If you didn’t know already Facebook is one of the top social networks in the world. They average over half a million new members joining every single day and currently have over 400 million members. Those numbers are amazing! That is enough members to populate a country the size of the United States don’t you think? Imagine the connections that are being made on a daily basis.

Facebook has helped many people reunite with family members, old friends, colleagues, and even business associates. What’s even more interesting is that very few physical therapist are not taking advantage of Facebook’s popularity to grow their physical therapy businesses. Well that is going to change because I’m here to share with you the benefits of having a Facebook Fan page and the steps you need to do to create one today. Let me break down some interesting statistics for you about the average Facebook user:

• Currently there are more than 400 million active users.
• 50% of active users log on to Facebook in any given day.
• The average user spends more than 55 minutes per day on Facebook.
• More than 5 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) are shared each week.
• More than 1.5 million local businesses have active Pages on Facebook.
• More than 20 million people become fans of Pages each day. ( That is a lot of fans!)
• Average user becomes a fan of 4 Pages each month. (One of those pages could be yours.)
• Pages have created more than 5.3 billion fans. (Some of those fans could be yours.)

These Facebook statistics should not be ignored. Facebook offers many ways for your physical therapy business to interact with your local online community and the best way to do it is by creating a Facebook Fan page. I will take you step by step on how to create a Facebook Fan page for your physical therapy business but first let me highlight the benefits of having one:

1. Explain You’re Business: People join your fan page because they want to know more about your physical therapy business. This is the place where you can highlight what your company is about and how it can serve them. Do this by posting quality content articles on your fan page wall that is relevant to your physical therapy business. Add photos of your staff and place of business for fans to see. Post the expertise level of your staff in specialized areas of physical therapy. Send out informative and funny physical therapy videos so fans can connect with you more. Most importantly hold discussions on your fan page to engage in conversation with your fan members.

2. Announce Events And Updates To Your Fans: One of the greatest features of fan pages is you can send updates or announce events whenever you have something planned. For example, if you are having a learning event at your clinic or announcing a new product soon to be released then you can announce it on your fan page. It is a great way of building a list of interested users for your product or potential referrals for your private practice.

3. Interaction: When your fan page reaches a critical mass of fans you will find that they are interacting with each other and giving you great feedback and word of mouth advertising. This is invaluable and although it takes a little time to build, once done it is the greatest asset you can have.

Now that you know the benefits of creating a Facebook Fan page let us look at the step by step tutorial below to create your own.

1. Visit the Facebook Fan page website and select “Create Page” http://www.facebook.com/pages/

2. Enter your business category and the name of your fan page.

3. Enter your Facebook Account Information. If you don’t have an account you will need to create a new one.

4. Congratulations! Your Facebook Fan page is created. Now it’s time to customize it.

5. Start entering information about your physical therapy business to share with your fans.

That’s about it folks. Real simple steps to create your own Facebook Fan page. If you would like more in depth training on creating and promoting your Facebook Fan page, you can enroll in the PT Marketing Academy. We have live online workshops that show you how to create and promote your Facebook Fan page for your physical therapy business. Please leave your comments below if you have any questions about this tutorial. Re-tweets on Twitter and social bookmarking are always appreciated.

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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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