Facebook is a very good way to promote your chiropractic clinic.  The social media site boasts the following stats:

Facebook is ideal for promoting one’s business (the right way) because it is done in a social setting, and everyone is being themselves.  You basically sign up, and as soon as you do, FB suggests friends for you (they have an algorithm that can find people who you already know).  It’s really weird, maybe a little creepy, but most people just accept it.  This feature actually is quite helpful, because all you need to do is click the friend request button of those who were suggested to you.  When they accept your request, you start to see their posts on your homepage.  Of course, you can search for your friends and acquaintances using a search box, to see if they are on FB, but it takes much longer.

What makes FB powerful is the Like button.  If you make a post, and one of your FB friends who has 500 Facebook friends clicks the Like button next to your post, all 500 of those friends will see your link on their homepage!  If you are familiar with Twitter, this is the equivalent of a “retweet.”  Now, imagine if 20 of your friends clicked the Like button, and each has an average of 200 friends– that’s 4,000 exposures of your post in an instant.  The trick is to get people to Like your post.  It could be something inspirational related to chiropractic, with of course, the URL to your website.

Facebook is all about being social.  But instead of facing people in person, it is done virtually, over the internet.  But the social rules are basically the same– engage, and be courteous.  When your friends feel comfortable with your posts (you need to stay active), you can start pushing some commercial intent.  But make sure to provide interesting, non-commercial posts/recommendations most of the time.

I made a post about this in July 2009 because I noticed that I was getting quite a few patients from Yelp each week.  Well, about a year later, Yelp is even stronger, and pulling a lot of weight in online searches for local businesses.  I’m finding that Yelp.com is often in the #1 spot for natural search for local chiropractic services.  For example, if you Google the phrase “San Francisco Chiropractors,” Yelp is anchored at the #1 spot and has been for months and months.  Not sure about other big cities; though.  What tends to drive Yelp’s strong SEO ranking is the amount of activity on the site, and in San Francisco, there are many Yelpers posting comments on businesses; perhaps hundreds a day, and such changing activity on a website is seen positively by Google as “fresh, relevant content” which drives up the site’s ranking and makes it very difficult for smaller sites to bump it from its perch.

So what typically happens is that the person Google’s “(their city name) chiropractor” and sees Yelp first; does a search there for a chiropractor in her city, reads the reviews of one chiropractor, then another, and another, and so on, comparing all these chiropractors’ ratings before deciding to pick up the phone to call.  Basically Yelp hijacks her for an hour, and she’d rather not look at the other sites below it on the Google search results page.

So, what does this mean?  It means if you want to capture the part of your market that looks for their services online through the search engines, then you need to get as many Yelp reviews from your patients as possible.  And how do you go about doing it, just asking them nicely?  NO!  You have to push the action.  It’s that important.

First tip to get more Yelp reviews:  Make a business card that says,

“Can We Ask You a Little Favor?”  Many people use Yelp.com to locate businesses they wish to try, including chiropractors.  We would greatly appreciate it if you could write us a Yelp review.  Just go to Yelp.com, sign up, and look up our business.  Thanks!

…or something similar– you get the idea.  Ask patients to do it, and give the card to everyone on their way out.

Second tip to get more Yelp reviews:  Have a laptop computer at your checkout desk, with a small sign in an acrylic stand that says the same thing above.  After you are done treating your patient, ask him to please write a review if they have time, before he leaves.  Say it like this: “Can you do me a favor, Jim…” and ask him to use the laptop at the front desk to write a review.  People generally like doing good deeds, and it should work.  Also, get your chiropractic assistant to reinforce it by having her request it, too as she makes the patient’s next appointment.  If you let them say, “I’ll do it at work/home” chances of him doing it fall to 10% or less, as life gets in the way.  If the patient doesn’t have time, that’s when you give him the business card in Tip 1 as back up.

Third tip:  Make one of your autoresponder messages in your chiropractic email marketing campaign ask the patient to write a Yelp review.  Put a link in the message that connects to Yelp.

Fourth tip:  Use incentives.  Offer a half-hour massage to all patients who write a raving review of the practice.  Or, hold a contest:  whoever writes the best review, as judged by your staff, wins six months of maintenance care, a TempurPedic pillow, customized orthotics, or other prize.

Fifth tip:  This works if you use a sliding fee schedule in your office.  Basically, you very nicely, and not in a condescending way, say “We never want to let cost get in the way of someone getting chiropractic care, which is why we offer a sliding fee schedule, but we do ask that, if you like our service, write a Yelp review for our clinic as it will help with our business.”

