More and more these days the term “social networking” has become part of our vocabulary and way of life. There are all sorts of various uses such as, communication with friends and family, promoting business, keeping track of news & events, and even keeping up to date with technology itself as it moves into the future at warp speed.
A myriad of networking applications have been created to make ‘social’ accessibility easier than ever, Heck there are even apps for these on our smartphones…But what do they do?
The icons below only represent a few of the applications out there. Included in this image are: LinkedIn, Twitter, RSS, Facebook, Delicious, Flickr, Digg, FriendFeed & StumbleUpon…whew! And this is just a sample of the 100 others available!
So how are these sites useful to you?
Many people utilize these sites for personal use, however more businesses are leveraging them to help spread awareness and promote their own companies. It’s amazing how many users have registered accounts to more than one of these sites and logging in everyday to access them. Here at AlterG, we recently polled some statistics from the net to research the amount of web traffic these top sites are getting, and the results are amazing!
We continued with our search on how these sites could benefit your business and I came across the “Social Media Road Map,” a fabulous document that guides a PT business owner into the world of establishing a social networking presence for their clinic. There are many websites out there that offer guided steps to help you create business profiles…of course, for a nominal fee 🙂 This document is extremely helpful and absolutely free!
The decision to create an AlterG Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube account was made months ago and so far have been a great success with sharing news among our user clinics, patients, athletes, and fans. We encourage all physical therapy clinics to set up profiles for their facilities to ‘self-promote’ within their community. Patient stories, clinic services and the company staff & background are all interesting to help create a greater awareness for your facility.
Here are a few examples of physical therapy clinics that have established social networking pages:
- http://www.facebook.com/SpringValleySpineandSportsCare
- http://twitter.com/Performance_PT
- http://www.runwithheidi.com/blog
- http://www.youtube.com/user/johnwolk
We would love to hear how you have integrated social networking into your business promotion – feel free to comment below!
–Kate @Alter_G