Are You Using A Picture ( Gravatar) To Brand Your Blog Comments?

I have seen a lot of empty images where a real picture should be on many of the comments left on  physical therapy blogs I have visited.  So I thought I would share a tutorial that will show you and other physical therapists how to add a picture or gravatar to their blog comments.

Either when commenting on your blog or other blogs, I feel it is important to let others in the virtual community see a picture of you or your company brand so they can identify and connect with your comments.

Below I have a video that briefly explains the benefits of having a Gravatar and why you should start implementing them when you comment on blogs other than your own.

Now below are some screenshots that will show you how to set this up step by step.  Click on the images to see a larger shot on your screen. Just follow the detailed steps below and you will be on your way to branding your blog comments with your own Gravatar.

Step 1.  Visit the Gravatar.com website and sign up at the top left-hand corner.

Step 2. Sign up to begin creating your Gravatar image.

Step 3. Select “add an email” in the my account menu. This email address will be connected to the image you select later on.

Step 4. Once you confirm your email account with the Gravatar website it will be time to select your Gravatar image.  Go to my account menu and select add image. Choose where you’d like to get the image from.

Step 5. Most of your images will already be on your computer. So select a file from your computer to get your image.

Step 6. Crop your image and select finish.

Step 7. Choose a rating for your Gravatar image.

Step 8. Next you want to confirm this is the image you want to use for your Gravatar.

Step 9. Select an email address to connect with your Gravatar image.

Step 10. Congratulations! Your email address is now connected to your Gravatar image. You can begin blog commenting and have everyone see your Gravatar image.

That’s pretty much it for creating your own Gravatar image. You can now comment on other physical therapy related blogs and start branding your new Gravatar image.

Once you have completed these steps, show off your new Gravatar image to me by leaving a comment below.

Also I would be grateful if you can help me spread this post around on Twitter, Facebook or any other social network you use so that others can learn how to create Gravatars of their own.Similar Posts:

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If you haven’t noticed or payed any attention to the latest trends in the tech world, blogging has evolved quite a lot in the last few years. It has become a key part of Web 2.0. In fact, if you’re a super geek like me you probably are familiar with the more popular blogs like the Huffington Post, TechCrunch and Gizmodo, that have a huge user base, and are much larger than most websites. If not maybe you noticed sites in our own industry, like Advance For Physical Therapy starting to use blogs to manage more of their own content.

Why all the blog talk you ask? Well if your planning on building a website anytime soon for your physical therapy business, you may want to think about which direction you should be headed in.

With that said, I want to give you 5 reasons why you should consider starting a blog that can potentially generate patient referrals for your physical therapy practice versus having a boring static website. This can also be applied to those that have a physical therapy product and want to generate more buyers or if you have a physical therapy continuing education course and are trying to increase attendee enrollment.

So here are the 5 reasons to ditch your boring static website and get going with a new blog:

1. A blog is a more personal medium than a website: When your patients read your blog posts, they feel as if they are listening to your voice. They form a much deeper connection with you as they read more about what you write and learn more about you. The content on a static website can sometimes feel like it has no “voice”. It can come off like canned jargon with no personality. In my opinion static websites are dry, boring and can lose its appeal with your visitors.

2. Search engines like blogs: This is a known fact in the blogging community! By their very nature, blogs are updated frequently with new content, and search engines love websites with new content. Search engines, like Google, devour them like a slab of roast beef. Keep the content coming and you will have no problem having your content picked up by the major search engines.

You also have a lot of latitude about what you can write about, and can often leverage your patient’s common interests. I recently did a podcast interview with Monique Serpas, a physical therapist who blogs about injury prevention, conditions treated by physical therapists, descriptions of treatment techniques, and other helpful information mostly catering to the patients she treats in the clinic.

If you listen to the podcast, she mentions that she provides preventative tips, she references earlier blog posts she has written and uses the right keywords that is relevant to the search engines and her patients. Monique was able to do this all while providing valuable content to her readers. It’s a great combination that attracts patients and the search engines like bees to honey!

