Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/149404
Did you know that 56 percent of Americans own a smartphone? Spin Your Own Web Your website is the technological equivalent of a first impression. Are you making a good impression? Are you making one at all? Most therapists who don't have a website have resisted because of fear. It may feel like an overwhelmingly complex and difficult task that you need a tech degree to complete, but it doesn't have to be. If you're an ABMP member, go to www.abmp.com and start using the incredibly easy-to-use (free!) website builder that comes with your membership. Templates, sample text, and ready-to-go pages are all created for you. You could have your website up and running in under an hour, even if you've never tried anything like this before. Tips: • Make your website a digital extension of yourself and your practice. Choose colors, place images, and write heart-centered text that are true reflections of who you are as a therapist and human being. • Get inspired by other websites—bodywork or other— and use that in your own way on your page. • Have enough information about you, your practice, and what you offer for new clients to choose you and contact you. • Keep current clients coming back by adding new and interesting information (like a blog, informative articles, etc.) often. • Kick it up a notch and add photos, video, and links to your Facebook and Twitter pages if you use social media. Bottom line: members can have a simple, professional, easy-to-use website—for free—in under an hour. If you don't do it, you're not serious about building your practice. 30 massage & bodywork september/october 2013 Face(book) It Many therapists have come around to the fact that websites are pretty much required these days, but still resist the idea of using social media. The term social media encompasses a lot of different mediums—Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, and on and on. For the sake of easing in, let's focus on the most popular and, therefore, most likely to have more possibilities for interaction with current and potential clients—Facebook. If you're already familiar with Facebook for personal use and are ready to dive in and create a page for your business, skip ahead to the tips. New to the whole idea of Facebook? Keep reading. If you haven't immersed yourself in the world of Facebook at all (and a large percentage of therapists out there haven't), your first step is discovery. Don't start with a business page. Get online and sign up for a free personal-user account. Look around, take an online tutorial, connect with some friends and relatives (you know someone on Facebook—there are 1.1 billion users), ask a friend who uses it to give you a tour, learn how to post a photo, and share someone else's post. Get as familiar with how it works as you can; once you're familiar with it, the fear dissipates and the excitement (or begrudging acceptance) creeps in. Tips: • Don't mix business with pleasure. Once you have your personal profile up and running, create a separate page for your business. • Start with weekly posts. More would be better, but too often can be too much. Try to find your Goldilocks balance. There's a lot of educational and interesting massage, bodywork, and [insert a topic interesting to your