How to Get Your First 1K Instagram Followers- Chiropractic Edition

Instagram- a great place for pictures of food and selfies or a great place for business?

As a chiropractor, it's a GREAT place for business and building an audience of people who know, trust, and like you.

Today we're going to break down five things you can do starting today to get your first 1,000 followers on Instagram. We all know to be an influencer you need to be on Instagram. There are over a billion active users! So regardless of what demographic your targeting of your specific healthcare niche, Instagram is a place where you should be to build, connect, and ultimately grow your brand.

And there are five things that you can start implementing right now to get on your journey to that first 1,000 followers.

1. Consistency Wins

The first step is to post consistently. Consistency wins the game whether you are posting once a day, or even if you only have the time twice per week. Staying consistent with your post is a great way to start expanding your brand and expanding your message on Instagram.

2. Tagging People and Places

Your second step is to tag people and places. If you stop by a healthy restaurant; tag that restaurant! If you're hanging out with a colleague, be sure to tag that person! Tagging others can accomplish a couple of different things. First, if you tag a specific business or place it "geo-targets" your location which means people searching for that business or place will be able to see your post — more opportunities for exposure= more followers. So tagging the places you visit is crucial.

It not only helps people find you through research, but it is much more likely that those businesses are going to share your post/content across their platform which will further amplify your message and get more new eyes on your channel, your content, and your profile. So be sure to tag people and tag places.

3. Collaborations

Collaborations with influencers can really explode your follower count. Search out the popular people in your community and reach out for a collaboration. Perhaps it's a post that both you appear in. Maybe it's a story, or it could be just sharing content back and forth. And remember micro-influencers matter. You probably won't be collaborating with Jay-Z or Beyonce anytime soon- so but that doesn't mean it isn't worth it. Micro influencers in your community 5,000-20,000 followers will be happy to do collaborations with you because they are also trying to grow their audience and profile. So find collaborators do collaborative stories and host to help expand your message.

4. Engage With Others Content

Number four engage with other people's content. The more engaged you are on the platform, the more likely it is that people are going to notice you, recognize you, and follow your profile. So engage with other people's content. One way to do this is to find five hashtags that are relevant to your industry and add a comment onto the top 10 posts with that hashtag each day. Once you do that for 30 days, I can guarantee you boost your follower count and be "known" in that circle of influence.

You will become somebody that everybody recognizes by name, and in turn, you will have people coming back to your profile following you and engaging with your content. So take five to 10 minutes at the beginning or end of each day, search up you hashtags that are relevant to your business, your industry, your circle of influence comment and engage on that content.

5. Hashtags

Number 5 is hashtags. Hashtags are not dead; they are a great way to search out relevant content that you can contribute on and also for other people to find the content that you are putting out. So one best practice that I've seen lately is to create the first comment on your post and load it will up to 30 individual hashtags. You don't need to do 30 every single time, but if you choose appropriate hashtags, it helps amplify your message people will see your content and again more people will follow you.

Those five steps will help you get as quickly as possible to 1000 Instagram followers. It's how I've done it. It's how thousands of other people have done it. When you get started on Instagram, it can seem daunting to get the first 50 or first 100 but if you follow these five steps- post consistently, tag people and places, do collaborations with other influencers, engage with other people's content, and use hashtags; you will be well on your way, and you will be smashing a thousand Instagram followers before you know it.

Solving the Opioid Crisis...with chiropractic?

Over the past few years, our country has been fighting one of the most deadly epidemics in history: addiction to prescription pain medications. What’s more, thanks to a pharmaceutical industry that has billions of dollars to spend on lobbying and advertising…t's been an uphill battle.

In the United States alone, over 300 million prescriptions for pain relievers are filled each year.

Many of the people filling those medications started taking them due to back pain, and until recently, prescribing pills has been the standard of medical care for acute pain. That’s why we have so many people addicted to painkillers, and it’s estimated that 2% of the population will eventually become addicted to these prescription painkillers.

There is a better, safer way; a way to find relief without becoming addicted to these dangerous medications.

New research shows that when Chiropractic care is added to standard medical care, over 73% of people have significant improvement or complete relief! What’s more, when people focus on correcting the cause of the problem and experience relief naturally, they don’t need to keep taking that higher and higher dose of medication to reduce their pain.

That’s why many healthcare organizations are looking towards Chiropractic care as a tremendous ally in the fight against prescription medication abuse and addiction.

•  Medications are no longer recommended as a first-line treatment for back pain.
• Over 73% of people who added Chiropractic to their medical care found significant or complete relief from back pain.
• Adjustments can help you address the cause of the pain, not just mask the symptoms.

