Cash-Based PT Practices (part 5)

As promised last week, I’m going to spend a few more posts on different forms of marketing that I’ve found very helpful in filling my schedule with cash-paying patients. Some of you may love Facebook and some of you may hate it. I’m not an avid user of my personal page, but my business page is responsible for at least a few thousand dollars of revenue in the past year. How? When my patients interact with me on my business page (or mention my treatments on their own page), the activity is visible to their ‘friends.’ Some of those friends subsequently contacted me, became patients, and have referred others as well.

The Facebook section of my eBook is over five pages long, which I’m both proud and embarrassed to admit. Here is one section that I think current and future Facebook Business Page users will find interesting.

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The Custom URL and the virtual real estate land grab

Quite a topic title, huh?! Confused? For me, this is actually one of the more interesting subtopics of the Facebook section, as evidenced by the long-windedness you’re about to experience. After you “suggest your page” to your friends, and you get 25 ‘likes,’ you can get a Custom Facebook URL for your page … for example: www.facebook.com/physicaltherapymastersoftheuniverse. For those who already knew about the possibility of a Facebook custom URL, they usually just inserted their company name after “www.facebook.com/”. When you look at my Facebook business page, you’ll notice that the URL is www.facebook.com/manualphysicaltherapyaustin. Why didn’t I just put “Carter Physiotherapy” after the backslash? Well, to put it simply: Facebook is on a path to World Domination.

For those who can’t tell, I must insert here the requisite ‘just kidding.’ OK so maybe they’re not going to dominate the world, but I and many others think that at some point they will be moving into the Search Engine business, and will likely give Google an incredible run for its money. You may have already noticed how the Search bar at the top of your Facebook page is changing. Now, as you start typing something in the search field, a drop down list of not only your friends appears, but also group and business pages you’ve ‘liked,’ and even friends of friends! People spend a lot of time on Facebook and often leave their profile open in a browser non-stop. At some point, it is hypothesized that Facebook will announce you can use its search engine the same way you use others like Google. When that happens, there will be millions of people who don’t see the point in opening a google.com window to do a search when they can do so in the already-open facebook.com in front of them. So when people start to use Facebook to search for local services like Physical Therapy, do you think they will be searching for “Carter Physiotherapy” or for “Physical Therapy in Austin”? Is it starting to make sense now?

If you haven’t already, go to a domain-name sales website like GoDaddy.com and try to find a really valuable URL that’s still available for $10. You’ll find that it’s a lot like going to Southern California and seeing if there’s any nice cheap beachfront property that nobody happened to see just yet. But with the explosion of Facebook and the fact that they offer custom URLs, it’s like doing the above real estate search in 1920. Those who have learned about the custom URL and stuck their company name on it didn’t realize where this is all heading. The moral of this long story is that you should make your custom URL rich with keywords. The keywords you know people are using to find your services are the words you want to have in your custom URL … not your company name. Use your company name as the page title, use keywords in your URL (or both, like me). Since not a lot of people and business owners know about this, especially in the PT field, it’s likely (at the time of this writing) that you can still get the best custom Facebook URL in your area. So do your keyword research, start your business page, get your 25 ‘likes,’ and stake your claim.

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Two more things:

If you’re not sure how to do ‘keyword research,’ get Search Engine Optimization – a Quick Guide for Physical Therapists here.

Speaking of Custom Facebook URLs, I just started a new Facebook page relating to all this Cash-based PT stuff and I’d love your ‘thumbs up.’ I can’t get my custom URL until I have 25 of them.

Jarod Carter PT, DPT, MTC

www.DrJarodCarter.com