Avivit Fisher

Social Media Profile Optimization for a Therapy Practice

You need a professional Social Media profile, period. But if you are still wondering why, I cam give you two main reasons: 1. Separating your personal page from you professional will prevent any possible ethical problems for your business. 2. You need it to for paid advertising and promotion of your content to reach the clients you want to help.

While creating a professional profile is easy, you need to make sure that you include all details necessary for its optimization. Your profile is an important marketing tool that will help you promote your practice and book new clients.

Picture. There is nothing like a professional shot for your online presence. However, if you don’t have it yet, you can use a good snapshot of your face that conveys professionalism and anything else you would like to evoke in the viewer; approachability, seriousness, friendliness, warmth, etc. If your practice includes many providers and you don’t want to be its official face, you can use your logo as the profile picture.
Name. Consistency is key for your online presence. Whether your business has your name or a different one, you need to use the same name across all social media platforms. Make a decision ahead of time, because it will be difficult to change it after in some platforms, such as Facebook.
Contact Information and webs address. Fill out all your content information as well as the hours of operation. You can have people contact you directly from their social media apps on their phones or their computers.
Cover photo. Here are specific guidelines for the cover photo measurements for each platform. Your cover photo should include your logo, if you have one and you are not using it for the profile picture. It works best when it is placed in a left corner (your design will determine whether it should be top or bottom), The information on the cover needs to be the one you would like to promote the most. For that you would have to determine what your main goal is for this profile: awareness, promotion of a specific service, opt-in request for your website or a call to book a free consultation.
Button. The button on the profile should be directly linked to the information on your cover. For example, if you want to give a free consultation to a new client, the button should say “book now”.
Bio and keywords. The way to approach this is to look at your competition firs. How do they describe themselves and what kind of keywords do they put in the description. If you have an idea what your potential clients would be searching for, write down those keywords in the description section.
Services. This part is optional in my opinion. If you are very clear of the services you want to provide and you want to advertise them right away, then int’s important to fill up this section. If your strategy is to first talk to a prospective client and understand what they are looking for exactly, you can leave this section unfilled.
Testimonials. There is an ethical dilemma for therapists in soliciting testimonials for marketing purposes. Confidentiality is a major factor contributing to this fear. However, using your Social Media profile to spread out useful content can create an opportunity for testimonials. The testimonials can be praising your knowledge and presentation of helpful information as opposed of the review of client/provider relationship. Positioning yourself as a source of knowledge in your realm can be just as effective as talking about your experience. However, if you are interested in digging deeper into this, I compiled a list of useful articles that can help you make your mind about the use of testimonials from your clients.

There are some clear differentiators between the profiles on each platform. Most of the aspects described above are specific to Facebook, because it’s the biggest platform today. But if you choose to use LinkedIn or Instagram as well, here is some important information to keep in mind when you are setting up your profile.

Instagram

You can use emojis in your profile description. In fact, people often search by emojis.
You can ask your followers to share specific information with a unique hashtag that you create.
You can save your live stories to your profile so if it’s something of a promotional type, it can just be available for viewing on your profile at all times.