Get More Therapy Clients Through Facebook (A Quick Guide)

April 13, 2018

Facebook’s wide reach makes it a strong marketing platform for many businesses--including your therapy business.

I’ve found that many therapists hesitate get into marketing--and I totally understand. And some might thing that Facebook is too personal.  But if you use it well, you can build a positive community and gently find new clients from your practice’s FB page.

Facebook was originally set up to connect people, at first personally, and then in good, constructive professional ways. Your use of Facebook could create a new safe space for people to form that type of community, and it will give you a chance focus on people in your area--on boosting the niche your practice may be in.

I think if you look at it as creating an  opportunity to share information on your area of expertise, and not on promotion, you’ll be able to invite people to contact you.

How Can Facebook Help Therapists?

Facebook can connect you with two major audience.

First, you will connect with people who are aware of your practice. They’ve “liked” your page.  But because they already know you, they might be less willing to share your page--I think that people are, unfortunately, still hesitant to give the impression that they’ve looked (or been in) therapy.

But many people may not yet be aware of your practice, and they are the ones you want to bring into your caring community on FB. They may be people searching for therapy themselves, or thinking about the issues your practice might raise.

Five Best Practices for Therapist Facebook Marketing

If you want to use Facebook to your best advantage, these five best practices will help you get there.

  1. Your FB page should nice and clean--keep it simple. That helps you--it’s easier to manage.  It also helps others--it feels safer for them. Provide full information about your location and your hours, since many people choose therapists based on convenience from home or the office. If you offer video therapy, especially, you should introduce yourself by video. I’ve got more about videos later on.
  2. One of the things to be clear about is your niche. Therapists with a niche tend to draw more clients, and that niche should be obvious.

Facebook has a lot of communities, and your goal is attracting those who might be potential clients--or people who know them. Establishing your niche in your area will give people the sense that you are focused on them, whether you work with people struggling with PTSD, or married couples handling empty-nest or child-rearing concerns, or whatever other niche you have found for yourself.

  1. People want a variety of content--and you will probably keep more interested if you create a variety of items, too. I think the top four things you can do are these:
  • Many people appreciate helpful pdf checklists or easy guides to experiences you’ve found through your therapy. You could make a “10 Tips for a Healthier Relationship” guide if you work with people in relationships. Another might be “5 Ways to Handle Surprise Triggers” for PTSD clients. Don’t be afraid to give away information and guidance--giving information away helps make new clients.
  • Quizzes can be easy to create, fun, and engaging--and give rise to thoughtful responses. Quizzes after all ask people to talk about themselves--and they allow interaction. A number of services will help you create quizzes while still protecting the privacy and personal information of users, or you can simply ask people to take the quiz for themselves.
  • A video series can help create community and give people a sense of who you are as a therapist. You can provide short comments on various aspects of your niche, and invite conversation in the comments. YouTube will make it easy to upload the videos (which you should also label for access there).
  • Connect all these things to a nurturing email campaign. Make sure that when people interact with you they have the opportunity to give you their email. Via email you will provide even more invitations into your practice.
  1. Continuing the video theme, you should record a video introduction of yourself for FB and for your website. This recording doesn’t need to be fancy, but it will give everyone a 3D sense of who you are. People are looking for both a connection and a fit with a therapist, and this can help begin that process.
  2. One final idea might be a bit controversial, but it could provide even more buzz for your practice.

You could pose a “Question of the Week”--and create the opportunity for online deep discussions. Ask key questions about your niche--or in the neighborhood of the niche--and invite people to respond to them; you could even ask about therapy in general.

As people respond, engage with them, creating a good, solid conversation about the topic. Boost the post on Facebook to increase its visibility, and you can create the community which Facebook can be about.

Facebook and Practice Confidentiality

Obviously, you will not be violating client confidentiality on Facebook. That said, your therapy experience will provide you with a strong grounding in a range of issues, and how they can be addressed.

Just as therapists who speak to community groups--whether about eating disorders or addiction issues--can speak without violating confidentiality, so too can you speak on Facebook.

You know best how to incorporate your experience-based insights into anything you present in public--you may already have experience doing that.

Marketing the Therapy Practice

Sharing your insights, however, will boost your practice.

Therapy marketing is a specialized business, because therapy is based so much on the individual. You want people to come to you--and so much advertising and marketing is impersonal; it can chase people away.

But if you do it gently and carefully, using the advantages that Facebook provides, you can find ways to reach new clients with low fuss and low stress.

Josh Meah CEO Therapist Marketing

Josh is the CEO of Mindset Market. His goal is to be the marketing and business development partner of therapy practices around the world, supporting them so that they can help others.


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