About a week ago as I was surfing around on Twitter and doing some reverse engineering, I ran across at least three accounts that were marketing chiropractic services to others locally. The thought came to my head… “Here’s what NOT to do when marketing chiropractic with social media.”

So, what was the problem? Well, I noticed that their chiropractic marketing attempts were blatant spam promotions! In conjunction, there was no human-side or personal interaction. What these chiropractors didn’t understand is that they were actually doing more harm than good, in regards to their potential audience. Here’s why….

These doctors were giving the exact same automated reply to everyone on their friends list with certain types of pain-based conditions. When you begin to give automated replies in your regular posts, everyone who comes to that page is seeing 10-20 posts that are exactly the same. This is not a good thing to do in your chiropractic marketing endeavors for a few reasons.

First, a potential Twitter user in your local area that may come across your profile will see you are giving “canned” replies to everyone. Do you think they will want to be your friend if you aren’t showing a personal side? What would you think if someone was marketing chiropractic this way? The purpose of social media is to, well, be social. I don’t think having a profile like that sets the stage for quality social interaction.

Remember that first impressions carry a great deal of weight in a potential new patients mind so you want to get off on the right foot from the get-go. Chiropractic marketing on all social media outlets has to be very indirect. You have to give folks the idea that you actually care what they have to say, as they are real people. Scripting and automation totally has a place, but in the example I just mentioned, it will end-up backfiring as you cannot build relationships this way.

Another reason that marketing chiropractic in this fashion could be a potential disaster is that you risk getting kicked off social networks. Sites like Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, and LinkedIn can always tell if you’re trying to game the system. Imagine having a group of friends or followers on one of these sites and you get deleted. Ouch! What will that message say to them when try and access your profile but they get an ugly message from the network.

There is a time and place for chiropractic social media marketing online. It just has to be way more subtle that what I’ve been discussing here. Look, we all want new patients knocking our doors down, but it’s important to remember that you must create value to build trust first. Keeping this in mind when thinking of marketing chiropractic online will save you from looking like a spammer.

Talk soon 🙂

– Matthew Loop

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