This document provides an overview of social media options for psychologists to use for their business. It discusses the goals of using social media to get more clients, build networks, and increase reputation. The top social media platforms covered are Facebook, Twitter, blogging, YouTube, and Pinterest. For each platform, the document explains what it is used for, the level of work involved, and tips for using each effectively as a psychologist. The key is choosing 1-2 platforms to start with and posting engaging, useful content on a consistent basis.

1. Social Media 2014
The Starter Guide for Psychologists
Elizabeth Doherty Thomas, MS, LAMFT
Consultant, Entrepreneur
ThomasConsultation.com

2. Why did you show up today?

3. The Goals In Our Short Time:
• Understand the general purpose of social media
for you as a business owner and psychologist
• Get a high level understanding of your OPTIONS
within social media (visual, text, video based…)
• Learn a little about the top choices to see what
whets your appetite and fits your skills or
resources
• Get your starter questions answered

4. Reality Check:
The time, energy, focus that goes
into social media should ultimately
be measured in some way. Is it
more clients, more revenue, more
alliances and networking?
More joy?

5. Sanity Check!
•It is outside the scope of this brief
window of time to delve into the details
of logging in and how exactly to use
each social media platform.
•Unless you even know the why and
what, the “how” isn’t even important.

6. What social media can do….
• Give you more website traffic (which hopefully turns into
more clients) This happens EITHER by actual people
clicking on your links, OR by Google giving your website
more “respect” and ranking you higher for keywords
• Helps you network (social media is introvert friendly, busy-
people friendly!)
• Keeps you in front of people so that you can become a
referral source, a media contact, and you appear modern
and approachable to clients (reputation building)

7. The “big deal” hype about social
• Finding people en masse for free or low cost (it is so
expensive to find paying clients for ANY business)
• Google is now saying “hold on, internet. We want to see
people sharing your site, and spending *TIME* on your
site, in order to rank you well.” This means companies
are forced to engage and offer what the public wants!
• There is no more PUBLIC way to build a reputation for
free and this builds your business by getting links from
niched websites that share YOU

8. 2 Biggest Challenges
•#1 Sticking to it week after week
(it’s a marathon not a sprint!)
•#2 Coming up with engaging ideas
that you love and your audience
finds useful

9. Key Personality Traits You Need
• You really like who you serve and have a lot of passion
• You love connecting with other people (whether they be
prospective clients or referring professionals and allies)
• You enjoy expressing yourself (in audio, written, visual or
video) beyond just the private moments with clients
• You can LISTEN well! (the “social” in social media means
engaging others not just talking at them)

10. Key Misunderstood Facts
• You are NOT engaging your clients personally outside the
therapy sessions!
• You are NOT “being” in a therapeutic relationship with anyone
but rather doing more public service, psychoeducational talk or
simply being your fun self.
• You can’t “give away the farm” because the “farm” is the
interactional relationship in your office.
• Very few clients will ever come DIRECTLY from a single “thing”
you write or post. It’s the general increase in traffic and ability
for someone to get to know you that sets you apart to clients or
referring professionals or media.

11. Social Media Varies Greatly in:
• Level of Privacy and Control
• Who is on and what they do
• How much “work” is involved and the frequency
• The culture of the users and how they use the platform
• What ages hang out where

12. Main Ways of Expression
• Writing
• Video
• Art and Visual
• Audio
• All of these forms can be repurposed and combined in
any format.
• It is best to chose 1-2 platforms to start.

13. Writing
• Google is a hungry monster that thrives on CONTENT.
This means big businesses hire 2+ full time writers
• The great news for you is there are tons of websites
speaking to your ideal audience, and they’re always
desperate for fresh content and will link back to your
website.
• Writing is both creating something new but also sharing
other people’s great information. Some of you would be
great ‘Curators’ where you mostly find other great
information and share it.

14. Important notes before digging in!
• Keep in mind for any platform the learning curve is often
steep
• Figure out what your goal is – knowing this is a long term
journey and it takes a while to get “in” somewhere
• Know that the more you engage with others the more they
will like you and share what you offer

15. Facebook (be social w
friends/family!)
• There are two types of Facebook:
• Business pages and your personal page
• Business pages require engagement from visitors and you
can run into family/friends “liking” your page and being
inappropriate. The less you use your Facebook page the
worse your results will be and the name of the popularity
game there is making visitors respond! NOT motivational
quotes! 
• I encourage friending other professionals on Facebook!!

16. Twitter (mini-conversations w/
world.)
• Twitter is 2-3 sentences
• Twitter is a great place to be if you want to share your
blog posts (link to them)
• Connect with a huge variety of people and organizations
• Passionate people use Twitter so lots of networking on
there!
• Privacy: none
• Work: finding people to follow, convincing people to follow
you, mostly by interacting with others or creating great
material

17. Blogging (articles written
frequently)
• Usually sharing of information in a weekly manner
• Helps build website traffic
• It’s another way for clients to get to know you before
contacting you
• It can become a “destination” that is alive, versus your
static site where nothing happens.
• In 2014 longer is better, 700+ words, unique, fresh, not
boring. Google likes visitors to be on websites longer
(they rank those sites better) and they want you to work
hard to be fresh and unique, not like everyone else.

18. YouTube (largest video website)
• Fantastic way to express yourself with voice and/or
images
• Video is HOT HOT HOT in 2014
• Builds a HUGE know, like, and trust factor
• Shorter is better, so 3-5 minutes is ideal
• You can actually display these videos anywhere whether
its your website, on your blog, or a colleague or referring
professionals blog or website
• Lighting and sound matter so investigate how to make
these videos look decent

19. Pinterest (teaching images shared)
• Visual is hot and Pinterest has insane web traffic
• Google loves Pinterest even if you NEVER have a single
ideal client viewing your “pins” (Pin is the noun for the
image you can create)
• Images can be great infographics, photos with
inspirational quotes, 1-2-3 step mental health guides
• The idea is the “pin” links back to your website or a
particular page on your website that shares more details
on that topic. All this raises your web traffic and hopefully
clients!

20. Google Products
• Google is the largest search engine and naturally loves
itself.
• Google + (personal) (share links and content)
• Google+ (business) (rank high for your business, share)
• Google “places” to put your therapy office
• Google author (makes all your internet activities tie to one
place.)
Create your own page https://plus.google.com/

21. Questions?
• Time for interaction!
• Elizabeth can be found at
• ThomasConsultation.com