Social Media Strategy and Tactics for sensitive counselling industry

[LighthouseC]

With my business I had always intended kicking social media into gear much sooner but various other pressures put this back somewhat.

Counselling is quite sensitive for a variety of reasons:-

We want to disassociate ourselves from the masses of non- professional folksy type "advice" that dominates the net,

People, particularly in the UK often do not talk about mental health issues nor would we always want people to if they had not protected their privacy enough.

Key marketing messages such as "get the first class service you deserve" (in UK people are more likely to wait 6 months to be seen by a trainee with no choice of who they see or when they see it than pay for counselling, "there are no quick fixes for mental health and counselling can make a real difference to your life if you invest time, energy and cost into it" (in a market where read this 300 word article to never feel stressed again dominates) and "what help choosing the counsellor who is best suited to you" - are not the sort of thing many people are likely to "like" or share with friends.

At the moment I am looking to focus on LinkedIn (for corporate work), Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.  I have a blog which is going to be producing excellent daily content including people's positive experiences of counselling, comprehensive self help tips, counsellor advice etc.

On Google+ and Facebook I am looking to autopublish some of the blog posts and there are probably some other channels I will autopublish to but I do not yet know which to go for.  Initially I am going to do little else on Google+ to focus time and energy developing Facebook and Twitter.

I am trying to achieve the following:-

Social Legitimacy - having  decent number of engaged fans will make us seem more legitimate in an industry where trust is important (only 14 FB likes so far is not a good start)

Engaging with Potential Content Creators - Reaching out to people who have experienced mental health issues so that this content can be used to provide peer support to others and enable them to see benefits of counselling

Creating relationships with people and organisations where we can cross promote each other's initiatives, potentially co-deliver services in the future (community counselling work etc)

Bring traffic to my site that will potentially convert into counselling clients in several cities in the UK through both people finding

Promote my content more widely than is happening with organic search, reach different audiences, engage with potential customers, generate links to quality content I create

Develop the social infrastructure to be able to leverage it for future goals, whether promoting an article, raising awareness for good mental health initiatives (that may have no financial benefit to the business but will help people) etc.

Sorry this is so long but any comments, ideas, suggested tactics etc would be appreciated.

[DaveGerecht]

Become the sensitive counselling industry 'go to guy'. Be giving advice in all manner of forums and blogs. be the guy with the sensible hat on in the wild and crazy internet!

And then blog about it on a more personal level.

Have you thought of maybe doing a podcast? If giving serious, objective advice is the goal then not everyone wants it on a monitor at work or in their 'favorites' at home. A podcast is also more intimate, your voice going straight into their ears! (Look up the not for the faint of heart 'Dan Savage podcast' as an example, or A Nerd of Advice)

Be a guest on a local radio show - or become their expert. Give free counseling, or at least free counseling literature to anyone and everyone.

Facebook may not be the right place to be as it is a bit discouraging when you see a friend has 'liked' ABC Counseling....

I know this is no SEO advice, but some argue that SEO is turning into ecommerce.

Good luck!

[gcdtechnologies]

Hi Ben, it seems like you've got a pretty solid strategy in place. I appreciate that social media can be a tricky platform to negotiate when you're working in a sensitive industry like this, and maybe you'll find that some networks simply don't work, while others do.

One thing that I might suggest is to spend some time deciding on the niche you want to reach through social media. Connecting with potential patients in this way might be difficult for the reasons you state above (privacy, reluctance to share/like/discuss openly). Establishing your reputation and increasing your visibility among the counselling community could be achieved by joining Twitter conversations, connecting on LinkedIn, commenting on blogs, answering questions and, once you've built a following, sharing your own content.

Perhaps patients are better reached through SEO-promoted posts rather than social media promoted posts (link building, solid guest posts etc.). Having said that, there are probably lots of ways to utilise social media - e.g. awareness generating campaigns, conducting research and sharing interesting statistics and findings etc.

Good luck!

[EGOL]

I really like David's advice.

Break down hesitancy by sharing yourself.  Make yourself approachable, available, understandable, and caring with soft wisdom.  Make a video that shows the office where you meet with people and the privacy and caring that you offer.

If you show them the path they will enter it with less hesitation and if you show what they will receive they will desire it.

YouTube is the second most used search engine on this planet.  It is not a flat medium like text.  It enables you to include sight and sound to build familiarity.