Instagram Marketing For Massage Therapists
Gain the confidence and strategy you need to launch your massage therapy business on Instagram! In this webinar, we’ll explore why Instagram is crucial for attracting new clients, showcasing your skills, and networking with other professionals. You’ll learn easy and effective posting techniques specifically tailored for massage therapists. By the end of the video, you’ll be ready to consistently create content, grow your client base, build a strong professional network, and enhance client trust. This webinar will empower you to start marketing online right away, helping you expand your reach and potentially increase your earnings per session.
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Instagram Marketing For Massage Therapists Webinar Transcription
Hello everyone, welcome in.
Please feel free to use the chat.
We'd love to know where you're coming in from, which we're looking forward to learning
today in the webinar.
Awesome.
Tampa, Florida.
I'm also from Tampa.
And I'm in Orlando.
Yay.
From LA.
Welcome.
Miami, South Carolina.
Awesome.
We're going to go ahead and start to kick things off as people kind of trickle in.
Welcome to the Massage Magazine Insurance Plus webinar series in session.
My name is Shannon.
I'm the Business Development Manager at MIPS, and I'm really excited to be your co-host
today.
For those of you who are not familiar with MIPS, we are an all-inclusive liability insurance
provider for massage therapists, bodywork professionals, Reiki practitioners, and more
in the U.S.
Our primary mission is to support inequality coverage.
Along with our insurance, we also pride ourselves on offering a range of member benefits tailored
specifically for insurance, including exclusive discounts and rates on industry products, continuing
education, and much more.
Just a couple of housekeeping tips.
The webinar will be around roughly 45 minutes to an hour and is being recorded.
The recording will be sent to everyone via email within the next day or so.
We also encourage questions, so please feel free to use the chat or the question feature
and I'll monitor them.
With that said, we are very, very excited to welcome our guest host today, Joe Yoon.
The topic of today's webinar is Instagram Marketing for Massage Therapists.
Joe Yoon has been a licensed massage therapist since 2012 specializing in sports massage
in Orlando, Florida.
In a claimed massage magazine all-star, Joe has built an impressive Instagram following
of over 1 million without spending a dime on advertisements.
Through strategic use of social media, he attracts ideal clients and increases awareness of
his services.
Joe has also served as a panel speaker for Instagram's content wizards and was chosen
for their wellness collective campaign.
In this webinar, Joe will share his clear and effective strategies for improving marketing
for massage therapists demonstrating how to leverage social media to grow your business.
Please welcome Joe and thank you for tuning in to MIPS In Session webinar series.
Thank you for having me, Shannon, and thank you for Massage Magazine for having me.
I'm going to share my screen right now and then again, if there are any questions that
you might have, please ask them in the chat because I would love to have conversations
in between our slides.
But let me see if I can pull up the right screen here and let's go into slide show view.
And we'll go ahead and get started.
So this is going to be on Instagram Marketing for Massage Therapists.
All right.
Hold on one second.
Sorry about that.
And it is going to be on building some confidence and a strategy when it comes to marketing
on Instagram.
I know it's a super popular topic, especially in today's modern world, where we do need to
do some marketing on our own, especially if we own our own businesses.
So I'm going to go ahead and get started.
I have a whole bunch of slides that I want to get through.
And the reason why I did this is because it is just a common challenge for massage therapists.
I pulled about 200 massage therapists in my audience and I let them answer multiple
answers here.
So you might see something that adds up to more than 100%.
But the top answer for challenges was social media marketing.
And then right below that, right behind it was attracting ideal clients, standing out
as a massage therapist, you know, not making enough money.
And if we can focus on social media marketing, it can really help with all of those too.
So I'm hoping that a lot of the information that I share today will help out.
And just to, I didn't realize there was going to be a bio before this.
So I'm just going to do a quick one right before, right now, I've been a massage therapist
since 2012.
A lot of people know me as Joe therapy online.
And then I opened my massage therapy business in 2017 in Orlando, Florida, and it was a solo
practice too.
