For rehab therapy specialists and practice owners, harnessing the power of social media can have a meaningful impact on clinic growth. According to a 2023 study, the average American spends more than 2 hours a day on social media, and much of that time is spent researching, learning about, and engaging with new businesses that can help them find what they’re looking for. This includes when they’re considering healthcare like PT.
Businesses like outpatient rehab practices (PT, OT, and SLP) can capitalize on the popularity of social media to:
- Build brand awareness in the community
- Connect with current and future patients
- Showcase your hard-earned physical therapy expertise
- Generate leads for your practice
Let’s take a look at some PT practices with effective approaches to social media and the types of content they post. These tips and examples will give you and your team an idea of the type of social presence you can build for your clinic.
Note: Many of these examples are from practices that use Prompt.
Tip 1: Build authentic relationships by letting your personality shine
A startling 86% of consumers rate authenticity as the number one reason for liking, following, and supporting certain brands. This statistic reveals the importance of simply being your (professional) self to create genuine and trustworthy connections with present and future patients.
Social media posts that reflect personality and humor can bring your brand to life, put a spotlight on the amazing individuals at your practice, and go a long way towards building relationships, generating business, and helping more patients get the care they need and get back to doing what they love. Along with some down-to-earth posts from your clinic’s account, you might also encourage providers and staff to post from their personal accounts to express what’s most important to them and engage directly with followers and potential clients. To support this, leadership should go over some basic parameters on what’s reasonable to share, to make sure it’s a positive reflection of your business as a whole.
Here are some examples of this type of content in the PT industry:
Elliott Physical Therapy (TikTok)
@elliottphysicaltherapy Looking for a fun challenge to do with a friend? 👭🏻 This one is guaranteed to make you laugh! Use this video as a guide and complete the steps as shown. You must maintain contact with the exercise ball at all times – try your best not to drop it! Can you beat ✨Caity & Alley✨ and get it in less than four tries? Tag us @elliottphysicaltherapy, we would love to see it! Trust us, it’s harder than it looks. 😉 #challenge #exerciseball #funwithfriends #PTafterhours #elliottphysicaltherapy
A creative way to combine using the PT space while having lighthearted fun and giving the team a chance to entertain users on the platform.
Showing a friendly competition between providers that does several things at once: 1. Shows off the providers’ skills; 2. Creates entertaining content; 3. Shows the type of fun and collaborative work environment at the practice.
Bodywise Physical Therapy & Wellness (Facebook)
A fun, topical post that talks about a trending (noncontroversial) topic in a relatable way, shows off the energy at the workplace, and gives specific team members a spotlight.
This authenticity-first approach can carry over into how you respond to comments online, or engage in any public forums with your brand account. Have the mindset that you’re not just marketing – you’re connecting with people. Wherever possible on social media, be both professional and genuine, and don’t take for granted any interaction or engagement your business receives.
Tip 2: Show off some free PT expertise to gain patient trust (and a new following)
For physical therapists and other healthcare specialists, social media offers ways to share helpful advice for anyone looking for it. Engaging instructional content can not only maximize your ability to help people – some who live far away or maybe can’t afford treatment – but also build a positive rapport that can eventually mean more views, leads, and patients in the door.
If you’re a leader in your field, it’s hard to effectively communicate that with just words and pictures on your website. Easy-to-follow video walkthroughs or exercise demonstrations tells a more complete story for those trying to decide between several providers, or even if in-person care is right for them. And putting across a comforting personality in these posts can serve as a preview of the type of experience and partnership they can expect with your practice. It’s a limitless opportunity to put positivity out there, deliver the exact information people might be searching for, and grow a following that translates to a winning reputation and word of mouth.
Note: You may feel conflicted about “giving away” expertise that you rely on to generate revenue as a clinician or practice owner. Think of it as a chance to deliver timely and valuable information for people who will appreciate that you helped them overcome a struggle and can likely help them more if they become your patient. By delivering these insights without asking in return, you’ll naturally build your reputation as a qualified provider and build trust with potential new patients.
Here are some examples:
A guided walkthrough of some area-specific exercises for people dealing with issues in those areas, that helps equip them with some useful home treatments. (Genuinely helping people while building trust in your practice.)
A longer-form version of targeted exercises that allows the practice to go into more depth and take more time explaining exercises and their reasoning along with detailed demonstrations from a provider at the clinic.
Onward Physical Therapy (Instagram)
A valuable perspective that shows what not to do during treatment and exercises, to help patients steer clear of mistakes that could set their treatment back or make things work.
Tip 3: Publish patient highlights, success stories, and reviews
A great complement to positive Google Reviews – and for some potential patients, and even bigger deal – are amazing patient stories that you curate on your company accounts. Through interviews, video clips, or visually enhanced clips of testimonials, your team can find creative ways to highlight the life-changing treatment outcomes your practice delivers, so potential patients can build confidence and excitement in choosing you for their care.
Here are some example posts:
What better way to show the effectiveness of your care and the positive experience of the patient by showing them doing what they love again without pain? With the blessing of the patient, you can share a heartwarming clip that shows them performing an activity they had difficulty with before they started rehab.
