1
How to Enhance your Clinical Value and Brand through Blog Writing
Alanna Pokorski, PT, DPT
Sports Physical Therapy of New York, PC
Practice Wellness Resources, LLC
Disclosure
• The purpose of this presentation is to share resources that will help to strengthen our profession
• Alanna Pokorski has no relevant financial relationships
How to Enhance your Clinical Value and Brand through Blog Writing
Alanna Pokorski, PT, DPT
Sports Physical Therapy of New York, PC
Practice Wellness Resources, LLC
Disclosure
• The purpose of this presentation is to share resources that will help to strengthen our profession
• Alanna Pokorski has no relevant financial relationships
2
How to Enhance your Clinical Value and Brand through Blog Writing
Alanna Pokorski, PT, DPT
Sports Physical Therapy of New York, PC
Practice Wellness Resources, LLC
Disclosure
• The purpose of this presentation is to share resources that will help to strengthen our profession
• Alanna Pokorski has no relevant financial relationships
Social Media and Physical Therapy
• Managing outpatient for 17 years
• 11 clinics in Upstate NY
• Clinical Liaison with Sales and Marketing
• Began managing social channels in 2010 with help from experts
• Learned a lot… now we create and post own content
Why Blog?
Quality Clinical Care
Education Branding
3
How to Enhance your Clinical Value and Brand through Blog Writing
Alanna Pokorski, PT, DPT
Sports Physical Therapy of New York, PC
Practice Wellness Resources, LLC
Disclosure
• The purpose of this presentation is to share resources that will help to strengthen our profession
• Alanna Pokorski has no relevant financial relationships
Musculoskeletal Experts
The Power of Social
• 16 minutes of each hour, people spend on social channels
• 65% of people own a smartphone and 62% have accessed health information on line
• 91% of people with a smartphone make a consumer choice based on information online
• Direct Access= Consumer Choice= Opportunity
4
How to Enhance your Clinical Value and Brand through Blog Writing
Alanna Pokorski, PT, DPT
Sports Physical Therapy of New York, PC
Practice Wellness Resources, LLC
Disclosure
• The purpose of this presentation is to share resources that will help to strengthen our profession
• Alanna Pokorski has no relevant financial relationships
Objectives:
• Outline a blog strategy for your Physical Therapy practice
• Ways to identify trending topics to your community
• Describe how to develop an effective, relevant blog so that it increases your clinical value and search-ability
What is definition of a Blog?
• Truncation of the expression “Weblog”
• Discussion or information site published on the world wide web
• Entries or posts appear in reverse chronological order
• Comments and interaction are encouraged by the author
5
How to Enhance your Clinical Value and Brand through Blog Writing
Alanna Pokorski, PT, DPT
Sports Physical Therapy of New York, PC
Practice Wellness Resources, LLC
Disclosure
• The purpose of this presentation is to share resources that will help to strengthen our profession
• Alanna Pokorski has no relevant financial relationships
Where do I put my Blog?
• Blogs should be located on your website
• Clear on homepage, then in subdomain
• Drive TRAFFIC to website
• WHY? Blog engagement is a large determining factor in SEO
• SEO= Search Engine Optimization
Website Placement of Blog
6
How to Enhance your Clinical Value and Brand through Blog Writing
Alanna Pokorski, PT, DPT
Sports Physical Therapy of New York, PC
Practice Wellness Resources, LLC
Disclosure
• The purpose of this presentation is to share resources that will help to strengthen our profession
• Alanna Pokorski has no relevant financial relationships
Search Engine Optimization
• Maximize online presence to improve company’s website listing
• Several factors contribute
• Algorithm changes constantly
• Blog engagement
• Blogs increase ranking for your website listing
• Make the blog clear on your website!
Writing the Clinical Blog
• Make it simple and easy to understand.
• Not meant for a medical journal, language is PATIENT friendly
• Visualize and be helpful - pretend you are talking with a patient
7
How to Enhance your Clinical Value and Brand through Blog Writing
Alanna Pokorski, PT, DPT
Sports Physical Therapy of New York, PC
Practice Wellness Resources, LLC
Disclosure
• The purpose of this presentation is to share resources that will help to strengthen our profession
• Alanna Pokorski has no relevant financial relationships
Writing a Clinical Blog
• Provide an expert point of view
• Cut out fluff words (no more than 300 words)
• Hyperlink to other sites to increase validity, example: sportsmetrics.com.
