If you work in the therapy industry, you’ll know that word-of-mouth testimonials and reviews are a key way to promote your business. Whether on or offline, recommendations from clients are extremely valuable in showcasing the treatments and services you provide, and the customer experience on offer at your therapy premises.
With the COVID-19 pandemic putting a stop to face-to-face therapy appointments and treatments, and the easing of lockdown limiting the number of clients who come through the doors, maintaining a healthy stream of word-of-mouth advertising is particularly challenging at the moment.
Connecting with your target audience
As part of a great social media strategy, you’ll want to ensure that the right people know about the products and services offered by your therapists. So, it’s essential that you have a clear sense of the target audience for your therapy business and that you know the social media landscape well. Ask yourself whether there might be influencers who would enjoy your treatments. Are there people on social media—ideally with sizeable followings—whose aesthetic fits in with the look and feel of your therapy business? How can you make sure that these people have heard of your business, and ensure that you’re the therapist they’d recommend again and again to your followers?
Who to work with
Breaking into social media marketing by working with influencers might sound like a daunting prospect. Whether you’re an established therapist, whose work has been put on hold thanks to the Coronavirus pandemic, or just breaking into the industry, it can be difficult to capture the attention of major Instagram and YouTube names, who have hundreds of thousands or even millions of followers. However, fortunately, you don’t need to work with the most famous social media stars in order to reap the rewards of working with influencers.
Go local
If you’re a local therapy business, you might want to look out for Instagrammers or YouTubers in your local area. As a smaller business, you could begin by reaching out to local influencers, offering free treatments in return for some social media coverage; alternatively, you might use social media marketing specialists to help you establish paid partnerships with Instagram, YouTube or TikTok influencers who work near your outlets. Depending on the size of your therapy business and your budget, you could consider working with less established social media personalities with a few thousand followers, rather than splashing out on big names who specialise in brand work.
Maintaining contacts
Once you’ve established a partnership with an influencer, the work doesn’t stop there. Even if it’s just a one-off gig, you’ll need to keep working on your own social media presence in order to reap the benefits of the marketing collaboration. Make sure that your own social media streams, including Facebook and Instagram, are up-to-date and have some enticing content, before splashing out on work with influencers at any level. It’s important, too, that your website is looking its best, as you’re likely to get an influx of visitors to your site once any content from influencers goes live. This is great news, of course, as it means that you should boost your following on social media, but it also means that you’ll need to keep working to maintain this level of popularity and keep building on your successes.
How to have a great lasting impression
Whether you’re working with influencers on a one-off basis or establishing a long-term partnership, there are a few things you can do on your own social media outlets to make the most of the collaboration. First of all, once the recommendations have gone live, thank the influencer, tagging them in your posts—you’ll not only be grateful for their work and their positive representation of your brand, but also you’ll want to maintain the connection and leave them with a continuing positive impression.
Keep up the great work
After the main social media recommendations from your influencer partner have been published, make sure you get some of your own great content out there to give your new followers a flavour of the products and services that you offer. Do all that you can to showcase your therapy business in a great light across all your social platforms. You might like to do interviews with your therapists to publish on your social media pages, or record a quick update for your Instagram stories to keep both old and new followers up-to-speed with how you are keeping your therapy business fresh and interesting in the post-COVID environment.