For many ABA therapy businesses, promoting their services is often done through traditional marketing methods and word of mouth. That said, we’re seeing more and more practices starting to embrace online marketing initiatives.
You can’t talk about successful online marketing without the use of social media platforms. Social media can be a powerful asset for your ABA therapy business and when harnessed correctly, it can exponentially grow your reach online. If you don’t have much experience of marketing your ABA therapy business on social media, the thought of getting started can feel daunting.
To help clear things up and arm you with the information and insights you need, we’ve put together this guide. Read on to find out about the best social media platforms for your ABA therapy business to use.
Why Social Media Matters for You
If your business wants to find new people to work with and new patients interested in what you’re offering, it’s important to reach out to people and to get your name out there. Lots of daily activity that happens on social media, which is why your business needs to be active and part of the conversation. Social media is about more than the normal personal things we all share, like what you ate for breakfast or what new album you are listening to.
It’s also space for businesses to connect with customers and to build a following that’ll help them grow over time. With the right approach and quality content, you’ll connect with lots of people who wouldn’t otherwise have known your business even existed.
Identify Your Goals
Before you can construct an effective social media strategy, you first need to clearly identify your goals and what you want to achieve. The right approach will only be found when you know which outcomes you and your team are working towards. For some professionals, that might be about expanding your reach, for others it could be about recruiting or making industry connections and contacts.
These are very different aims and will require different approaches to social media. The content that will land well with industry professionals will have a different, more specialized and informed tone than the content parents interested in your services might enjoy and benefit from. Different social media platforms will be well- or not so well-suited to various goals and approaches.
Below, we’ll talk about the best platforms available and what they can offer below to help you get an idea of which of them will benefit your business most.
Which Platforms You Should Consider Using
Here’s more information about each of the top social media platforms, what they’re good for and why you should (or shouldn’t) use them. From there, you can decide which you think will best suit your ABA therapy business and what you want to achieve going forward.
X (previously Twitter)
If you have an existing audience, X is a good platform to make use of. It’s the platform to use if you’re looking to stay on top of trends that are being talked about by users online and around the globe. If you’re not looking to make use of trending topics as a way of promoting your business, and don’t already have an established audience, X is not the ideal platform for you to focus your efforts and attention on.
If you use X, be sure to stay on top of new conversations and remember to take a unique approach each day. Trends emerge out of the blue, and if they’re relevant to your business, be fast in leveraging them appropriately to your marketing advantage.
Instagram is the most visual social media platform, and that’s why it’s ideal for giving customers a glimpse of what your business does. That said, it can be a hard platform to master, as a cohesive and visual aesthetic is essential. It’s about creating captivating images that grab the attention of parents who might be interested in the services you offer.
It tends to be a younger audience on this platform, but there’s a good range of ages for you to appeal to with the right images and graphic content. Creativity will be key when using Instagram, so don’t shy away from expressive content that goes beyond what you might create for other social media platforms. It’s about drawing people in and making people take notice.
When you’re competing for attention on a platform like Instagram, only visually engaging and thoughtful content will cut through the way you need it to.
Facebook is by far the biggest social media platform out there right now, and businesses of all kinds should be using it. For the best outcomes, it makes sense to use paid promotions to increase the reach of your Facebook page and get more people visiting it and interacting with it. You should remember that for many adults, a Facebook page will be the first glimpse people will have of your business.
First impressions matter when marketing your business on social media. Ensure your business comes across in a way that’s presentable and establishes a tone that’s appealing and appropriate for the audience you’re looking to engage with.
LinkedIn is the platform to use if your focus is on recruiting new staff to work for your business. It’s also good for making industry contacts that might aid your business in one of many potential ways. Content produced for this platform should be professional and use a tone that suits that kind of audience.
It might not be a platform you feel a need to use urgently, but it might be something to look into when your business expands, especially with its organic reach at an all-time high. Having strong industry contacts and a professional presence online within that industry is recommended to grow your ABA therapy business.
What to Post and What Not To
What you post (and what you don’t post) on your social media channels will depend on several factors. It’s important to put in place a strategy that you can follow consistently, taking into account the aims of your business and what you want to achieve.
If you’re looking to connect with more parents, sharing content and posts relevant to them, such as articles or videos about parents of children on the autism spectrum, will generate more engagement and social shares.
Be Specific
It’s also important to tailor your posts and content to the platform you’re using. Each social media platform has its own quirks and particularities, as we described above. You should cultivate an approach that suits the medium for the best outcomes.
What you post on Instagram, for example, will need to be different to what you post on Facebook. That’s because of the different constraints as the platform, as well as differing audience expectations.
Each social media platform has its own quirks and particularities... You should cultivate an approach that suits the medium for the best outcomes.
Follow Trends and Leverage Video
It’s wise to engage with tending articles, topics and viral videos that have relevance to your message and the ideas you’re trying to convey to your audience. Creating your own original content is important too, and there are many ways to do so.
When people are scrolling through post after post, video content that makes them stop and take notice, but it still takes a balanced approach to be successful.
Recognize Relevant Awareness Days
There’s an awareness day for just about everything nowadays, and they can offer fantastic opportunities for businesses like yours. When a relevant holiday or awareness day rolls around, be sure to make the most of it.
Put your business at the forefront of the conversation that’s taking place that day and have pre-prepared content that people can engage with. People will be much more receptive to your ideas and your messages when there’s a reason for them to do so, such as a day that they feel is important.
What Else You Should Know About Marketing Your Business on Social Media
Now you know which platforms to use and what type of content to post. We have a few more tips that can help you be more efficient with your social content and engagement strategy.
Consistency
As we’ve briefly mentioned above, consistency is important when it comes to posting content on social media and marketing your business that way. You want to make sure that people are aware of you and that they don’t forget your business.
If your posting is inconsistent or goes through long barren spells, people will stop taking interest. That’s why it makes sense to create a consistent posting schedule, which you can easily do so with a content calendar in an Excel sheet.
Collaboration
It can also be a good idea to collaborate with influencers who operate in the same space as you. Your business doesn’t need to be an island when it comes to marketing its services on social media. You can often achieve much more and much further reach when teaming up with other people.
Automation and Scheduling
From a logistical point of view, you might also want to think about how your approach to social media marketing might be made easier. There are lots of social media automation tools that will help you with that, so be sure to check them out. There are hundreds of scheduling tools that’ll make your life much easier, and they’ll ensure that the consistency we discussed above doesn’t fall by the wayside.
Are you looking to grow the social media presence of your ABA therapy business? Contact us today!