Elliot Physical Therapy (TikTok)
@elliottphysicaltherapy Meet Aquatic Therapy Patient, Mary! 🏊🏻♀️ Mary brings all the energy to her appointments at the @eastonymca and thoroughly enjoys her time with our aquatic physical therapist, Lauren! 💪🏻 Together, the two have made significant progress in Mary’s plan of care and Mary continues to hit new goals every session! ✔️ Thank you so much, Mary, for sharing how Elliott PT has changed your life and allowed you to get back to activities you’ve been missing out on. We are grateful for YOU! 💛 #aquatictherapy #eastonymca #oldcolonyy #physicaltherapyworks #testimonials #elliottphysicaltherapy
This post shows a heartfelt patient interview that not only highlights her treatment outcomes but also doubles as a positive customer story about the PT they worked with, their qualifications, and the experience working with them. It also shows a specialized care method (aquatic therapy) that the clinic offers which may resonate with certain patients who are looking for specific modalities.
Aim Sports Medicine (Facebook)
With a simple animation graphic and some social copy – including a direct quote from the patient – the clinic amplifies a glowing review, and then also uses the opportunity to share info on how to schedule a visit for those that might be interested after reading the testimonial.
Tip 4: Offer lifestyle advice
There’s more to wellness than intense exercise, so there’s a wider opportunity in promoting wellness on social media than exercise demos. You can leverage social media to encourage overall healthy habits and wellness as an extension of the treatments you offer, that may be valuable insights for your audience who want to improve their general health (which can also translate to better treatment outcomes).
Examples:
Nutrition goes hand-in-hand with physical health, and the ability to fully and quickly recover from injuries or surgeries. This short Instagram video shares a tidbit of knowledge on the correlation between certain foods and reducing inflammation, delivered in a pleasant and digestible way (pun intended).
This video puts another twist on nutrition advice by walking through a recipe for smoothies that support recovery after workouts. The long-form style of YouTube videos is well suited for step-by-step explainers like this, where you can take your time showing how the food is made and sharing information about the ingredients and why you chose them.
PACE Physical Therapy (Facebook)
Coming up with some specific situational advice for maintaining physical wellness in different real-life scenarios, with a demonstration video paired with explainer copy. In this case, the PT demos some simple mobility exercises for while you wait in the airport that can help you avoid stiffness during travel.
Tip 5: Promote your content or events (blog posts, podcasts, newsletters, workshops, community meetups, etc.)
When your practice or providers have insightful content or collaborations to share, social media is perhaps the most effective way to get the word out and bring in a wider audience. And it also helps you get these pieces out to people beyond your initial network through searches, reshares, etc. This awareness can greatly expand your reach beyond a “local” audience, deliver thought-provoking or informative content to those it can most benefit, and boost your clinic’s overall social presence and reputation through increased followers, likes, and shares – which can lend “cred” to your team and business as a whole.
Here are a few examples:
With some simple posts and links, the practice utilizes Twitter’s capabilities to promote an interesting YouTube video (and survey) they created, as well as a podcast episode they hosted (which also helps promote the featured guest through both hosting them and tagging them in the social promotion).
Sterling PT & Wellness (LinkedIn)
First off, this is a great example of a wellness event your practice can host which offers educational, networking, and brand awareness opportunities in one fell swoop. Second, it’s promoted effectively on a short social post that features a nice flier image and a link to a registration site so you can build attendance and plan accordingly based on the response.
This is a similar promotional post, but about a community event hosted outside the practice that is less about education and more activity-oriented. Local meetups like this running group are an amazing chance to invest in your local community, grow your following, and simply bring people with similar interests together.
Tip 6: Post peer-to-peer advice and conversation
You’re not just engaging with PT patients on social media – you’re also tapping into your industry peers and fellow practices that are browsing or posting on these platforms in all their own ways. That means 1000s of professionals that also understand the struggles of your business, are looking to network with like minds, and might be looking for valuable conversations that can inspire positive change in their treatment approach or how they manage the business side of a clinic.
If you or your team have some hard-earned wisdom to share that could be useful for others in your line of work, a social media post is a great way to pay your knowledge forward and see if it can find the right audience.
Some examples:
This post offers some feedback on what he feels would help clinicians deliver better care, and be a positive paradigm shift in PT as a whole. With these types of posts, it’s important to note that they’re typically just one person or one practice’s opinion. If the expert or team feels like this perspective can genuinely improve someone’s approach to care, social media is a way to get these thoughts in front of a wide audience and potentially lead to some valuable conversation in the comments or among practice owners and their teams. Be extra careful with these posts; make sure you’re just not ranting or giving extreme opinions that could reflect poorly on your business or your personal reputation and expertise.
Rehab 2 Perform/Dr. Josh Funk (LinkedIn)
In this case, the poster is sharing some quick perspective on industry issues observed during years in the field and the “business side” of being a PT, to stir up conversation and shine a light on matters that could inspire those in the field to take action or keep the conversation going. Once again, it is one person’s opinion and has the potential to maybe be divisive with certain readers, but it is delivered respectfully and has potential to create meaningful discussion on the topic, even if certain readers disagree.
