When you create, or ask a partner to create, interesting and useful content for your website you’re taking the first step in building social media currency. This currency is what will, ultimately, drive traffic to your site and clients to your appointment calendar.
Website content – articles, resources, blogs – is your opportunity to reach out to your target populations of clients or other professionals who might provide referrals. Your content can describe treatment options, client success stories, new research or whatever will educate and inspire your audience. Posting content is referred to as owned media.
Website Content Tells Your Story
Your website content should help visitors to your site understand:
- what you do
- what you know
- how you can help
Engage Potential Clients and Referrals With Your Website Content
Content posted to your site is the first step in starting a conversation. But, it’s just the first step. The second step is engaging with your target populations about the content. With some thought and planning, your conversation can spread to many clients and referrals. In the social media world, the influence of your content snowballs as people share, comment, like, recommend, mention, and tweet your about your content. Once people start spreading your message for you, you have progressed to earned media. People are listening, people value what you have to say, and they are spreading the word about you and your practice.
To go from owned media to earned media, to reach beyond the audience of people who already know about you, you need to join the conversation on social media. Comment on relevant posts in a group discussion. Create a new discussion thread on LinkedIn or other platforms that points back to your content. Your content helps you trade information for visibility, credibility and connections.
When your content generates new counseling appointments or new therapy clients, you have moved from social networking to business networking.
At TherapyEverywhere.com, we help our clients create original, interesting and compelling content. And, we help psychologists, therapists and counselors move from owned media to earned media. Our ultimate goal is always helping therapists grow their practice.
In a separate post we discuss paid media for therapists. Click here to read about online advertising for your counseling practice or therapy practice. Learn more about using Facebook to grow your practice or call us for a free consultation.