Those are my recommendations.  You’ve got to lead them to “Yes” when it comes to Yelp, just like the old-school report of findings methods.  If your website isn’t even on the first page of Google for your main keyword, and Yelp is, then you should be even more motivated to set these strategies into action.  Don’t underestimate the power of social media sites like Yelp.com; many people use it to find businesses to patronize.  If it’s not that big in your city, it may be in the near future, so start building up your reviews.

Dan Perez DC

The result: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of the chiropractic profession are in broad daylight for all to see, including your current and potential patients. The miracle stories, the good PR coming from the sports world and other positive chiropractic human interest stories are competing with the stroke comments, chiropractor insurance fraud stories (who among us hasn’t read such an article in our local news?), and witch doctor comments. Yes, some of the Bad stuff out there isn’t true– after all, anyone with a heartbeat can post anything online. We can cry foul when these things occur, but by that time it has influenced a lot of minds. This is the information age, and we’re in a fight to win over the minds of those who need our services.  And everyone knows the old adage that bad news spreads more quickly than positive news.  So, you’ve got to operate as your own PR agency.

In 2010 and beyond, chiropractors should consistently put out positive PR for their practices. And you’ll need to do it via the internet, because the internet and its many veins is a huge well of influence at this moment in time. This means you’ll need to set up:

• a website. Not just any ordinary website, one that is conversion optimized, incorporating all the psychological triggers that keep visitors interested.   A self-playing welcome video is a nice, powerful touch as people are used to seeing video online.   If you currently have a crappy site, get rid of it!  It could be costing you a lot of business.  You have three (3) seconds to convince the online shopper that you are worth looking into.  Nothing scares away a visitor more than a website that looks like it was made in the 1990s; or one that takes too long to load because of fancy flash animations (I do not recommend flash for chiro websites).
• An email opt-in box for your website visitors.  This is a special graphic visible on your site that gives visitors an option to receive email promotions from you.  Here’s an advanced one that I use, but there are more simple ones.  Make sure you offer something of value in exchange for their email; like health tips or a free eBook on exercises and stretches for the office worker, etc.
• a blog. Place the blog inside your website; i.e. www.yourwebsite.com/blog. Post daily to your blog. It should have an RSS feed, which enables your patients to subscribe to your blog and receive posts in their email or feed reader. The blog posts will essentially make your website bigger (more pages) and will drive it higher in Google’s natural search.
• SEO activities (search engine optimization).  You’ll need to learn how to get your website ranked naturally in the major search engines.
• Google AdWords listing.  Get your site on the top of Google by paying for it initially.  Be careful, you need to know what you’re doing here, or you’ll be wasting money on clicks.
• an automated e-newsletter delivered by an email marketing software such as GetResponse. The system takes the emails you gather from your website visitors (see email opt in box above) and sends them monthly newsletters (that you write ahead of time) that promote your services, with a link pointing back to your site or an appointment sign up form.
• a Twitter identity. Don’t use your personal Twitter account to promote your business; create a new Doctor identity. Tweet every day, with your website URL in your tweet (Tweets now show up on Google search results, so obviously use the word “chiropractor and chiropractic” in your tweets).
• a FaceBook Page. This is your online presence on the huge, 300 million member FaceBook. You’ll post news about your clinic periodically, and link your FB page to your Twitter account so that when you post something on your FB page, a tweet to your list is automatically generated.
• a YouTube branded channel.  It’s like having an online TV channel for your clinic, for Free.  You’ll make short videos of things like a short commercial of your clinic; how to stretch, how to lift, how to set up your workstation ergonomically– you get the point.  You’ll include your clinic phone number and website URL in your videos.  These videos get indexed in the Google search results.  Don’t sweat video; it’s real easy to do.  The lazy (but good enough!) and easiest way is to use this: Flip UltraHD Camcorder, 120 Minutes (Black).  You point, press record, stop, and plug it into your computer’s USB slot and edit the video.  Then, upload it to YouTube.  You can literally put a video on YouTube in less than 30 minutes from start to finish with the flip phone!

So these are the minimum things you’ll need to get going.  If you need any help on any of these steps, I can offer you my web consulting services for a modest fee.  Just contact me via this blog’s contact form or give me a call at (925) 788-6253.

If you want to give it a shot yourself, a good place to start is my Internet Marketing guide (70+ pages) that gives you the details on all of the above, as well as a lot more underground stuff that will give you a head start over your competitors.

Dan Perez, DC

Here’s the dialogue of some phone calls I’ve taken recently:

Caller:  “Hello, I’m looking for a chiropractor, and was wondering how much you charge.”

Me:  “Thanks for calling.  Is there any insurance we can check for you?”

Caller:  “No, I have Kaiser (a local HMO) and it doesn’t cover it.”