3. Interaction and community: Blogs are a lot better for interaction because they have a comments area below each post where people can leave comments. As a reader you can then respond to these comments and leave your opinion about the topic being discussed in the post. People are usually motivated to leave comments when they read something that strikes a chord with them. You as the blogger can respond to these comments and slowly build a community of loyal followers who will begin to like know and trust you based off of the interaction you have with your readers.

4. Blogging technology has come a long way: You can build a very professional looking blog with the technology that is around these days. I actually prefer using WordPress which has many benefits over the other blog software  I have come across.  In fact, you can achieve all the features of a static website using a WordPress blog.  I have seen a lot of websites that look like static websites but were actually built using WordPress. So if you don’t like the blog look, you can build a “static-like” site using the powerful features  of WordPress and still get all the search engine benefits that comes with having a blog.

5. Repeat Visitors: If your blog content is compelling and provides value to your readers, they will come back hungry for more. This is great because it increases your traffic and gives you a higher chance of converting your reader into a patient referral, a buyer for your physical therapy product or having them become an attendee for your CEU course.

Providing quality posts and content is a recipe for repeat visitors and website traffic. It’s very hard to get repeat visitors with a static website because there is no real reason to go back and visit. The blog content, interacting through comments, and the relationship readers have with the blogger is what drives blog readers back to a site. This can be a powerful physical therapy marketing strategy and what you ultimately want to achieve if you have a blog online.

Hopefully I have given you a reason to ditch the thought of creating a static website and move towards creating a blog. As I mentioned before, a blog will help you drive a lot more traffic to your physical therapy business and this could translate into increased revenues and growth in your private practice, physical therapy product or CEU courses. 

If you want to create a strong presence for your physical therapy business online, getting started with a blog is a move in the right direction. I cover a lot of how to set one up and promote it in the PT Marketing Academy. I will even host it for free! You can go here now to enroll and get started.

If you have a blog or a website for your physical therapy business and would like to share your thoughts on this topic, leave your comments below to share with everyone else.Similar Posts:

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Online blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject such as sports, news, music or a hobby. Most blogs online function more as personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on photos, audio podcasting, videos, or all combined together.

Many physical therapists who have private practices, physical therapy products, and continuing education courses can use blogs to keep in touch with their readers or create a community of readers interested in their subject matter. If you are a physical therapist who focuses on total knee rehab you can talk about total knee surgery and treatment. If your expertise is in rotator cuff injuries you can blog about rotator cuff injuries and treatments. By offering quality expertise in your field you gain trust among your readers and possibly a potential patient or walk-in.

Blogs are affordable compared to the cost of building a website. Most blogs are free or have a low monthly fee to maintain. The most common blog programs available are wordpress blogs or blogger. Both are easy to use and update. Blogs are also very search engine friendly so it will also assist in getting you found easier online.

Here are some things you can do with a blog:

• Post daily tips and information to your readers.
• Share your expertise and become the go to blog for useful posts about a specific topic.
• Search Engines like to spider Blogs because the content is always fresh and constantly being updated!
• There are a lot of directories catering to Blogs online. Some directories allow you to Ping them when you add new content to keep their directories updated.
• Have your visitors subscribe to your blog by leaving a subscribe button on your blog so that interested visitors can get notified when you post.
• Have your blog offer RSS feeds and Podcast feeds of your posts.
• Place links to important information from your website like the services you offer, continuing education courses that you offer, your physical therapy product information, and etc.
• The important social and interactive aspect of blogs is its ability for visitors to post comments on your post. Creating dialogue shows your reader you are a live person behind the blog.
• You do not need to be a programmer or coder to get a blog up and running. For the most part it is very user friendly and easy to start one up.
• You can customize the design and layout of most blogs to cater to the look and feel of your business brand.

If you have not noticed blogs are here to stay. If you are a physical therapist with a private practice, a physical therapy product or an instructor for a continuing education course, you need to start planning on adding a blog to your existing website for the benefits I mentioned above. Any business looking to increase their online exposure, brand,  and social presence in the web 2.0 environment we are in should be thinking this way.

If you have a physical therapy blog, please let us know about it in the comments section below.Similar Posts:

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