Your business Facebook page can be a bit of nightmare for you at times, I know. There’s the issue of where the draw the ‘professional’ line. Then there’s the question of what on earth to post there! Sometimes, this lack of direction and focus can mean that looking at the page as a whole can leave a visitor feeling like they’ve just munched their way through a vat of stodgy porridge!
So let’s get down to basics
What are you trying to achieve? Once you know that, it will help you to know how to angle your posts. The number one thing you can focus on is to portray yourself as the expert that you absolutely are. If you haven’t already, develop your confident and assured persona because that creates trust in others looking at you as a possible solution to their problem.
Secondly, become a hub of valuable, fascinating and helpful information. Your encyclopedic brain is full of facts, advice, tips and more and you share that with your patients all day long. However, potential patients need to understand that they are in safe and knowledgeable hands, that you really do know the body’s structure and function in great detail and that, like a pain detective, you go after the root cause of the problem and aim to significantly improve matters.
Therefore, you can confidently come out from behind your logo, add a close-up smiling photo and shine your light from your page and into your community. You can share great information which is helpful to your neighbours and help them to understand the ways in which you can help them. Indeed your Facebook page can become the health hub for your area.
What constitutes a great Facebook page?
First of all variety! I know that it can seem very time consuming to keep on creating content for your Facebook page and it may seem that you have little interaction going on. But let me tell you a secret! Many, many people just watch from the periphery. They are the ones who need a bit of time to get to know you and like you before trusting you with their most valuable asset – their bodies!
Crucially, therefore, you must show your personality to the extent to which you are comfortable. If you are passionate about helping people in your community, show it! If you are an enthusiastic cyclist or runner, show it! If you love soothing fractious babies with gentle treatments, then let’s see that!
I hope you can begin to see that largely sharing other page’s posts onto yours is not going to be helping you to achieve your aims. Whilst it’s useful sometimes to share something fittingly funny, a fascinating video etc, taking a little time out to create some punchy content will reward you with new enquiries.
For a less stodgy Facebook page include some of the following:
Short articles – if something you read inspires you, don’t share it but write your own piece about the topic and add in your own advice or thoughts about it. That is then your own property and it doesn’t need referencing.
Memes – images with text are super for grabbing the attention of people idly flicking through their news feeds. Make a short sharp point. I bet my white cat caught your attention!
Video – is currently your greatest marketing weapon! If I can get over myself and use this to get my passion and my point across, then you can too!
Blogs – always write these directly onto your website and share the link onto your Facebook page. People clicking on the link will be brought to your website and if it’s engaging enough, you may well end up with further bookings from that.
Advice – you have tons of tips, advice and information in your head. I suggest you do a brain dump into your marketing book (I’d like you to have a special book for that if you don’t already) and jot down all the usual kind of stuff you are sharing with patients. More people will benefit from this and come to your page looking for more tips.
Most of all remember that the clue is in the title: SOCIAL media is meant to be just that! There is nothing ‘unprofessional’ about sharing some of your personality, passion and desire for your community to suffer less pain and discomfort. As I constantly say, “PEOPLE BUY PEOPLE!” They are not buying Osteopathy; they are buying a solution to their problem. For instance I do not buy ‘yoga classes’, I buy better flexibility and less stiffness from too much sitting at my Osteobiz desk!
So your messages on your Facebook page certainly need to get that point across. Tell them what you want for them. Show them how you can help. Share your knowledge with them. Then firmly encourage them to contact you to find out if you can help them with some strong call to action statements.
And you never know, you might actually start enjoying sharing better quality and more personalised content on your Facebook page!
During November, the members of my online Inner Circle group will be learning lots more about this topic. We will be working on creating lots of content for their Facebook pages, so join up now if you’d like some help with this too. It’s just a tenner a month (stay as long as you like) for downloadable classes you can keep, an exclusive Facebook forum and lots of help from me. I also drop into the group regularly with extra ideas or for Q&A sessions. Find out more and come and join us!