So I don't have any employees or anything like that.
I started posting when I first started my massage therapy business in 2017.
And I didn't have any clients back then, but I started to slowly fill up my schedule with
my ideal clients.
And this is actually a screenshot.
If you scroll all the way down on my social media, which takes a long time because there's
about 3000 posts, this is what it looked like.
And this is how I got my start on Instagram.
Again, the content or a panel speaker for content, whether it's scaling on Instagram,
which was moderated by Instagram, then also hand selected for the wellness collective.
And this was very cool because it was right when Instagram reels came out and they were
trying to get a little bit more exposure and get some more creators to create reels on
Instagram.
So they selected about 50 health and wellness professionals.
And for about three to four months, we got kind of a behind the scenes look at on how
to create effective reels for Instagram.
And then at the end of it, they flew us out to LA and then we got to hang out with the
people who work at Instagram and meta.
And we got to ask them questions.
We got to review content and just getting some strategies on how to grow our account.
So it was really cool, very eye opening, really cool experience.
But today, we are going to focus on one of three parts of what I like to call the digital
foundation.
And for me, the digital foundation are the essential components for online marketing and
optimizing it to convert your ideal clients.
And these are the three parts of the digital foundation.
It is the website, which is separate from a booking site.
It's your review site and then also Instagram.
Naturally, because this is called Instagram marketing, we will be focusing on Instagram
today.
And why Instagram?
Well, Instagram is one of the biggest social media platforms.
In the world, it is owned by Facebook slash meta, which is again, one of the biggest companies
in the world.
And then number two, it's free, which is very important because personally, when I was
starting out and opening my own massage therapy business, I didn't have any money.
I didn't have any clients and I definitely didn't want to spend money for advertising.
So at the time, I start to see people in the industry of manual therapy, massage, physical
therapy.
And it was a very select few and they start to post what they do in sessions on their Instagram.
And because I was using Instagram for fun back then, just more for leisure, it gave me
a little bit of an idea and maybe I can do this too.
So being free is a huge part of why I love Instagram.
And of course, there are options to boost posts and paper advertising, but I'm not that big
of a fan of that, at least yet.
And then three, it's a great way to reach people without going out and meeting them.
So a lot of people have the misconception that I am an extrovert and I am very introverted.
So back when I started my business, I did not want to go out and sell my services and
go out and public and meet people.
That would give me anxiety.
I just feel very uncomfortable with it.
I think I've gotten a lot better at it since posting on social media for so long, but deep
down, I still get nervous.
I really don't like being in really big places where tons of people are out in public.
So that's another reason why I really loved Instagram because I could potentially reach
people without meeting them and going out.
So that's the third reason why I love Instagram.
So today you'll learn how to use Instagram to mark your massage business.
I'm going to have you reframe how you think of Instagram.
So it makes it easier to post consistently, which is one of the biggest problems I see
with people who start their Instagram, they tend to stop, which is a big problem.
And then also, what type of content converts to real ideal clients, and I'm going to try
to make it as easy as possible for you because this can be overwhelming sometimes.
And these are some of the reasons why I think people struggle on Instagram.
And the first thing is I see a lot of people start their Instagram accounts and they don't
continue to post.
So that's a big problem.
It's not being consistent with the content.
Another thing is that it's time consuming.
We're trying to start a business, we're trying to find clients, we're doing sessions.
When is there time to create content?
So a time commitment is also a struggle.
Also when it comes to social media and Instagram, we don't see vanity metrics increase.
We can kind of get burnt out or just unmotivated to continue to post.
So we don't get that instant gratification that we want and social media is so strong
on trying to get you to get addicted to social media and seeing those metrics increase.
And if we don't see those, we just tend to get unmotivated.
In today's world, we can get a package from Amazon the same day.
So we don't really have as much patience as we used to.
And then also, I just think that information's dated on how to use Instagram.
I'm also in the personal training space.
That's how I got started in this whole kind of health and wellness industry.
And I'm still very involved in it.
