Okay, so I thought I’d have some fun with this one…
In my recent “Facebook Marketing Survey”, I asked you what your greatest frustration is with trying to market your practice on Facebook. Three big frustrations emerged right away:
- Not enough people interacting with your Facebook page.
- Not enough people Liking your Facebook page.
- Not getting any clients from Facebook.
By the way, if it seems like “Facebook just isn’t working” for you, click here to download my FREE guide, “9 Tips to Boost Engagement on Facebook”.
I’m going to be addressing each of these over the next few weeks, but I wanted to start with getting new clients, because that’s a biggie. One of the main reasons to even be on Facebook is to get clients, right?
Facebook is a great way to market your practice. In fact, businesses are spending over $4 billion per year to advertise on Facebook because it’s so powerful.
So we’re in a situation where we have this excellent client-generation tool, and we have therapists eager to use it, but frustrated with the results. One of my professors in grad school would’ve called this a “pickle”. We’re in a pickle.
The problem is that many times therapists shoot themselves in the foot, without even realizing it. Instead of attracting clients through Facebook, they inadvertently LOSE clients through Facebook.
I want to help you get out of this pickle by understanding what mistakes to avoid. Also, if you are looking for more ways to get your fans and followers interacting with you on Facebook, I’ve put together a FREE guide that will help you with just that:
Click here to download “9 Tips to Boost Engagement on Facebook”:
The 5 Surefire Ways to Guarantee You NEVER Get Clients from Facebook:
1. Being too clinical.
People come to Facebook to connect and have fun. To get them excited in you and what you have to offer, you need to find ways to connect and have fun as well. THEN, once you’ve interested them, they’ll want to know what you have to offer clinically.
If the majority of your posts have to do with mental health diagnoses and research findings, you’re likely turning potential clients away.
2. Being inconsistent.
Social media is an ongoing dialogue between you and your audience. If you are going to use social media, particularly Facebook as a source of new clients, you MUST be consistent with it. In fact, consistency is far more important than frequency of posting, because consistency sends the message that you’re reliable and predictable, both of which are important characteristics of a psychotherapist.
What happens frequently is that someone posts lots of great content for a week or two, then loses interest and doesn’t post anything for several months. This is the kiss of death on Facebook. Eliminate this problem by scheduling your posts. That way, you’ll have a vibrant Facebook presence, even when you aren’t monitoring it constantly.
3. Being impersonal.
Facebook is a person-to-person connection. Your ideal clients are already checking you out on Facebook, and it’s not to see what techniques you’ve mastered. It’s to learn about YOU as a person. If you want to connect with potential clients, you MUST let them get to know you. Now, I know that as psychotherapists, we need to walk a fine line with becoming human without violating boundaries. Luckily, there are lots of great ways to do that. For instance, one popular post I did was a picture of my dog on the couch “celebrating” National Dog’s Day. I had people post pictures of their dogs as replies.
What’s a book you love? A movie you’ve seen recently? Your favorite flavor of ice cream? These are just a few ways to connect without “oversharing”.
If you are truly uncomfortable sharing even that much information about yourself, then Facebook probably isn’t the right place for you to be marketing. Social media just doesn’t work effectively when you remove the human element.
4. Being unprofessional.
As I mentioned earlier, your ideal clients are ALREADY checking you out on Facebook. Right now, today. This is called “social searching”, and it’s become an important step in the decision-making process when a client is choosing a psychotherapist. When someone researches you, you want their first impression to be stellar. This means your page has to be what marketers call “on brand”.
Your Facebook profile photo and cover image are of the utmost importance. When a potential client looks at your page, you only have a few seconds to impress them, or they will go research someone else. The fastest and best way to do this is with your profile photo and your cover image. Your profile photo MUST be a professional image of your face. Not a logo, not a picture of your office. YOU. That’s who clients want to see.
Your cover image should also be professionally done, so that it showcase you and your work. It’s worth the investment to have your cover image professionally done.
5. Relying solely on Facebook.
Facebook can build a strong community of followers, but to generate clients, you need to develop a stronger relationship. To really create interest and cultivate potential clients, you need to take your potential clients from Facebook fans to website visitors and email subscribers. This is where the magic happens with Facebook marketing. Clients get to know, like, and trust you through social media. Then they really develop an interest in working with you through email and your website.
It’s a powerful combination, and one that has become the gold standard for Facebook marketing. Rather than trying to “sell” on Facebook, you invite your Facebook community to take advantage of great resources that you have for them. Its this process, which I call “give, give, get” marketing, that harnesses the true power of Facebook.
The good news is that each of these five is relatively easy to fix. And when you do, you’ll find that Facebook can be an EXCELLENT source of new clients.
The place to begin is to build lots of great interaction on your page, so that your audience becomes eager to see the content you post. If you need to build interaction on your page, be sure to download your copy of this FREE GUIDE I’ve created, “9 Tips to Boost Engagement on Facebook”.CLICK HERE TO GET JENNIFER’S ‘9 TIPS TO BOOST ENGAGEMENT ON FACEBOOK”