• List references
4 Structures of a Clinical Blog
1.) List Posts: 5 Statistics that explain why….
2.) How-to: Why________ matters, and how to do it.
8
How to Enhance your Clinical Value and Brand through Blog Writing
Alanna Pokorski, PT, DPT
Sports Physical Therapy of New York, PC
Practice Wellness Resources, LLC
Disclosure
• The purpose of this presentation is to share resources that will help to strengthen our profession
• Alanna Pokorski has no relevant financial relationships
Structures of a Clinical Blog
3.) Insights: Gather multiple research articles/views on a certain topic
4.) Reaction Post: Provide an opinion or expert advice on a recent event or industry article,
Ex: Recent injury in sport, Opioid use for pain
Who writes the blog? • Clinicians: passionate clinical topics
Give at least 1 month of writing time
• Unless it’s a trending topic: “Famous athlete suffered a concussion last night…”
• Create a blog team for ASAP content
• Guest bloggers: those you trust
9
How to Enhance your Clinical Value and Brand through Blog Writing
Alanna Pokorski, PT, DPT
Sports Physical Therapy of New York, PC
Practice Wellness Resources, LLC
Disclosure
• The purpose of this presentation is to share resources that will help to strengthen our profession
• Alanna Pokorski has no relevant financial relationships
Best Blog Writers…
• Your students.
• Socially connected and great practice
Sources of Content
• Create a Google Alert ( www.google.com/alerts)
• Local news alerts
• Moveforward.com
• Huffington Post
• ESPN.com
• Webmed.com
• Student In-services
• Recent clinical course or patient experience
10
How to Enhance your Clinical Value and Brand through Blog Writing
Alanna Pokorski, PT, DPT
Sports Physical Therapy of New York, PC
Practice Wellness Resources, LLC
Disclosure
• The purpose of this presentation is to share resources that will help to strengthen our profession
• Alanna Pokorski has no relevant financial relationships
Posting the Blog
• WordPress is a great option for a quality blog
– Once live on WordPress, then you can post to other sites (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter)
– Sprout Social is a good option to use
• Can post on several different social media sites at once, just need to copy and paste the link to the blog and select sites to post on
Posting the Blog
• Use a quality photo that speaks to topic
• 1-2 blogs per week consistently
– WordPress and Sprout Social: you can schedule several posts at once
– You can post everyday without actually having to go on everyday
11
How to Enhance your Clinical Value and Brand through Blog Writing
Alanna Pokorski, PT, DPT
Sports Physical Therapy of New York, PC
Practice Wellness Resources, LLC
Disclosure
• The purpose of this presentation is to share resources that will help to strengthen our profession
• Alanna Pokorski has no relevant financial relationships
Promoting Blogs on Facebook
• Ages: 28- 42, most common
• 53% female and 47% male
• Highest traffic: midweek between 1 and 4 pm
• Thursdays and Fridays, engagement is 18% higher
Facebook Engagement
• Content with visuals get 94% more total views, and 40X more likely to be shared.