And when I see personal trainers promoting on social media and their businesses, it's
a huge difference from the majority of massage therapists that post on social media or market
their business.
It just seems like we're a little bit behind on kind of modern techniques.
So I'm hoping that I can bring some of that modern techniques into this webinar and into
your practice.
But I want to go back to this one right here.
We don't see vanity metrics increase.
And I want to go over this chart that I think is super cool that I discovered a couple years
ago.
And this is five phases of what we go through when we start something new, basically, or
if you're entrepreneur in your business or starting Instagram for marketing, we tend to
go through phase one, which is we're super excited about the notion of growing on social
media.
So we'll maybe start an Instagram account, we'll post a couple posts, and then we'll get
to phase two and realize, man, this is a little bit harder than I thought it would be.
And then you continue to post.
You don't see as much traction as you would like to.
And then you go into something called the Valley of Despair, which is that super unmotivated
place where you just don't want to post anymore and you basically give up and you go
back to phase one and try to start something new.
But in reality, if you continue to take action and learn from all the things that you're posting,
maybe you get that client that sees you on Instagram and it gives you a little bit more
optimism.
It gives you a little bit more momentum.
And then you kind of double down on that and continue to create some action and then hopefully
you get out of that and create success and you are fulfilled with your business.
So I wanted to share this with you because you are going to go through this.
It's inevitable.
But just to show you that if you continue to take action, you can start to kind of dig
yourself out of this unmotivated place to success.
And then let's go to dated information on how to use Instagram, I put in quotations bad
information.
And this is something that I see often this next slide, which I admire people posting
a lot on social media, but I would rather you not have a social media or Instagram account
that is filled with photos like this and infographics like this.
This is something that maybe, and I'm thinking very maybe might work 10 years ago, but especially
the past four or five years, this is definitely not going to cut it anymore.
They're not engaging enough.
And they also kind of feel like an ad or billboard where you're just giving people information
about massage and your special offers.
And there's just a better way to utilize your Instagram account.
So I like to call these kind of Canva templates, which is a little ironic because I built this
presentation on Canva.
I think it's great for certain things, but not templates.
Also I see people selling templates like this all the time.
I would just ignore those people because I'm going to show you a better way.
So this is how I approach Instagram for a massage therapy business.
And there are two different ways I like to think of Instagram.
And I want you to kind of go through a reframing of what you think of Instagram.
That way we can avoid the things that I just talked about about not being consistent,
it being time consuming, thinking about having that instant gratification, the dated information.
So if we can start to reframe how we think of Instagram, it's going to be a lot easier
for you to be more consistent.
I think you're just going to be a lot more successful and less stressed because social
media can be very stressful at times.
So the first thing is thinking of it as a modern day resume or portfolio.
And I'm going to use the example of a photographer and in this case a wedding photographer and
how a photographer has a portfolio of their work.
So having a portfolio is a place for people to see your work before trying it out.
It's also going to help filter out people who are not your ideal clients.
And then if you think of it as a portfolio, you can update it regularly or occasionally.
So it's up to you.
So let's go back to this example of a photographer.
If we look at this photo or these photos on the right, we can start to notice that this
person is a wedding photographer.
So if I am about to get married and I'm looking for a photographer and I'm referred
to this person or I stumble upon this person on Instagram, I will know that this person might
be a good fit for me.
Also if I am not looking for a wedding photographer, maybe I'm looking for let's say someone to
take pictures of my apartment because I want to rent it out.
If I stumble on this profile or someone refers me to this photographer and I see that they
don't focus on rentals, taking photos of rentals, then I know instantly that I'm not going to
be a good fit for this person and I will go away.
So that's one of the ways you can really start to get people to see what you do beforehand
and then also start filtering out people that are not your ideal clients or the clients
that you don't really find as much joy working with.
So I'm going to use my page for an example and I really want you to use your Instagram
to show what you do and who you work with.
So for example, this top left photo here is a screenshot of a video of mine and it's working
on the hamstrings.
