How to reach out to clients for your mental health practice through blogs?

Published on September 19, 2011

Psychology Blogs

A blog is loosely defined as a web site on which an individual or group of users record opinions or information on a regular basis. In this article, we will try to highlight the usefulness of blogs and how they can help therapists engage with their clients.

 

Blogging as a effective communication tool

When blogging about a particular topic, you are trying to establish yourself as someone with authority professional imageor a reasonable depth of experience when you share high quality and relevant information about your professional experiences and knowledge. This lends credibility to yourself and gives your readers reason to trust you with the issues they may be facing.

Besides writing about your professional  experience, you can occasionally go off topic to write about interesting tidbits about yourself or use humor to lighten up a topic. Showing the light-hearted side of you helps to develop a personality for your blog and in turn helps you better connect with your readers.

 

Target potential clients

As mentioned in the point above, when writing a blog, you are essentially showing that you are knowledgeable in a certain area. Your readers will use that to gauge if coming to you is the right choice. Without a proper referral by a professional eg a family physician, most people may look into a business directory to find listed clinics which often says very little about the practice or more importantly the professionals working there. This may prove a hit or miss method of finding help and they may end up approaching someone they know very little about.

If you have written about some issues that you have experience with, anyone looking for treatment for the same or similar issues would immediately be able to connect with what you do thus, greatly  enhancing the possibility that you will be able to develop a mutually beneficial therapist-client  therapy bond.

 

Information well for search engines to direct relevant users to your practice

In this information age, most traffic to websites are either driven by social networks or search engines. Search engines like Google are particularly influential in connecting you with potential clients. Blogs provide crucial content that will help drive search queries to your practice. Without relevant and well written information that people look for in searches, you stand very little chance of being noticed on the internet where there is so much information and so little to distinguish yourself from the masses. All the articles posted on Psychology Matters Asia are structured to be search engine friendly and ensures that your writing effort will pay off in terms of getting the right exposure.

 

News Update

Use the blog as a platform to provide updates on your practice or the new courses that you have taken for your continuing education. You can create a positive image for yourself when you can show that you are actively participating in new developments in the field of psychology.

 

Low cost advertising

Articles posted on Psychology Matters Asia will be immediately accessible to the thousands of users looking for information on psychology. This is extremely helpful as you are directly targeting the group of reader you want. This is a lowcost advertising solution compared to posting ads in magazines, newspapers or listing with general business directories.

 

Help contribute to the knowledge base on the Mental Health field in your area of expertise

Besides reaching out to people seeking therapy, you can use the blog as a tool to connect with other therapists and exchange opinions and knowledge. Not only will you be able to bring light to relevant issues in the field of psychology, you will also be able to learn from others who are as generous as you are in sharing their experience. The mental health community needs to come together to help each other grow and provide better services to the people who requires psychological aid.

 

Blogging tool is easy to use

Blogs are very easy to use and require little if no technical knowledge beyond what you would do in a word processor. Psychology Matters Asia provides a simple and straight forward blogging tool. Including pictures in your post is fuss free as they are hosted on the website itself. You simply need to register a user account to start using this easy to use tool. If you are a therapist or have your own practice, when you register a therapist account, your practice information will automatically appear in each of your posts.

 

Pitfalls to avoid when Blogging

Pitfalls about BloggingWhen you are blogging as a mental health professional, you are regarded as a subject matter expert or at least someone who is knowledgeable and can be trusted. You have to maintain that trust by writing information that is accurate and factual. Avoid stating something as a de facto truth when it is in fact a personal opinion. Failure to do that will result in that trust being eroded as well as your online reputation. More importantly, you do not want to mislead readers of your blog into taking actions that at best will do nothing to improve their issues or at worst, cause personal harm.

Copying content wholesale is another pitfall to avoid. Quoting from a source is common practice but remember to state the source to give proper credit. You would want others who use your information to reciprocate as well.

 

Concluding Remarks

Blogs have transformed how information is shared in this day and age on the internet. You no longer have to be technology savvy to be able to present a piece of your opinion on the Internet. They are  increasingly becoming essential tools for many businesses, helping them connect with their clients and share important information. In the field of psychology blogs are especially useful in letting therapists reach out to the right group of clients where they have the best expertise to be of help. Hopefully, this article has helped to shed some light on how mental health professionals can make use of blogs to expand their practice while avoiding the pitfalls. If you have experiences on how blogging has affected your practice, please share them in the comments.


Category(s):Mental Health Professions

Written by:

Psych Mat Asia Editor

Psychology Matters Asia Editor