Hey Massage Therapist… Are You Creating Original Content? If Not, You Should Be.
Hello All,
This post piggy backs on my previous post Want To Build A Massage Practice? 5 Tips I Wished I Would Have Known..
I want to revisit the topic to shed a little more light on the subject. It is my opinion this topic needs ALOT more conversation. I feel so many massage therapists leave so much $$$ on the table because they don’t post original content.
In ’08 I was running a small martial arts school part time. My budget was pretty small and because of this I could not throw money at advertising. I talked to a friend of mine who did marketing consulting for small businesses and I suggested I start a blog. I of course fought the idea tooth and nail, telling him “I don’t have anything to blog about” and “Nobody wants to hear what I have to say”. But trusting my friends advice I started a blog and found that I really liked it. At one point in ’09 I had well over 1000 organic hits to my blog a month with nothing spent on advertising.
I didn’t actually start creating original content for my massage practice until late ’13. Since then I have grown 2 separate pages Synergy Movement Therapy and Synergy Functional Anatomy to around 1000 likes a piece with people following from all over the world. I have received clients on referrals, referred clients to practitioners near them and consulted with people from across the world.
None of this would have happened if I had not began to create original content.
Why is original content so important? As you create content you begin to position yourself as a thought leader in your area and field. Being a thought leader is very important for your brand, it helps to separate yourself from your competition. You also begin to create a tribe of people who value and respect your work. This is very important for you and your practice. It is my opinion that you don’t want everyone as a client, you want the people who love and value your work. Creating original content is a great way to reach these clients.
Ok, so how does one go about creating original content? Great question! I will give you the formula I used when I first started.
I had no idea what I wanted to say or write about, or if anyone even cared! I started by going to Youtube and following people whose work I respected. I would then post their videos to a blog and put a small editorial discussing what I found to be insightful about the video. This was in ’08 when social media and blogs were much less popular than they are today. You could and should do the same with a FB post, Instagram pic, blog post or a Youtube video. If you don’t have a blog I think a FB page would work just as well.
As massage therapists we have a constant source of inspiration and original content. Our clients!!! What successes have did you have today, with in the last week or month? You don’t have to post names, or give away specific details of course. I only post things that maintain the integrity of my practice and clients.
What this does do is to create a track record of your work and over time it will also help to crystallize to both you and your audience what your work is and why it is important. You will also begin to earn the trust of your audience and that if leveraged responsibly can open up doors you might not be able to get to.
I believe creating content can be used to dig deeper into your practice and see things you didn’t know where there. This is an exercise that is far more important than the thread count on your sheets, how many BPM the music is and what color you paint your walls. Those are surface things that anyone can do, but they cannot duplicate your own personal work and your brand.
Action Steps
- Realize Your Work Matters: Your work matters to people. If it didn’t you would not have clients, people are inspired by authentically told stories. Tell your story, what you do for your clients, why it is important to you, how your work is impacting your clients. Remember you are telling your to create your own tribe. Don’t worry about the people who don’t want to hear about it. You are not after them anyways.
- Start Simple: Find a platform you enjoy working on, then make that your launching pad. As you become more comfortable with creating content expand out. Don’t worry about dominating every social platform at first, make it fun and it will grow from there.
- Create Often & Don’t Be Afraid To Make Mistakes: One of the biggest excuses I hear from people is that they are afraid to make mistakes, sound dumb or their grammar ain’t so good. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither is a social media following. What matters is that you are consistent and you learn from your mistakes. In today’s social media world people pay less attention to the little things. Your message is really what matters.
- Find A Niche & Own It: What are you REALLY passionate about in your work? Create content around that and nothing else. Become the thought leader on that subject. If you don’t know what it is that’s ok, creating content can help you to figure out what it is.
- Set Realistic Goals: You don’t have to post 1,000,000 times a day. Unless you are professional blogger you don’t need high volume, you just need to create content. Like any new habit starting slow and gradually building up volume is the best way to go.
I will leave you with this quote from Gary Vaynerchuk.
Practice Makes Improvement :)
Shawn Kitzman has been practicing Movement Therapies since 1992. He began his Massage Practice in 2000 and is currently working on a book focused on helping Massage Therapists get out of their rut and put the Passion back into their practice. When he is not spending time with his family, getting thrown in Jiu Jitsu, providing solutions for injured athletes in his practice he can be reached at shawnsynergymt@gmail.com