I work on a lot of hamstrings, I work with a lot of athletes.
So this is one of those techniques that I use often.
So in this video, I show the technique that I'm using.
It also shows the atmosphere that you're in when you book a session with me.
As you can see in the background, you can see some football players on the wall.
You can see that there's some turf on the ground and it gives you the vibe of what my
sessions feel like.
Right, it's a photo with some NFL players, bottom right, it is a shoulder assessment.
I'm checking the scapula with someone who obviously works out, got a ton of muscle on
them.
And then bottom left is with a client who is a world champion.
So you can do this with whatever your niche is.
So instead maybe you work with moms who are pregnant, so women who are pregnant, maybe
some of your content is you in a very relaxed looking room.
And then showing some more relaxing techniques, stuff like that.
So just kind of tweak it to whatever your niche is.
But these posts can be great to just give clues on what you do and who you work with.
So again, just to review, you know, when you think of Instagram as your resume or portfolio,
it takes a pressure off of what to post and having to post all the time.
It's also a place where you can see or where people can see what you do.
And then you can update it when you want to highlight maybe a new client or a service,
kind of use it as a showcase.
So that's the first part.
And then I also like to think of it as your new business card.
So business cards are just not as effective as it used to be.
Most people throw them away.
I think I remember seeing statistics where it says up to 80% of people throw business cards
away after the first week.
So I personally like to use Instagram instead.
And I'm not saying that business cards are totally useless.
I'm sure there's situations where it's great to have business cards.
But from more of like a day-to-day basis, using Instagram for me has been much easier.
I actually don't even own business cards and this has helped me a ton.
So when you use Instagram as your new business card, when you meet someone new in person instead
of giving them a business card, you can just tell them to check out your Instagram page.
You can open it up right there with them and then have them follow you and then follow
them back.
That's the way they can see what you do beforehand and then they'll have links and information
on how to book a session.
I love doing this.
I've been doing this since the beginning.
And people get really interested and it's a lot more engaging too.
Also, if they start following you, it's a really easy way to follow up with them because
you've met them in person.
And then if you DM them or direct message them through Instagram, it's not too awkward.
You're just following up to see how they're doing.
So it's a really easy way to connect with them without having to wait for them to call
you or send you a message because that might just never happen.
And then a underrated benefit of this is it's great when people want to refer clients
to you.
So again, this is something that I hear all the time with people who see me and I have
a little example here.
So imagine that I'm a happy client that just worked with Joe therapy and I meet someone who
might be a good client for me.
It could sound like, hey, you should check out Joe therapy.
I've been going to him for months now and he's helped so much with my recovery from
my workouts.
I'll send you his Instagram account.
And this is just such a powerful tool because if you just tell someone about a service, it
just might not have as much an effect.
But if they can start seeing what you do, they can kind of feel the session just through
the camera.
Again, this is a super underrated benefit for referrals.
But I did want to hit on a topic about some of the busier therapists that I talked to that
they always say, you know, I don't need Instagram.
I don't need a website.
I just go based off of referrals.
And I want to say that referrals are the most powerful part of gaining new clientele.
There's nothing better than getting happy clients talking about your services.
The thing is even when I get a referral or let's say someone is recommending a product
to me, you know, my friend is recommending a coffee machine to me.
I still do a little bit of research on that product.
So maybe I go to Amazon, I check the reviews, but when someone's referring someone to me
or someone's referring a product to me, I don't need that much convincing.
I just need enough to make sure that I'll be confident with that purchase.
So you don't need that much.
So having an Instagram page up with just enough information to make that person feel comfortable
about booking with you makes a huge deal to just kind of push them over the top to have
a little more confidence in booking a session with you.
And again, if they follow you, it's just something that when you continue to post, they are just
constantly reminded of session.
So it might just remind them to book more sessions in the future, which has been the case with
me too.
I've had clients who I haven't seen in a year and they just see one of my posts pop up
and they're like, ah, I remembered I should do a session with you.
