Social Media has given unprecedented access to service providers. In the physical therapy world, patients are not interested in being treated like a dollar sign. Instead, they are looking for authentic communication from their physiotherapist. This means that as a PT, it is important to find your own authentic voice to use on social media. This is not something we can measure or track, it is something that develops over time. Your voice is essentially your clinic's brand and if your social media content is cold and soulless then patients are not going to engage with you. Let's take a closer look at the importance of building an authentic voice.
An authentic voice can humanize your clinic. Instead of coming across online as a faceless corporation, an authentic voice is going to prompt patients to engage with you. This in turn leads to natural conversations developing and the patients who are commenting will likely share your posts with their friends, or even directly recommend you to others. In this type of situation, having an authentic voice is going to encourage patients to market your clinic for you which is one of the reasons why authenticity could be your clinic's biggest asset.
So we know that having an authentic voice is important when communicating with patients via social media; and we know that authentic voices are very distinctive. So the next question that we need to ask ourselves is exactly how do we develop that authentic voice? Here are some of the key elements of achieving an authentic voice on social media.
Listen To Your Patients – One of the first things that you need to do if you are looking to develop an authentic voice on social media is to listen. Pay close attention to your patients and your audience in order to determine what they are taking an interest in and what is relevant to them. This allows you to ensure that your posts resonate with them instead of just being generic noise that they will dismiss instantly.
Lay Off Of The Promotional Stuff – Having an authentic voice is all about having conversations with people. Your patients are looking for a connection, not to be bombarded with promotional information. Consider this – if you were at a social event in the real world, you would never dream of introducing yourself and then blurting out that you were currently offering 10% off the price of a physiotherapy consultation! What you would do is strike up a conversation with people and tell stories or ask questions. If your line of work came up in conversation then you might casually drop in that special offer, but it wouldn't be the main point of your interaction. This is the approach that you should take on social media. Share information that is relevant to your patients. Strike up a conversation by posting a question. Include some informative visual content. These are all ways to boost engagement.
Offer Something Valuable – Part of achieving an authentic social media voice is developing credibility and trust. You can do this by making sure that the content you are sharing is valuable and relevant. This is going to help establish you as an expert in your field. Find out what your patients' problems are and aim to solve them.
Social media is an integral part of every physical therapist's social media strategy and developing an authentic voice that patients can engage with is a big part of ensuring success. PatientSites can help you to streamline your clinic's social media activity leaving you free to work on developing that authentic voice. Get in touch with us today to arrange a free demo.