Social media is a big platform. There are tons of things, from fun facts to people recording their daily lives. Along with social media’s vast presence, many businesses use it to promote services and products, as well. It was estimated that “at least 91% of US businesses (and growing) use social media for marketing purposes.”

That’s why it’s important that business owners know how to effectively promote business, big or small, through social media. Today, we’re looking at 7 tips to help chiropractic practices improve their social media game:

1. Write What Makes You Special

Start by writing about what makes your business unique. It doesn’t have to be too specific, here are some elements of your practice that you might post about:

• Services 
• Deals 
• Benefits

Sounds simple, right? It’s actually more complicated.

Most businesses understand that they need to post about the services or products offered, but there’s a big difference between simply stating that your clinic has these services and getting people engaged.

You have to post with a purpose!

For example, you can’t just say “We have this great deal” and leave it as is. You have to make it special, say it’s a limited-time deal and include relevant images or catchy calls-to-action. These additional elements can be the determining factor that separates your post from others.

Here is one example to look at:

This is what makes it stand out:

• Affordable
• New patient deal for their grand opening
• Pictures of their opening
• Telling us to “swing by”
• Provide a link for more information if viewers are interested

Consider what strengths and special features your practice offers, and use them in your social media posts. Standing out can make all the difference.

2. Post At The Right Time

Next, you’ll want to post at the right time. Even if you follow the first tip word for word, posting at the wrong time significantly impacts the effectiveness of your posts.

For an extreme case, let’s say you post at midnight. Most working adults are not awake. Though you probably know not to post at midnight, there are plenty of other times that people post without considering their audience.

To make sure you are posting at the right time and reaching your audience, it is important to gauge when your audience is most active and post around that time. One thing that can help with that process is a social media calendar.

This will help you organize all your posts and schedule them. You can use a variety of tools from Google Sheets or use any of these free templates.

3. Post Shareable content

When it comes to social media, there are a variety of post types you can choose from. But, there is one characteristic that makes your social media post very effective for your chiropractic clinic.

The third tip to consider: Is your post shareable or is it shareable content?

One of the biggest benefits of social media marketing is how quickly one post can be spread or shared around the web.

Is there a deal you want everyone to know about? Then encourage people to share the post. Even if it starts with one person, it has the potential to multiply rapidly, which brings us to our next tip.

4. Utilize Free Giveaways or Deals

Free giveaways, deals, and discounts can dramatically improve the shareable quality of a post.

A common tactic is for a business to post giveaways, and then encourage people to like, share, and tag a couple of friends.

The obvious purpose of this is to spread the post through social networks. When someone tags their friend, that’s another set of eyes. If that person shares, it’s a whole new set of people. You get the idea.

As a result, this tactic increases the reach of your social media post. Typically, business social media accounts are limited to the followers they have, but utilizing free giveaways and sharing, your business can get in front of far more people.

Initially, it might seem like you’re losing money by giving things away, but it’s an effective marketing investment. Typically even 1 or 2 new leads is enough to pay off the cost of the giveaway, and ideally you’ll be reaching way more than 1-2 people.

5. Be Creative With Your Posts

Creativity goes a long way with social media. Being too repetitive can push away your audience, and losing social media engagement starts to impact the overall value of social media as a marketing channel.

Consider ad blindness.

If people keep seeing the same ad (or post), they will start to disregard or skim over it. This will make it hard for chiropractors to increase their social media presence when it is already hard to get people’s attention.

The best way to get around this is to keep trying new things. You can change these factors:

• Descriptions
• Call-to-actions
• Image(s)
• Video
• Format of your post

If you need references, try looking at other successful social media accounts. Have a look at you competitors and other chiropractic practices. They might be doing something that could work for your practice, or it might spark some new ideas.

6. Take Advantage of Hashtags

The next tip is to take advantage of hashtags. If you don’t know already, they are the symbol associated with the number symbol (#).

They are a way to categorize a post to a certain topic. For example:

• #deals
• #chiropractor
• #backmassage

These hashtags will make it easier for your post to be found when someone is browsing their social media. These are mostly used on Twitter and Instagram, but sometimes appear on other platforms as well.

7. Don’t Promote Your Posts

Finally, I don’t recommend promoting (boost) your post, specifically on Facebook.

It may sound counterintuitive, but this essentially boosts your Facebook post so that it’s advertised to non-followers, rather than simply increasing the visibility to your current audience.

You can see this near the top of your Facebook Business page or on an already published post.

The reason I suggest not to promote or boost a post is because it’s not cost-effective. You don’t really get to target who the ad is promoted to, so you could essentially be paying to boost your ad in front of people with absolutely no need for your service.

Instead, if you want to advertise effectively on Facebook, or even Instagram, try using Facebook Ads for Chiropractors. Building the right ad for your audience will help you target them more efficiently, which is the best way to increase clinic leads while staying cost-effective.

Remember, ads and social media are only worth investing in if you’re generating new business. Fortunately, social media is one of the best channels for doctors, chiropractors, and all kinds of medical practices, so it’s almost always worth the investment. As long as you’re smart about it!

Conclusion

While these tips will definitely help your chiropractic clinic grow through social media, the biggest tip of all is to keep going.

Some posts may work and some posts may not work. There are times where the results are completely out of your control. However, chiropractors who are resilient and adaptive will easily see returns on their social media investments.