Guess what.

Patients are talking about you behind your back.

What???!?!?!

Yeah but that’s a really good thing.

“How is that a good thing Ben??!?”

I’m glad you asked. It’s a very good thing because you can use Reviews and Ratings sites like Google Maps, Yelp, CitySearch et al to drive in a lot of traffic to your practice if you know what you’re doing.

Let me explain what’s happening with Google and the future of how patients are going to find your chiropractic offices.

The Next Evolution of Social Media: YOUR Vote Finally Counts!

I used to HATE this social media stuff.

“Is anyone paying attention to my Twitter messages?” I’d ask myself.

Be honest.

Do you ever feel like all this social media stuff like Twitter, Facebook, Digg, etc., is just a total waste of your time?

I gotta admit. I used to feel the same way.

But then something really cool happened.

I started observing how Google (the Big G) was starting to “weigh” social media and in particular what I am calling Social Media Voting via Ratings & Reviews.

Boy oh boy. Google is taking this stuff very seriously.

Want proof?

Take a look at a chiropractors listing in Google Maps and what you’ll find lately is the D.C. with the most positive reviews and ratings is almost always featured in the Google Maps box.

Google Map Listings for Chicago Chiropractors!

Google is sending a message:

We take social voting (eg. ratings and reviews) very seriously and will reward businesses who get great marks.

Want another example?

Have you ever heard of Digg.com? You should go check it out.

It’s one of the most influential sites on the internet right now.

All it is a collection of people who socially “vote” on a sites popularity. Lately I am seeing Google respond (within literally minutes) of a story posted on Digg and it shooting up the search rankings.

Again, Google is loving the social “voting system.”

Why?

Because us marketers can’t “game the system.”

Back to Google Maps and chiropractic offices.

I have been doing some testing and there is clear evidence that the chiropractic office with the most ratings and reviews in Google Maps gets featured at the top of the Google Maps box.

This can be a free and massive way to get new patients.

It is all centered around social “ratings and reviews.”

Yelp is a great example of social voting and how it can get a chiropractor loads of patients.

Yelp.com is hugely popular and is nothing more than a Rating & Review site.

See my recent Video about my Chiropractic Marketing Yelp Experiment here:

Chiropractic Marketing – Video on How to Use Yelp to Get Patients

Heck, Google just introduced a “social voting” tool in their own search engine as shown here where searchers can “vote up or down” a site:

Googles Social Voting

So where am I going with all this?

The trend is clear:

Social media is being given increasing “weight” by Google and that is because: the seo guys and gals can’t “cheat the system” with social voting and reviews.

This is why the future of the internet is moving towards the “social media” rating and reviews system because it can’t be tricked.

Mark my words… this is where all the action is headed.

Social media voting with Ratings and Reviews!

By the way.

Do you still think social media is largely a waste of your time?

Well let me conclude by giving you a slightly different point of view.

See, the really cool thing about all this social media marketing stuff is that it is (usually) a completely free source of new patients.

My friend Dr. Matthew Loop wrote this great blog post called
Chiropractic Social Media Marketing Myths and he gave this example:

Imagine this…. What if you sent 20-30 friend requests per day to this list accompanied by a warm introductory message? Do you think you might meet and connect with members of your community at an accelerate rate? Of course you would! Try meeting 30 each and every day offline and see if you can keep it up day-in and day out. This “friend adding” can be accomplished in a few short minutes and the benefits, exposure, and traffic can be incredible. All social networks (including Facebook) have these search / browse functions or something similar.

Every day, I would send friend requests to lists like this with a friendly message attached. I found that between 30-35% of those individuals would accept my friend request WITHOUT even knowing me before. They saw my profile and I appeared as someone who was interesting that had value to contribute to their lives to they accepted my friend request, subsequently opening the lines for further communication and trust building.

The bottom line is that social media marketing is another marketing pole in the water, and if you’re serious about the long term ramifications about sites such as Yelp, Google Map Reviews, Twitter and Facebook, you’re very well advised to develop some skills.

Because… well… they can all be used to get you loads of patients.

Ok, let me have it. Post you comment below and let the fun begin.

What is up with these chiropractic colleges lately? I’ve had a slew of new graduates email us this last year in near states of panic saying they are nearly six figures in debt and no idea how to pay it off. (i.e. they got the debt, they don’t got the marketing/business know-how to save themselves.)

Are the chiropractic colleges pumping out too many chiropractors? And, are they enrolling students aggressively – maybe too aggressively – and graduating them burdened them with debt? Hey, don’t shoot the messenger here.

According to this blog post Too Many Chiropractors, Not Enough Demand — Chiropractic Student Loans, “from 1995 to 2008 (estimated), there are 36,000 new chiropractors, yet only 7% of the population ever sees a chiropractor — and that number hasn’t changed in 20 years.”

Dr. Timothy Mirtz wrote an article called The Student Loan Mess: Why Chiropractic Is in Trouble and although dated, he spells out the core problem. (read the article)

My two cents on this has always been: he (or she) who is the better marketer and entrepreneur of chiropractic services will be the one who has the successful practice BUT very few graduates have a freaking clue how to get in the patients, how to market ethically without “pressuring” patients, and so they are unarmed to deal with the debt once they’re kicked out the doors into the ‘real world.’

It would be in everyone’s mutual interest to graduate students with a solid BUSINESS AND MARKETING background so that they can build a successful practice and help patients.  Aside: for you skeptical types, let me emphatically state that I have nada, zilch, ZERO interest in working with a chiro college, so this is not some grand scheme to get them to hire me or anything. I’d last one day in there anyway before they’d throw me out on my ass.

Here’s my solution: When you graduate from school, the schooling never “ends” in fact it’s just starting because now you need to dedicate every waking moment to mastering the art of practice building, practice development, and practice marketing. Make this your magnificent obsession and you will prosper in this or any business because good marketing skills are transferable to any industry.

Someone wise once said: “Any idiot can start a business. However it takes a dedicated one to build it into something worthy.”

What’s your opinion? Let’s have at it…

Are your patients BORED by Facebook?

Facebook can REALLY suck especially when you’re sending out Facebook (or Twitter) posts and it seems the only person reading them is your mum. Here’s a chiropractic marketing tip to increase Twitter and Facebook results by four times (with a simple little trick.)

The secret is using photo’s. Mentioning you have a new photo for someone to see and generating curiosity behind it, can cause your click through rate to skyrocket. Look, patients want to be entertained, otherwise they wouldn’t watch 4-hours of TV every night.

The curiosity factor of photo’s is Big Time and they’re very effective in getting patients to read your Twitter and Facebook messages.  I have seen a four times increase in the number of people viewing my posts whenever we include photo’s and images, along with a little teaser message such as:

“Ben gets wild at New Years Ever Party, check out this photo”

Come on… who can ignore that?? I have seen awesome results when photo’s are used by our chiropractic clients and combined with a brief promo message.

The other cool thing about using photo’s, is you can tag people which of course they HAVE to see what picture they’re in.

It’s easy to start using photo’s. Get a Flickr account (it’s free) Flikr lets you upload pictures for free, and then it’s a one-click process to use your wild and wacky photos in your twitter or facebook posts.

One last tip: for God’s sakes, increase the frequency of your use of photo’s, because you’ll immediately see patients more INVOLVED in your social media efforts and involvement = pay day. Take photo’s like a mad man, take them with every patient, take them while you’re skiing, playing tennis, take EMBARRASSING photo’s and then publicize them on Facebook – and I betchya your response rates skyrocket. Give this method a try, it really works.