As we discussed in a previous article, social media and SEO work hand in hand. Search engines index social media content and use social signals to determine the reputation and trustworthiness of websites. Even without the SEO connection, social media is important for any business – including your chiropractic practice. In this article, we will focus on social media strategies for SEO: things you can do on your social media accounts with a positive impact on your organic traffic.
What Is the Role of Social Media for SEO and Marketing?
Social media has become a second search engine for many consumers. A simple Google search is not enough for them. They do not want just a list of businesses, but confirmation from other people that a business is reliable and trustworthy.
Incidentally, these two values – reliability and trustworthiness – are also important for SEO. Google is not looking just at keywords. The internet company wants to give users relevant results, which satisfy their search intent. Just like you would not recommend an unreliable acupuncturist to a patient for a complementary treatment, Google will not recommend websites with a reputation for spam, phishing, and low quality content.
How to Create Social Media Strategies for SEO
We call them social media strategies for SEO, but our recommendations are, in fact, best practices for your digital marketing strategy using social networks. You cannot afford to skip on this type of strategy.
Your practice needs constant exposure to new audiences. This is the only way of generating new leads and converting them to patients. You cannot stagnate – and you cannot afford to spend thousands of dollars on ads and paid traffic.
These being said, here are some effective social media strategies that will also boost your SEO:
1. Share Blog Posts on All Social Media Accounts
This is one of the simplest and most effective social media strategies for SEO. Whenever you publish a blog post, share it on all your social media accounts: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.
Of course, you will create different captions for each platform. “But it is still the same article!” you may complain. Yes – but it is not the same audience. No business can say that they have overlapping audiences on all their social media profiles. In real life, some people prefer to follow you on Facebook, while others follow you on Instagram or LinkedIn. All of them must be able to find your articles on your social media pages.
2. Make Your Content Easy to Share
Social media buttons are a must add-on to your chiropractic website. What is their role? Let us say that you posted an article on a very interesting topic. Someone reads it and wants to share it to their Facebook Timeline. Without social media buttons, the reader must copy the URL of the article and then open their Facebook app and paste the URL in a new post. That’s quite inconvenient, right?
But with social media sharing buttons on your blog post page, all they have to do is click the Facebook button and the post is shared to their profile. This is simple, convenient and this is why it is one of the most effective social media strategies for SEO.
3. Encourage Linkbuilding with Original Research
This is one of the social media strategies for SEO that take more time and effort than others. But its rewards are worthwhile. It involves creating high quality and valuable content, which others will want to use as reference in their articles.
Maybe you have a new chiropractic treatment technique and you describe it in detail. Maybe you notice that a certain technique (known to other chiropractors) is surprisingly effective for a specific condition. If you take the time to look over treatment session notes, you will certainly identify such a high value topic. Do not hurry to write the article; take the time to make it clear, comprehensive, and well supported by evidence. It has the potential to become a go-to source of information for other chiropractors and go viral on the social media.
4. Grow Your Brand Reputation
Your chiropractic practice is your brand – just like Coca-Cola, Apple or Nike. Your duty is to make it known to potential clients and build a great image for it:
• Professionalism
• Caring attitude towards patients
• Clean and hygienic treatment room
• Friendly staff.
You know best how you want to position your brand. And in order to build this image, you must use the social media to share photos and videos of your practice and staff, patients’ success stories, your own story – what motivated you to become a chiropractor, etc.
5. Find Brand Advocates
This sounds rather complex, but in reality a brand advocate is anyone who really likes sharing content about a specific brand. You may have many happy patients who are following you on social media and sharing your posts, adding that you made them feel better.
These are your potential brand advocates. You should give them recognition and a small incentive from time to time, and they will continue to promote your practice to their friends and family.
These social media strategies for SEO will help you gain exposure for your practice to people who may need your help but did not hear about you before. If you need assistance with your overall digital media strategy, don’t hesitate to contact our experts!