Social Networking is the latest craze as many of you are well aware of. Figuring out what is the best use of your time is important when considering participating in these networks. How will you find the best opportunities to get new and repeat clients?
Twitter is one of the easiest to use and get results with.  If you don’t know what twitter is yet, it is an online network that you sign up with for free. Create a twitter account to just be used with your business. Twitter is unique in that it only allows you a few sentences of space to use to communicate with people.  But who are you communicating with?  People can sign up to ‘follow’ your postings. But where do you get people?  The best place is to put a twitter feed on your website. You can get the code to put a twitter badge on your website by going to the Settings page. In about the middle of that section there is a place for you to put your website address but right under that is a link that says:
Click on that and click on the other tab (or one of the others if you are using one of those systems for your website.) Click to create a badge. You can add what you want it to say on the top or whether or not you want to create a flash badge or a html badge. The flash badge will be interactive and show people’s reply ( I think!) So just copy and paste the code into your webpage where you want it. I have mine on my homepage above the fold (near the top) where it is the highest profile and also on my services pages. I also just created a twitter page that people can go to directly. You can see how I am using it at www.massageseattle.net I actually just started using it last week and have already gotten 3 new clients. I also have quite a few visitors to my website and it already gets me a lot of calls but I think it will help even more by making this info of my schedule availability more public. I am also sending a series of posts based using “you know you need a massage when you ….” and then will do a top ten reasons for getting a massage or something like that and see how that goes.
Facebook – Facebook is fairly time consuming. It is really important to set up a business only listing. What facebook is better for is finding your old high school buddies and long lost loves. You are supposedly not allowed to set up more than one facebook profile. They do have a way to make a business page and have it connected to your personal page but to me it is not private enough. I personally don’t mix clients and friends. You can use facebook to create more messages and even use it like a mini website if you don’t already have your own. You can search facebook members to find businesses and doctors or other people who you want in your referral network and ask them to be your friend. You can write a small newsletter like posts. People can post on your wall or you can opt to not allow people to do that. The thing I don’t like about Facebook is that people who become your friends will also have access to see each others profiles which may not be a good thing for your clients who want their privacy. I did find a facebook group for my office building when they were having an open house that I could become a fan of and post my message about being the massage therapist in the building.
Linkedin in works sort of the same way as facebook but it doesn’t connect you with all of your old friends. Linkedin is more of a professional networking site. They also have a section where people ask questions like yahooanswers but it is much more professional than answers is. You may possibly find someone looking for a massage but it is more like looking for a needle in the haystack.
I am not a big fan of social networking because of the time it takes to put into it all. I would rather be writing a new article for my website to educate people who are already interested in getting a massage. My website is found for the keywords that I have chosen – downtown seattle massage and it comes up first on Google and most of the other major search engines so writing there is more targeted advertising. Also writing more content and educating people about massage and muscles and how the body and massage work together is a way of building trust with people. When they read a website full of information and research they will get the feeling that you know what you are doing and trust you enough to make the call.
So if you are using one of these or other social networking sites successfully I would love to know what you are doing!
August 4th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
I have had friends and family trying to guilt me into setting up a social networking site. And none of them can give me a solid good reason as to why it would do my massage business any good. If people want to find me, they can Google the words “massage’ and then name of my city/county/state and I will pop up. There is even a link to my website, which has everything you really need to know about me as a business/licensed professional. The rest is way too personal for a client/therapist relationship. Thank you, Julie for providing a more level perspective about the use of social networks for promoting a massage business.
January 25th, 2010 at 1:10 pm
I have done so much cyberspace “networking” I got totally confused and had to resort to managing my connections with a LIST (4 pages thus far) of IDs, usernames, accounts, passwords … It has made me crazy busy not massage busy. And so I’m in the process of cyber-de-clutter.
Thru NCBTMB I found Bodyworksites who built with 98% of my help, my website. I love my website. Bodyworksites does help with Google Analytics; I can track the hits my site gets. Ok and so?? They also allow 5 tag words they say are used the most thru Google Search – as Dawn commented the word “massage” is obvious, then use the Local Business Results for your area. Which, I have – perhaps its my spa name but after 17pages of other websites using any combination of those 5 tag words, my spa STILL DOESN’T show up. I’m really bummed.
TWITTER – now thats a positive. I’ve had 15 views of my website thru TWITTER and I’ve only been on Twitter for 3 days, with 300+ followers. I keep tweeting my biz with hopes of getting sessions. Exposure exposure exposure, keep your name in someone’s eyeview and they won’t forget, right?
Facebook is a waste of time, and I’m dumping ALL my accounts. I’m not a begging person – “please become a FAN .. ” blah blah blah.
MySpace works – I’ve connected with a Personal Trainer who has his own Gym and I’m working at getting his members to come see me. I’ve even created a brochure just for them, with discount services. I wonder about that, if it was a good move or not? So far, nobody has come; could be distance? My spa is 12 miles away.
Since I’m renting a room (DBA) within a huge great salon, I’ve reached out to the other indies; nail and hair offering them a free session. How else can they speak of me honestly if they haven’t received? So far that has proved the best; I’ve sold around a $1,000 in Gift Certs and gotten 3 returning clients.
So TWITTER, MySpace and word of mouth – those seem the best “network”.