Shownotes
In this episode of the Good Enough Counsellors Podcast, Josephine Hughes discusses how therapists can use social media to attract more clients and grow their practice. Social media can be a powerful tool, but it’s easy to feel stuck when you’re unsure what to post. Josephine provides a simple framework to help therapists create content to connect with their audience, build trust, and drives potential clients to their practice.
If you’ve ever found yourself staring at a blank screen, unsure of what to post next, this episode is for you! Josephine covers how to plan your content using themes, the importance of consistency, and how awareness dates can inspire your social media calendar. By the end of this episode, you’ll have practical tips that will help make posting on social media easier and more effective.
Whether you're a therapist just starting out on social media or you're looking for ways to refresh your strategy, you’ll walk away with actionable insights to help you attract more clients.
Takeaways:
- Social media is an invaluable tool for therapists seeking to connect with potential clients and attract referrals.
- Establishing a content framework not only alleviates the pressure of content creation but also fosters consistency in engagement with your audience.
- Incorporating awareness dates into your content strategy can provide inspiration and relevance, enhancing the emotional connection with your followers.
- By categorising posts into education, encouragement, engagement, and empowerment, therapists can effectively reach different sectors of their audience.
- Consistent posting helps build trust and familiarity, ultimately making your audience anticipate your content and rely upon your insights.
- Planning ahead by utilising awareness dates makes it easier to post and enhances your social media presence.
social media for therapists, content ideas for therapists, how to attract clients on social media, Mother's Day content ideas, social media content planning, tips for therapists on social media, therapist social media tips, private practice marketing strategies
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My website: josephinehughes.com
The information contained in Good Enough Counsellors is provided for information purposes only. The contents of this podcast are not intended to amount to advice and you should not rely on any of the contents of this podcast. Professional advice should be obtained before taking or refraining from taking any action as a result of the contents of this podcast.
Josephine Hughes disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on any of the contents of this podcast.
Transcripts
Did you start the new year thinking you'd focus on growing social media to attract clients?
Speaker A: But now we're six weeks into: Speaker A:Social media is a great way to connect with potential clients or attract referrals, so join me to discuss how you can make posting on social media a whole lot easier on yourself.
Speaker A:Foreign welcome to the Good Enough Counsellors Podcast.
Speaker A:I'm Josephine Hughes and today we're tackling one of the most frustrating struggles for therapists who are on social media, and that is running out of content ideas.
Speaker A:If you've ever stared at a blank screen screen wondering what to post, this episode is for you.
Speaker A:By the end of the episode you'll have a simple framework that ensures you'll never run out of ideas again.
Speaker A:Plus, I'm going to share how awareness dates, those special days that come up during the month, can inspire your content plan.
Speaker A:And to keep it really relatable, I'm going to talk about Mother's Day, which which is coming up at the end of March.
Speaker A:And at the end of the episode, I'll share some other dates that are coming up in March so that you can get planning in advance.
Speaker A:So let's dive in.
Speaker A:First of all, I'd like to share why having a framework can make your social media posting so much easier.
Speaker A:When you create content on the fly, it's really easy to feel either overwhelmed or uninspired.
Speaker A:But when you plan your content around themes, it makes the task so much easier.
Speaker A:Because themes give you structure while still allowing you the room for creativity.
Speaker A:They help to keep you consistent.
Speaker A:And that's really important for building trust online.
Speaker A:And the best part of this is that people who are following you become begin to anticipate what's coming up and connect with the value that you bring.
Speaker A:And this means that when you consistently post content online that aligns with the people who follow you, aligns with their needs, they begin to see you as a reliable and helpful source of information.
Speaker A:And over time, your consistency will build up that trust and familiarity with with you.
Speaker A:When your audience knows that you're going to be posting regularly, they will actually look out for your posts.
Speaker A:And your posts will help to build up an emotional connection with your audience.
Speaker A:They're going to start feeling that you really understand and get them, and that means that they trust you more.
Speaker A:And ultimately they may come to rely on you for your insights, your guidance, possibly even advice if you're writing those sorts of posts.
Speaker A:And then they may either come to you because they're looking for therapy.
Speaker A:Or they may recommend you to someone they know because they enjoy following your posts.
Speaker A:Here's a simple framework to get started.
Speaker A:Think of your content in terms of weekly or monthly themes.
Speaker A:And what I've done is broken it down into four categories to help you remember them, and I've used the letter E to help you remember what they are.
Speaker A:So, number one, we're talking education.
Speaker A:So these are the posts that inform your audience.
Speaker A:For example, you might do something around five signs of burnout.
Speaker A:These posts in particular, because they're educational, will appeal to people who perhaps don't know you very well.
Speaker A:What they do is they help people to see that you are someone who has a certain level of knowledge around a particular subject.
Speaker A:The second E is encouragement.
Speaker A:And these are posts that inspire and uplift people, either with motivational type content or something that's quite relatable, where they can learn and also relate to you as a person.
Speaker A:And the next E is engagement.