Other uses for social media in PT
The potential use cases for social media only continue from there – and as we’ve seen, will likely continue to evolve as platforms add more features and new ones are introduced. In addition to the ways we’ve mentioned and shared examples for, these are some of the major ways to use social media to benefit your rehab practice and engage with your audience near and far:
- Connect with or follow industry peers, practices, and topical accounts that may have interesting content or create future networking opportunities
- Promote your team’s accomplishments (ex. New locations opening, team milestones, etc.)
- Create your own group that fosters a community and regular discussion around a specific region, industry topic, etc.
- Market your open positions and connect with potential candidates (you can share job descriptions as well as details on applying or links to application sites)
- Pure (PT) entertainment 😄
Choosing good fit social media platforms
With the current sprawl of platforms, and knowing it is likely to keep growing, it can seem like there’s a social media platform for each day of the week. But each platform has a distinct vibe and feature set with regard to content, and also specific demographics that comprise most of its users. For example, you tend to find professionals and B2B businesses on LinkedIn, whereas TikTok and Snapchat users are more likely to be Gen Z or young millennials. Therefore, choosing the right social media platform for your physical therapy practice is just as important as choosing the right type of content.
Here are the some of the most popular social media platforms that rehab practices and experts use:
- YouTube
- X (Twitter)
- TikTok
Unless you’re targeting everyone (which is not a good strategy), don’t worry about establishing your presence on all of these platforms. This strategy tends to overwhelm most practice owners, and it limits your overall effectiveness. Consider starting with one major platform and making a well-rounded profile there that you update regularly, rather than trying to conquer all of them at once.
To select good fit social media platforms for your business, consider these points:
- Think about your physical therapy services and where your ideal patient might spend their time online. For example, nearly 50% of the U.S. population over the age of 65 are on Facebook. So, if you specialize in geriatric physical therapy, you’ll want to focus on Facebook and avoid TikTok.
- Consider a platform that you personally like to use. Using a platform you like also means you’re more comfortable with it and understand its nuances, which can go a long way in ensuring your engagement and sustainability.
According to Statista, Facebook – with an active count of close to 2.9 billion users – is the most relevant B2B and B2C platform. However, there’s a bit of a learning curve when it comes to increasing your organic reach on this popular social media platform.
Facebook posts have an average engagement rate of less than 1%. Although this rate can vary depending on post type and follower counts, it’s drastically low. On the other hand, it’s not impossible to thrive on Facebook and reach your target audience IF you work within Facebook’s algorithms, which tend to favor genuine connections formed through engagement. Join groups that are relevant to your physical therapy practice and cultivate relationships by:
1. Making posts that benefit all readers (instead of just promoting your business from week to week).
2. Commenting on posts that you find helpful or relevant, and occasionally resharing content from peers in the industry that might resonate with your audience.
Instagram is a hugely popular photo and video sharing social media platform with 2 billion monthly users worldwide. Because Instagram is a visual platform, it’s an excellent tool to share innovative and unique features about your business, or find creative ways to share customer stories or company findings.
Here are some cool functions within Instagram that can showcase your physical therapy practice:
- Make Instagram Stories that live on your profile for 24 hours
- Create Instagram Reels, which are 15, 30, or 60-second short-form videos (similar to TikToks)
- Do a live broadcast on Instagram Live
Despite sharing ownership with Facebook since 2012, Instagram caters to a drastically different demographic and is more popular with younger generations. Statistics show that nearly 60% of Instagram users are under 34, and 18.1% are between 35 and 44. As a result, your physical therapy practice may have more success reaching millennials through Instagram than other social media platforms.
Measuring and analyzing success
Many social media platforms have platform-specific analytics tools that you can use to measure and analyze your social media success. You can also invest in social media analytics tools like Hootsuite or Google Analytics for more detailed breakdowns of your social media campaigns.
Regardless of your tool preference, monitoring key metrics and modifying your approach based on these insights ensures that your social media strategy contributes to and remains aligned with your business objectives. Consider tracking key performance metrics like engagement, reach, followers, impressions, video views, profile visits, or shares to get the most out of your social media efforts.
Insider tip: If these metrics sound like gibberish to you, you’re not alone. Learn more here:
LinkedIn Metrics
Facebook Metrics
Instagram Metrics
YouTube Metrics
TikTok Metrics
X (Twitter) Metrics
Along with these metrics, train your clinic staff to ask each patient at an early stage, “How did you hear about us?” This can help give a general sense of how effective (or ineffective) your social presence might be when it comes to generating actual business, so you double down where it’s working and consider expanding where it might be helpful.
Conclusion
In our fully connected world, the utility of social media extends far beyond personal networking or entertainment. It has become an indispensable tool for companies to further develop their brands and interact directly with people who are in need of their services. For outpatient rehab practices, understanding how to leverage social media networks could potentially be the key to explosive growth, visibility, and patient engagement.
About the author:
Kayla is a practicing physical therapist with over 10 years of experience in outpatient specialty clinics. From the clinic to her keyboard, Kayla leverages her knowledge to help you decipher complex medical jargon. Catch her at a coffee shop, LinkedIn, or at www.kaylacovert.com.