12
How to Enhance your Clinical Value and Brand through Blog Writing
Alanna Pokorski, PT, DPT
Sports Physical Therapy of New York, PC
Practice Wellness Resources, LLC
Disclosure
• The purpose of this presentation is to share resources that will help to strengthen our profession
• Alanna Pokorski has no relevant financial relationships
Blog on Facebook
• Monitor trends of day/time for engagement of blogs
• Track topics that elicit engagement
• Encourage staff to share blogs on Facebook with personal message
Blog on Twitter
• 18-29 years old
• Most variety; No gender disparity
• Best posting time is Mon-Thurs between 1-3pm
• Tweets with less than 100 characters receive a 17% higher response rate
• Timing matters for breaking news
13
How to Enhance your Clinical Value and Brand through Blog Writing
Alanna Pokorski, PT, DPT
Sports Physical Therapy of New York, PC
Practice Wellness Resources, LLC
Disclosure
• The purpose of this presentation is to share resources that will help to strengthen our profession
• Alanna Pokorski has no relevant financial relationships
#Hashtags
• #Hashtags should be strategically placed and written
• #Hashtags allow you to enter into ongoing conversations
• Capitalize individual words to read easier
– Group words together when appropriate, for example #PhysicalTherapy
– Limit hashtags to TWO per post
Blogs on LinkedIn
• 1 Billion active users
• Two new users join LinkedIn every second
• Users are 8X more engaged with your brand
• 3X more likely to buy your product
• 2X more likely to recommend it once they’ve connected with you
14
How to Enhance your Clinical Value and Brand through Blog Writing
Alanna Pokorski, PT, DPT
Sports Physical Therapy of New York, PC
Practice Wellness Resources, LLC
Disclosure
• The purpose of this presentation is to share resources that will help to strengthen our profession
• Alanna Pokorski has no relevant financial relationships
• LinkedIn is the #1 social referral source to direct traffic to your main website
• 4X more than FB and Twitter
LinkedIn Demographic
• Ages 30-49 ( 27%) and 50-64 (24%) age groups
• 38% of users have at least 1 college degree
• Men (24%) more likely to use LinkedIn than women (19%)
• Highest traffic is Monday-Friday, 7 am- 9am and 5pm-6pm
• Blogs are a recruiting tool for high quality clinicians
15
How to Enhance your Clinical Value and Brand through Blog Writing
Alanna Pokorski, PT, DPT
Sports Physical Therapy of New York, PC
Practice Wellness Resources, LLC
Disclosure
• The purpose of this presentation is to share resources that will help to strengthen our profession
• Alanna Pokorski has no relevant financial relationships
Blog Best Practices
• Create Relevant Content
• Determine the best methods to publicize to improve reach
• Define/manage opportunities specific to your brand
• Schedule 1-2 Blogs per week consistently
Non-Branded Keyword Content • Readers do NOT want you to talk about your company. Don’t
“sell”
• Blog will drive traffic to website
• Blogs allow to build incoming traffic from NON-branded keywords
• Branded keywords: “Sports”, “Physical Therapy”
• Non-Branded Keywords: “ACL reconstruction”, “Football” “Teddy Bridgewater”
16
How to Enhance your Clinical Value and Brand through Blog Writing
Alanna Pokorski, PT, DPT
Sports Physical Therapy of New York, PC
Practice Wellness Resources, LLC
Disclosure
• The purpose of this presentation is to share resources that will help to strengthen our profession
• Alanna Pokorski has no relevant financial relationships
Non-Branded Keywords
• Critical for driving traffic to website
• Additional Value for your Brand
• Typing in those keywords will send people to your website, and your blog
• Validates your expertise
Gather Feedback on Blogs
• Conduct a short survey
• Questions should address future topics
• Preference? ( text, audio, video, etc)
• Survey should have open end space as well… what would YOU like see?
17
How to Enhance your Clinical Value and Brand through Blog Writing
Alanna Pokorski, PT, DPT
Sports Physical Therapy of New York, PC
Practice Wellness Resources, LLC
Disclosure
• The purpose of this presentation is to share resources that will help to strengthen our profession
• Alanna Pokorski has no relevant financial relationships
OK…Where do I start?
• Get a blog button visible on homepage of website
• Identify clinical passions with blog writer(s)
• Start with 1 blog per month (SHORT/SIMPLE)
• Share on your other social channels
• Should NOT be a stressor
• Grow additional frequency from there
Why Blog?
Quality Clinical Care
Education Branding
18
How to Enhance your Clinical Value and Brand through Blog Writing
Alanna Pokorski, PT, DPT
Sports Physical Therapy of New York, PC
Practice Wellness Resources, LLC
Disclosure
• The purpose of this presentation is to share resources that will help to strengthen our profession
• Alanna Pokorski has no relevant financial relationships
Thank you!
Questions?
Contact Info
• Alanna Pokorski, PT, DPT
• Sports Physical Therapy of New York, PC
• Website: www.sptny.com
• Email: [email protected]