Science Source:

Adding Chiropractic Manipulative Therapy to Standard Medical Care for Patients With Acute Low Back Pain. SPINE Volume 38, Number 8, pp 627-634. @2013

How Chiropractic Adjustments Can Help Foraminal Stenosis

If you have had pain going down your arm or leg due to a pinched nerve chiropractic may be one of the best things you can do to get well quickly. 

The discs are located between the bones, or vertebrae, in your spine. They act as spacers, allowing room for the nerve to travel out the holes, or foraminal canals. That is the place where the nerve can often get pinched, and when it's pinched, it hurts. Sometimes that pinching can happen due to a bone spur, due to the disc becoming degenerative and flattening out, or a ligament is constricting and compressing on that nerve. 

Chiropractic adjustments work by helping to open up those holes and take the pressure off of the nerve. The tunnels, or foraminal canals, are "opened" when a gentle adjustment is given, and proper motion to the vertebrae is restored. That takes the pressure off of the nerve, allows the pain to subside, and the function to increase. So if you have been suffering from a pinched nerve due to a bone spurs or ligament overgrowth; do not hesitate to reach out to your local chiropractor to see if chiropractic care may be the best solution to get you on track and feeling great as quickly as possible. 

Behind the Scenes of RockTape Rockstock 2017

Join me as we hop behind the scenes of RockTape Rockstock 2017. 

Come behind the scenes with me at RockTape RockStock 2017. RockStock’s mission is to unite a community of health and fitness professionals dedicated to movement innovation.

Taking place in beautiful Huntington Beach, the event had chiropractors, therapists, movement and healthcare professionals of all disciplines having fun, learning cutting edge techniques, and collaborating on how to provide the best patient-centric care! 

I was fortunate to to catch up with RockTape Medical Director, Steve Capobianco, Crossover Health's Dan Lord, and Chiropractic Radiologist Cliff Tao. Check out the video about for interviews with all of them where we talk about movement, the future of healthcare, and chiropractic radiology. 

Rockstock 2018 is an event you don't want to miss! 

Chiropractic SEO- Your Guide to Rank #1 on Google

SEO. Oh sweet SEO.

Search engine optimization.

This is probably the most important and most misunderstood aspect of building a website that converts prospective patients or visitors into actual patients.

The reason SEO, or search engine optimization, is so important is approximately 70% of clicks go to native search results (not ad’s). And, approximately 70% of clicks go to the top 5 results for the keyword which is searched.

So yes, if you search YOUR CITY CHIROPRACTOR and you are not in the top 5 results then it is very likely you are getting next to zero clicks to your website.

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(yep, The Evidence Based Chiropractor has 2 of the top 4 search results for “chiropractic podcast”)

And often, being in the top 5 doesn't cost any money at all. You just need to give Google the information necessary to find you. You need to be a relevant result.

Remember that all of your marketing efforts work together. They should play nice. When you have good traffic coming in daily from Google this will help build your email list (a certain percentage of visitors should always convert to your email list via an opt-in).

Then you should use your Facebook pixel to re-target these visitors on social media. Even more advanced marketers could use a pixel from Perfect Audience and begin re-targeting across the entire web.

Personally, this is something I overlooked for a long time with The Evidence Based Chiropractor. But then, I saw Tommy Griffith, SEO Chief at AirBnB and formerly of Paypal, speak and it started to all come together.

I am willing to bet their are a few very simple tweaks you can make to your website right now that will boost your Google rank.

I bring up Google because they account for nearly 85% of search engine queries. For local businesses lets face it- Google is the master and we are all puppets.

The challenge with Google is they pretty much don't release any data on how or why they make any decision regarding search ranking.

Thanks Google.  

But, all is not lost. We (and by “we” I mean people way smarter than me) have figured out the how and why of Google results.

This topic alone could take up thousands of pages in a book, but we will break it down to a few simple keystones you can implement immediately.

Here are a few tools you should be using and we will dive into what each one does.

SEO helped me get to the top of "chiropractic seo" when searched on Youtube

Jump to a specific part of the article by clicking the link below:

WEBMASTER TOOLS
MOZ
PAGE SPEED

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Google Webmaster Tools

Google Webmaster Tools, now known as Google Search Console, is ground zero for optimizing your chiropractic SEO. Basically, this tool will show any “problems” with your website.

See, Google can be finicky. If it encounters a problem with your website they know the user experience will not be great.

User’s don't like problems.
Potential new patient’s don’t like problems.
Google doesn't like problems.

via GIPHY

And you get slapped on the wrist. Which means you get a lower ranking for errors on your website.

