Social media marketing for chiropractors finally appears to be hitting the critical mass in the profession. This makes me happy because even more DC’s now will have the chance to impact their practices in a major way with this marketing powerhouse. I feel very fortunate to be featured twice in the August “09″ issue of Chiropractic Economics magazine in regards to my efforts in helping other doctors and professionals capitalize on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It seems like only yesterday when colleagues of mine would laugh at me for spending hours on end in front of the computer studying and immersing myself in this newer medium.

I’m glad I chose to act on intuition rather than be affected by the criticism of others, though. This is an important lesson for chiropractors currently reading this blog post. Sooner or later, YOU WILL get criticism or negativity from those that are jealous, from your competitors, or from those that never push themselves out of their comfort zone. When I received my first few hateful comments on one of my videos where I exposed the truth about the “business of disease,” it felt like someone had punched me repeatedly in the stomach. I mean, I literally felt down for the count for a few hours.

I learned in short order not to let this hinder my efforts, damage my optimism, or affect my willingness to help others. I recommend always maintaining a strong  passion and purpose and let that shine in your social media chiropractic marketing efforts. Sometimes you will feel uncomfortable as you step outside your comfort zone. However, the times that we typically grow most and really gain the most in life are the times we push ourselves.

If you are really the shy type, make up your mind to just charge through any psychological walls holding you back. Effective chiropractic social media marketing requires you to meet new people and build relationships, as this is what it takes to hit the big “New Patient” home-run. If you market and brand yourself correctly, you’ll be thrust into the public eye of your community.

Analyzing the hundreds of thousands of chiropractors I’ve coached in recent years, the really successful doctors turned the things they didn’t like to do into habits.  This is one of the major concepts that appears to be what separates the winners and losers in life, too. I want to encourage you to make social media chiropractic marketing a habit for your office. If you know you need to create 2 videos every week and meet 35 people per day on Facebook for the office, take action and do it. After a few days, it will become a habit like brushing your teeth.

“Wait,  I don’t have the time to do the work required for social media marketing!” I hear that excuse more than any other. The fact of the matter is, you do have the time to market and learn new methods, you’re probably just poor at managing activity. Twenty minutes per day is not really alot of time to focus on building the office and getting more exposure. Most chiropractors that I speak with are on the computer at least for 30 minutes a day. The goal is to simply turn that into productive time instead.

Now, you can always outsource tasks that you know need to be done for search engine optimization, article creation, press release distribution, video propagation and such. However, learning to do each of these chiropractic marketing techniques effectively yourself will allow you to be able to delegate much better when that time comes, as you’ll have a better understanding of what needs to be done. You’ll actually save quite a bit of money, too.

Social media marketing for chiropractors provides an opportunity for branding unlike any other so take advantage while it’s smoking hot. You’ll want to be on all the social networks but spend most of your time on a select few. Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are the buzz at the present time BUT realize that can change at any moment since internet users are traditionally fickle. The power comes when you fuse these mediums together, build a community, and have an overwhelmingly massive presence so people can’t go anywhere online without seeing you.

Check out my blog post on Ping.fm to learn how to automate and consolidate a large of social networking. Be sure to also comment and provide your thoughts on this blog post and the video below…

Continued success

- Matthew Loop, DC

Related Blog Posts:

Chiropractic Social Media Marketing Myths

7 Useful Tips to Getting More Facebook Page Fans

How to “Out-Cool” your Chiropractic Marketing Competition