Clever Therapy Sites

14/07/2024

Topical posts can be a great idea.
Lovely engagement levels for a quick post here.

26/05/2024

How do your clients work out if you are credible?

Yes, word of mouth and reviews are good but every little bit helps and many people still trust for people they’ve seen in magazines or newspapers…and when it comes to your website, a link to your business from a “big site” (that has a high domain authority that Google thinks is trustworthy) can be great for your SEO.

Putting yourself out there can be scary but most journalists aren’t looking to do a hatchet job when they’re looking for contributors. There’s various online groups where journalists request people with various expertise or stories; you should really consider signing up!

(No back link but a really lovely picture!)

Numbers waiting for treatment have increased by 27% in less than two years as the UK’s population ages and grows more obese

20/05/2024

As any Bridgerton viewer knows, eye contact is vitally important. The science (for those who are interested) is that prolonged eye contact causes the release of chemicals responsible for attraction. It also activates certain parts of our brains that are responsible for social engagement, building rapport and oh, it makes us feel good too.

In person, making and holding eye contact is easy. You have a whole variety of teeny tiny body language cues to pick up on.

Many people think that making the same kind of rapport online, through a website or social media is difficult - but it's really not...its just people miss out on the opportunity for - well, I don't know why!

So many businesses use a logo (and a tiny, badly shrunk one that that) for their Facebook profile picture. What a waste! Instead, use a picture of yourself, so that people can see who they are talking to. A logo is not going to create the same kind of connection as a smile.

This is especially true if you're in a business where the client has to expose themselves, physically or emotionally. For instance, if I'm looking to find a therapist for something I feel terribly insecure about, I'm much more likely to reach out to someone who has a face, rather than just a logo.

This is even more true if your business name isn't a person name. I regularly make the comment that if I could rename our soft tissue therapy business now, I'd simply call it "Greg's" (sausage rolls be damned), because it's so much more personable than "State 11". We get round it by using a picture of ourselves as the Facebook profile picture, and using ourselves as the topic of posts quite regularly, but it has been an impediment I didn't even know I was creating at the start.

Physical therapists and massage therapists sometimes worry that using their own picture will encourage "creeps" or "perverts" to contact them. You're just as likely to get that if your profile picture is your logo (as Greg will attest!), although I'd potentially NOT use a picture of yourself at a nudist beach as your profile picture (yes, you should be able to use what you want, no, it's not fair that you can't, yes, you can be the person striking out if you want, it's just not what I'd choose to do personally). But by letting that concern dominate your thinking, you're potentially losing out on gaining clients - which in today's cost of living crisis, isn't something that anyone can afford to do.

What do you think? Do you use a picture of yourself as your business profile picture? Why have you made the choice you have?

16/05/2024

If you're using social media, it's worth remembering that not everyone can read very well. The National Literacy Trust says that 1 in 6 adults in England has very poor literacy skills...and while it's numbers date from 2012, and there's some question about whether that number is too high, it's a good reminder to look beyond words.

Video (pre-recorded or live) can be a good way to reach those who may be fully comprehend more wordy posts, and with a bit of editing (and swearing, mostly likely) can be shared across different social media platforms.

I should probably put a video here, but I've been editing them all day, and forgot to do one for this post, and now I have a headache. Bah.

08/05/2024

Everyone else is doing it….
…or why you should make sure you know the full story AND your audience…

Posts around current events and using ideas and memes that are trending can be a really good idea but you do need to carefully think through what it’s saying about your business.

“Black Reindeer” is a multi part Netflix series that purports to tell the true story of a stand up comedian who is stalked by a woman he meets in a pub.

As the series progresses, it becomes increasingly clear that both the comedian and the stalker have complex emotional and mental health issues, and have suffered immense trauma - the cringeworthy, vaguely cruel humour of the first episode vanishes quite quickly.

This post shows the stalker character sat in a hot tub, with the text copying the type of messages the stalker sent the protagonist.

So is this a good post for a business to make?

If the business has watched the entire series, it’s a somewhat odd post to make, but people have reacted to it, and Facebook loves reactions, even angry ones (and this post has has some).

While Facebook reactions are good - it’s not the be all and end all. People who are angered by this post may decide that they don’t want to support an establishment who has this attitude - so may go elsewhere.