The nice thing is that Google will tell you about every error. But you need to ask. And the Google Search Console is the place to ask. You just quickly enter in your URL and it will give you a variety of tools to look at any problems with your website.

Also, you can upload a sitemap. A sitemap is literally a “map” of your website. This gives Google additional information to easily crawl, or search, your website. That is a good thing because it will give them additional information to match your site to potential visitors.

So, when you first get into the Search Console you will be able to see your Crawl Errors, Search Analytics and Sitemaps. Sound complicated, but its not.

The Crawl Errors are when Google is having a hard time finding content on your site. Essentially, they are “error” which is making it confusing for your content to be found. Not a good thing.

But, you can check your Crawl Errors at anytime and correct them. Thank you Google.

Next we need to look at Search Analytics. Using Google Analytics is one of the best ways to discover the nitty-gritty of your content and its performance. However, Search Analytics is also a nice little tool for you to take a quick look at your progress (or lack of progress).

Finally are Sitemaps. As we reference above, a sitemap is literally a map of your site. It allows Google to quickly find and index the content on your site. The easier you make it for them the better your results will be. So make sure you have an updated sitemap uploaded. Usually you can find them as an extension of your site with .sitemap/xml

MOZ

Moz is an awesome service company that provides super-high quality web analytics. Basically, they have a tool set that gives you a plethora of information to make your site more Google friendly.

Their suite of tools includes an open site explorer, SEO tool, Keyword search tool and others. Keep in mind some of their tools are paid and not free. And the paid tools are best for professional SEO specialists and marketing types in larger companies.

For most chiropractors they are overkill (they are professional marketing level products) and won’t give good return (they are also somewhat pricey).

BUT, their free tools are exactly what you need to help build a great online home.

Let’s look at a few tools.

The Moz open site explorer tool should be an essential part of your chiropractic SEO toolkit. This tools allows your to research backlinks, finding backlink opportunities and get a fantastic overall feel for your website.

Everything that Moz creates is very easy to use. And Open Site Explorer is no different. Simply enter the web address you want to investigate into the search bar and click search (also great for searching competitor’s sites).

The Moz tool with then create a complete profile of your page including Page Authority, Domain Authority, Inbound Links, Social Media links.

““FYI: a huge bank of super nerds that love number and stuff; compiles this information and delivers it to you with unicorn-riding mathematicians- Just Saying.””

— MOZ

Links to your site are still an essential component of getting great SEO. This Moz tool will help you see where you stand. Also, don't forget that you can pump in your competitors website also and see who is linking to their websites. This will give you a great opportunity to reach out if you have a piece of content which is more complete or more current. In other words, Moz Site Explorer is one of the best “research” tools out there. You can literally build a list of opportunities to improve your sites SEO.

Domain Authority and Page Authority are proprietary Moz stats/numbers that help determine your link authority. They analyze the potential of your page/site based on a variety of factors (including links) and then give you an easy to digest number.

The higher the better. For instance, Wikipedia has a Domain Authority near 100. That’s a nice place to be!

But, do not be discouraged if your Domain or Page Authority is not 100.  It may even be around 20. It’s ok. It takes time. But as you develop a ton of links from reputable site (with high domain authority) you will notice that your SEO begins to improve and you will place higher in the organic search results for your targeted keywords.

PAGE SPEED

Checking your page speed is also a really good idea. If you website is loading slow it will affect the ranking, but it will also make it much more likely that a visitor gives up before even reaching your homepage.

In the game of page speed- seconds matter.

Reducing your loading time by literally 1 second can make a HUGE difference in user experience. And when Google is ranking search results it will nearly always choose the faster site to list above the slower site.

And don't forget mobile!

Almost 50% of all web traffic is now mobile. Fortunately a vast majority of website are now mobile friendly. Make sure yours is. This is not an option. You site has to be mobile friendly to compete in search rankings now.

The biggest issue my website had initially was image size. “Big” images can drastically slow down your website loading time. It is really really easy to resize images that load 10 or even 20 times faster.  Sometimes the resizing of images will be called “compressing” images. For our purposes its the same thing. Reducing the file size to improve load time.

There are a few other items which can really drag down your page. They are:

Page Speed Drags

Remember, improvements to your page speed work in 2 primary ways.

First, you can decrease your load time. This will help keep people from pogo sticking off of your website, which is a huge killer of SEO.

Second, it will give you an advantage other other pages with similar content.

The bump in SEO for page speed is all about user experience. Google wants happy searchers and quick load times are a big first step.

So there you have it. A few simple steps you can dive into to boost your page UP the ranking chart and get more eyes on your practice and more people in your front door.

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