Speaker A:It's really important to remember that social media is a social platform, so you do want to give people the opportunity to engage and connect.
Speaker A:And these sorts of posts are where you will get quite a lot of people replying to your posts.
Speaker A:And that helps the platform, it helps the algorithms on the platform know that your posts appeal to people.
Speaker A:Because if you do an engagement post and you get a lot of people answering, that helps it to go further.
Speaker A:And it's often those engagement posts that then fuel people finding your page and following your page.
Speaker A:And it also gives you an opportunity to engage and connect with, with people who are following you because you can chat away to them in the comments.
Speaker A:And the final E is empowerment.
Speaker A:And this is actually to empower your followers to take action, to work with you.
Speaker A:So you might be showcasing your services, your resources, telling them about what you do, how they can get in touch with you, frequently asked questions, those sorts of posts.
Speaker A:This framework actually means that you can provide a variety of different posts over the week or over the month, whilst staying focused on your goals and your audience needs.
Speaker A:So what we're going to do now is I'm going to give an example of each post through the lens of Mother's Day, as that's coming up at the end of March.
Speaker A:Let's start with an educational post.
Speaker A:So educational posts are there to inform and inspire learning.
Speaker A:So this is where you might share something around your knowledge of Mother's Day or what's coming up for you around that subject.
Speaker A:So one example would be talking about what motherhood is like the mental load of motherhood.
Speaker A:The the mental load of motherhood is the way that we're not only caring for children, but also planning and organising and scheduling.
Speaker A:If you're a mother or a parent, you won't need me to tell you what that involves, but that's something that you could talk about with your audience.
Speaker A:Or alternatively, if something like mothers is a difficult subject for your audience, that is something that you could talk about as well.
Speaker A:And you could perhaps show the signs of having had a difficult relationship with a mother and how that might come out in later life as an adult.
Speaker A:So you can think about mothering from your perspective, but you can use it in an educational way.
Speaker A:It's helpful when you're doing an education post that you offer both an understanding of people's situations but also offer some solutions as well.
Speaker A:So, for example, say we were going back to the mental load for mothers.
Speaker A:You could then give them some self care tips, for example, to help them fit in some me time alongside those overwhelming tasks of motherhood.
Speaker A:Let's think about the encouragement type of posts.
Speaker A:So these are to uplift and help your audience feel seen for Mother's Day.
Speaker A:You might post to all mums who feel like they're not doing enough, you are enough.
Speaker A:And then in your caption you can talk a bit more and expand on this idea.
Speaker A:You're acknowledging their struggles and reminding them that they're doing an amazing job, even if it doesn't always feel that way.
Speaker A:Or you could do something like share a personal reflection of how your own mother inspired you, tying it to a message of self compassion.
Speaker A:These encouragement posts are all about building trust and emotional connection with your audience.
Speaker A:The third E is engagement and this is to invite interaction and conversations.
Speaker A:They're really designed to get people talking and get them involved on your age.
Speaker A:Coming to Mother's Day, you could ask something like, what's the best piece of advice your mother ever gave you?
Speaker A:You'd be surprised.
Speaker A:People can be quite funny with these answers.
Speaker A:Or you could do a poll which is something like, you know, what's your favourite way of enjoying Mother's Day?
Speaker A:For example, if you've got mothers in your audience, you might do A a quiet bath, B a family meal, C time outdoors.
Speaker A:Obviously, you shape the posts according to who your audience is and this is why it's really helpful to know who it is that you're trying to reach.
Speaker A:And this is one of the subjects that I really do cover with members of my therapy growth group.
Speaker A:And this month, the month of February, we're actually busily engaged in looking at our niche and working out who it is that that we're trying to reach.
Speaker A:The final E is empowerment.
Speaker A:It's about promoting action and showing the value of your services.
Speaker A:So empowerment posts actually encourage your audience to take steps that benefit them.
Speaker A:It might be booking in with you or it could be looking at a resource that you're offering.
Speaker A:And so for Mother's Day you could actually do an invite to mothers in your audience to ask them if they'd like to book an appointment with you and that this is maybe a sign that it's time to care for themselves.
Speaker A:You could be really bold and say that you offer gift vouchers for mums on Mother's Day.
Speaker A:That might be something that someone might like to buy.
Speaker A:Just a thought.
Speaker A:So you can see that empowerment posts are actually positioning you as the go to person who your audience can turn to for help by using the E Framework, which is education, encouragement, engagement and empowerment.
Speaker A:Just to remind you, you can create a variety of posts that educate people, inspire them, connect with them and motivate them to take action to get in touch with you.
Speaker A:I've used Mother's Day there as just one example of how this framework can guide you.
Speaker A:The same applies to any awareness day or theme that's meaningful to your audience.
Speaker A:Awareness dates are brilliant for helping you to think about what to do.
Speaker A:And here's how you can use them.
Speaker A:Number one, plan ahead.
Speaker A:So this is where you want to research the upcoming awareness dates and I actually publish them a month in advance to members of my therapy growth group.