Using edgier posts should always be done with an understanding of your ideal client and ideally be part of a considered strategy rather than a one off.

Companies like RyanAir, Lidl, or SteakUmms are proof that social media can be sharp, fast paced and have a strong viewpoint - but they also show how important it is to have a strategy for how you want to portray yourself online.

07/05/2024

🤔 BUT I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO WRITE!

You can turn anything into a social media post.

Even a leaky ceiling!

This could turn into a post about how your clients need to be prepared for the unexpected.

Or about how you overcame the issue with the help of a professional (and segue into how you can help with problems in your niche).

Or about how things that are bad at the time end up with silver linings (okay, so you might need to wait a few days for that!)

Or could be an informational post about how to handle stress.

Or a “thank you” post tagging the local business that helped you when the water came through.

See, your social media is a place for you to connect with your clients, showing them enough of your life to create that relationship that will have your followers wanting to book in with you or buy from you again and again.

10/04/2024

👉 Are you using ChatGPT for content ideas? 🧐

Of course you are! 🤣

Most people do this really really badly, and end up with poor results.

👋Let me show you how to do it better.

Here's what most people type as a prompt:

"Suggest 10 posts I can write about [my business]"

You'll get 10 posts...but they'll be rubbish!

🤮🤣🤮🤣🤮🤣

Here's what to do instead:

"Conduct customer research for [my business area] industry.
Suggest 10 questions, and 10 problems, that [describe your ideal client] face. Place the results in a table where the y-axis is labelled 1 to 10 and the x-axis is labelled "questions" and "problems"

What's the difference? 🧐

Well, firstly, these questions and problems are what bothers your ideal client.

🤓 Questions will give you specific questions your ideal client has.
Problems will give you more general issues

It's pretty neat, and you should try it! 😎

07/04/2024

Helped one of my clients go from 0% average engagement on their Facebook posts to 41% average this week.

Time taken, 5 weeks (with improvements from post one).

Biggest lesson my client has learnt:
It's all about YOU!
Personality is what matters.

Putting your real, authentic out there.
Literally showing your face.
Showing who you are.
Being real.

That's what makes people love you...and your business.

31/03/2024

Happy Easter from me and my friend Chat GPT!

There's a huge boom in the use of Chat GPT on social media, which isn't a surprise. Even the free version (Chat GPT 3.5) can churn out an almost endless variety of Facebook posts while you watch MAFS or The Apprentice or Netflix's latest multi-part thriller.

So what's not to love? Why don't I recommend Chat GPT posts unequivocally to people?

Firstly, as smart as ChatGPT (and the various apps that work off it) are, they still don't sound quite human, in the same way that CGI still doesn't look quite right. Instead of sounding like you, it sounds like, well, ChatGPT.

Sure, you can spend a long time setting up your own GPT to create posts for you, but even then it still won't sound quite like you. See, even when you tell it to write in a certain style, or to mimic a certain copywriter, or even feed it text you've written to analyse the style....it still doesn't feel quite authentic.

And, I promise, authentic is what your clients and customers are looking for. Social media is about connection, and (for now, at least), ChatGPT simply can't write that connection in the same way.

Of course, you can use it for ideas (the best results here will be multiple prompts where you feed it information about ideal clients and what you do), but, in my opinion, using it for actual content generation is a poor idea.

I know Social Media posts are hard. It can be hard to know what to write, it can be hard to know what pictures to use, and sometimes you just can't be bothered! (did you know I offer a social media post creation service?)

But (and this is my slightly heretical opinion): better no post, better badly spelt post, better short post, than ChatGPT post.

(PS - making bunny pics with ChatGPT is absolutely fine though!)

27/03/2024

Oh my goodness, for once Facebook didn’t choose a terrifying freeze frame for my live!! 🤣🤣🤣

Remember my live challenge? I saw some fab lives from people (big shout out to you - you know who you are!) - but don’t let that stop you!

Remember - an animated, fun live is always more visually appealing than one where you are doing some kind of presidential address. Mine would have been outside but it was a bit dark and I didn’t want to fall over :)

Have you do a live this week?

26/03/2024

A wonderful review from Anna! I really enjoyed working on Anna's site - we made something quite different and lovely that really speaks to Anna's brand values and her place in her local community.

Thank you so much, Anna!