Me:  “Well then, the initial visit is $75 which includes a history, exam, and treatment.  Of course, I’d first determine your diagnosis and let you know if it is something I can help you with before we commenced treatment.”

Caller:  “Ok, thank you.”

Me:  “Is the price too much?”

Caller:  “Yes.” (sounds a little uncomfortable)

If I’m not in the mood, I let them go.  I feel that $75 is an excellent deal for one hour of my time examining, consulting, and treating, and of course carrying the risk of getting sued every time I place my hands on a patient.  And if they think it’s too much, then sayonara.

But lately, I’ve been telling these callers that I have a sliding fee schedule for income challenged people.  I’ll say something like, “Well ____, I really don’t like having to turn away people seeking my services due to cost.  How much can you afford?”

As long as they don’t reply with some unreasonable number (and abuse my sliding fee schedule policy), I tell them OK.  But when they arrive, I let them know (without sounding pretentious) that they are getting special accommodations.   Then I’ll say, “I am totally fine with lowering my rates so that I can help more people, but one thing I’d like to ask in return is that, if you are satisfied with the service you receive, I’d like you to write a Yelp review for my clinic.  Is that a deal?”

In most cases, the patient is very happy to be receiving a lower rate, and wants to show his/her appreciation.   You can rely on these patients to write a good review, thanking you for your services and generosity.  These things add up and will bring you more referrals.  So in the end, you  turn a situation of less income (reduced fees) into more income (from Yelp referrals).

Dan Perez, DC

Fellow chiropractor, if you are one of those people who fears/hates technology and are holding out on accepting  its ever growing reach into peoples’ lives, it is critical that you overcome your fears and get with the program.   As a business owner, you need to keep your business current with the times.  You need to go where your potential patients are (online) and communicate with them through the same channels (email, blogs, social media).  Not doing so is guaranteed to make you lose a lot of potential business, especially if you’re located in a metropolitan area where laptops and lattes abound.

YouTube is a great way to stir interest and promote your practice.  It’s very common for small business owners to create simple “How To” videos on their services and upload them to YouTube.  Viewers can click a button and subscribe to your videos so that whenever you upload a new video your subscribers are notified by email, with a link to your video!  Here are some ideas for chiropractic videos:

• A 30 second promo of your clinic:  footage of your location, interior, equipment, staff, and you in action.
• How to set up your computer work station ergonomically
• How to properly lift
• How to stretch your upper back and shoulders
• How to tape a sprained ankle

Of course, you will put your phone number and website URL on the last frame of your video, in the last 10 seconds.

I have been shooting video for over 10 years, and all I took was a 3-day class offered by Videomaker magazine.  But anyone can make a video without any formal training (although it’s always a good idea to take a class).  Nowadays, kids are making videos.  It really isn’t all that difficult; it’s actually quite fun.  And it doesn’t take a lot of time, thanks to improvements in video editing and computer speed.  YouTube even offers a free guide on how to make, edit and upload a video.

So what are you waiting for?  Break out your camcorder, conceptualize your video on paper, plan the shoot, and show off your business to the world!    Remember, video is a natural choice for chiropractic education and marketing.

Till next time,

Dan Perez DC

Twitter is microblogging.  The way to use it is, you create an account and choose to “follow” certain people.  This means you wish to receive their Twitter posts, or “tweets.”  People in turn follow you and receive your tweets.  You send messages (limited to 140 characters) to your followers at your leisure.   The message can be of anything on your mind, like what you are currently doing; a book you want to recommend to your followers, and so on.

Of course, there are those who  use Twitter as a marketing tool.   The idea is to first build up familiarity with your followers; earn their trust.  Give them some useful info sprinkled in with the mindless tweets (…I just shot a hole in one, hooray!…).  Then, as your relationship with your followers matures, tweet subtle solicitations, or tweets that identify the services you offer.   When feel that you have built up a comfortable relationship with your followers, you can start tweeting special offers.   Do this only when you’ve gone through the steps of establishing trust.  Never tweet a hard sell too early; it will turn off your followers and they will cut the cord.  As in all social media platforms like FaceBook and MySpace, overt advertising to your friends is frowned upon.  You have to build up to it.

So, should you as a chiropractor use Twitter to build up your business?  My recommendation is to first get your email marketing campaign set.   That should be your first priority.  Email has been around much longer; more people have an email account than a Twitter account, and in most cases their email application is already opened up on their computer (whereas they have to log onto Twitter to touch base with their followers).  When that’s done, give Twitter a shot.  What’s nice about Twitter is that you don’t have to worry about your messages getting sent to the spam folder, because people chose to follow you.

My feeling is that the jury is still out on Twitter.  There may be a “tech backlash” against social media platforms as they tend to consume a lot of personal time.  We’ll see.

Dan Perez, DC