Speaker A:They the next thing to do, number two, is to align your themes with your niche.
Speaker A:So use the dates as inspiration for your educational and inspirational content.
Speaker A:It's amazing how when you know your niche, you're able to take almost seemingly irrelevant days, but use them to spark an idea as to what you could post for that particular day.
Speaker A:And what I do is I actually provide ideas for every single day of the year.
Speaker A:So I'll take an away fairness date and I'll give members of therapy growth group ideas as to how they could actually apply it and use it to create content.
Speaker A:And number three is to engage your audience to create a conversation around those dates, like the engagement type post that I've just suggested.
Speaker A:So there you have it.
Speaker A:That's a simple content framework that will help you to think about what posts you can pop onto your social media page.
Speaker A:And I really hope that this will help you save time as well.
Speaker A:Because when you've got this framework, it's so much easier to actually think about what you want to post and you can use it to plan ahead rather than sitting there, as sometimes I've been known to do, thinking to yourself, oh my goodness, what am I going to post now?
Speaker A:And time is ticking and you're thinking, oh, I really don't know what to post, so use this to plan ahead and it'll make it a whole lot easier for you.
Speaker A:Now I've explained the framework, I'm going to give you some more ideas for March, and I've got a few awareness dates and weeks that you might find helpful for your social media in March.
Speaker A:So here goes, I'll give you a few of what's coming up.
Speaker A:A couple of awareness weeks that are coming up in March that you may find useful are no More Week, and that's from the 2nd to the 8th of March.
Speaker A:And if you go to no More, so no More is all one word there, you can read a little bit more about it.
Speaker A:But no More Week is actually aimed at ending domestic and sexual violence.
Speaker A:So for those of you that are involved in that field, you may like to take a look at the website and see what ideas and events they've got coming up that you could talk about or use to stimulate your brain to create something around that theme for the week.
Speaker A:The other week that I think you might be interested in, especially if you work with Neurodiversity, is Neurodiversity Celebration Week, which is happening from the 17th to the 23rd of March.
Speaker A:And again, there's a special website you can Visit, which is neurodiversityweek.com so have a look there and you'll be able to find out what's happening and what they're doing in terms of events.
Speaker A:And then we've got some awareness days that you might be interested in as well.
Speaker A:Obviously, as I said, I have days for every single day of the month in March, but I'm just picking out some of the ones that you might be really interested in.
Speaker A:On the 1st of March, it's Self Injury Awareness Day.
Speaker A:On the 3rd of March it's the Marie Curie Day of Reflection.
Speaker A:So if you work with loss and bereavement, that would be a day for you to focus on.
Speaker A:We've also got International Women's Day on the 8th of March.
Speaker A:That's always a really big one.
Speaker A:There's a lot of stuff around women on that particular day, so it's great to join in with that and use the hashtags and be part of the conversation if you work with young people or with parents, there's University Mental Health day on the 13th, World Sleep Day on the 4th, 14th and International Day of Happiness on the 20th.
Speaker A:I'm going to move quickly forward to the end of March now, and on the 30th, we're inundated because it's Bipolar Day, it's Mother's Day and it's also the start of British Summertime.
Speaker A:And then on the 31st, it's the international Transgender Day of Visibility.
Speaker A:Have a think how you could apply those different themes education, encouragement, engagement and empowerment, and see how you can apply them to your particular niche using the awareness days that I've mentioned.
Speaker A:So there you have it.
Speaker A:A simple, repeatable framework to help you create content and the magic of awareness dates to keep your content up to date and engaging.
Speaker A:If you'd like more help with your social media, I've got something coming up in Therapy Growth group beginning on the 2nd of March.
Speaker A:These are the final four of my twelve action steps for growing your private practice.
Speaker A:And what we'll be doing is, every week in March, I'll be giving you a simple step that you can take to improve your social media presence.
Speaker A:The simple action steps are designed to be done in 10 to 15 minutes, and then if you want to spend a little bit more time on it, you discover a little bit more.
Speaker A:Or if you really have some more time, I encourage you to dig deep and this is where I'll give you some more training or suggest you take more action.
Speaker A:And that starts at the beginning of March.
Speaker A:So if you need some help with your social media, why not think about joining Therapy Growth group?
Speaker A:You can join for a month, just £50.
Speaker A:If you like it, you can then choose to stay and the 12 action tips will then be repeating again and you can catch up on the ones you've missed.
Speaker A:Thanks so much for listening and I'll be back next month with some ideas for April.
Speaker A:Thanks for listening.
Speaker A:Do come and join my Facebook community.
Speaker A:Good enough counsellors.
Speaker A:And for more information about how I can help you develop your private practice, please Visit my website, JosephineHughes.com if you found this episode helpful, I'd love it if you could share it with a fellow therapist or leave a review on your podcast app.
Speaker A:And in closing, I'd love to remind you that every single step you make gets you closer to your dream.
Speaker A:I really believe you can do it.