So that's kind of the first half of the presentation.
So I just wanted to do a little pit stop to see if there are any questions before going
into optimizing the profile.
If there are any questions.
I think I'm going to come on here.
It looks like we do have a question here.
So Katrina asks, how to get permission to capture images of clients without being awkward?
So I'm going to talk about that a little bit later, but I'll honestly, I'll just ask them,
especially my regulars, the ones that I know are a little bit more comfortable with what
I do and really support the business.
They're a lot more likely to say yes to that type of stuff.
And you know, I don't really have anyone sign anything because usually the people that
I talk to are just okay with it.
So again, kind of use your judgment.
You'll probably have that intuition.
You know, again, maybe this isn't a great fit, but maybe this person would definitely
help me out.
But I'm going to talk about it a little bit later on if you struggle with getting clients
to help you with content and how to find people for your content.
Awesome.
Jean asks, what do you suggest as a best way to create a website?
So I like to keep it basic.
I talk about this in my course a little bit too, but I'm all about simplicity.
I think again, a lot of people think I'm tech savvy because I'm on Instagram a lot and have
a website.
But you know, my first website was a square space.
You know, at the time it was like $15, $16 a month and everything's templated out.
So I basically just like drag and drop everything and it's kind of so much easier to nowadays.
You can make these really professional looking websites without that much effort at all
because it's drag and drop.
And some websites that I'll look at from, you know, colleagues and friends and just people
I see online, I'll look at what website builder it is.
And it's just like, you know, it's square space.
It's wicks.
You know, all of these things you see ads on on YouTube for.
So again, something super simple.
You do not need to spend a ton of money on website design.
I am huge on keeping overhead low with your business because that stuff will creep up
on you very quickly.
And if you have a bad month, you will be even more stressed.
So I have a huge recommendation of keeping costs low and easy.
I love that.
Cool.
We have another question from Mary Ann.
Will you show a brief step by step current how to post a reel and possibly post a few
at once to date them for the future?
Yeah.
So that's coming up in a little bit later again.
I don't have the actual video, but I have screenshots of it and I go step by step on
what you should be posting or at least what I recommend you should be posting.
And then you can obviously use your creativity to come up with something that works for you.
But we will be chatting about that too.
Awesome.
We did have a question coming from Suzanne.
Maybe she missed the first half of the webinar, but she said, I have never been on Instagram.
How do I sign up?
What does it cost?
I have never used Instagram.
How do I check out other people's Instagram?
Yeah, it's super easy.
And I know a lot of people who have never used Instagram, Facebook or just are not on social
media that much.
And all you have to do is go to Instagram.com.
You sign up with either your phone number or your email address.
And there's a lot of great tutorials online too that just go step by step.
And in this next section, I'm going to give you just a nice basic foundation on how your
profile should look and what type of content you should post.
But it's free.
So again, I'm a huge on giving overhead low, not spending too much money on things like
advertising at least for now.
Just depends on what space you're at, what place you are in your business.
But again, it's free.
Sign up online.
Just play around with it.
Sometimes there's a little bit of a learning curve where you just have to post a little
bit and explore for a week until you get it.
But again, once you start using it more often, it just becomes second nature.
I'm sure people in here probably felt the same way, not using social media.
And then now they're like a pro, probably better than me.
Awesome.
And then Valerie, this might be covered in the future, but video versus photo.
So we're going to go over that one too.
And I'll give you a little bit of just kind of some guidelines on what to do.
So we'll definitely hit on that too.
Awesome.
And then why is Instagram good to use?
I missed what you stated earlier.
Yeah, it's one of the most popular platforms.
It's been around for a long time too.
I know TikTok is there's a huge rage on TikTok too.
But I'm not as a huge fan of that as much.
I feel like just Instagram is a little bit more established, especially for this type
of business where things necessarily don't have to go viral.
So I like to use, again, Instagram as more of a profile or a resume or a portfolio.
So I'm a huge fan of that.
So again, it's just very, it's been around, it's very popular.
Almost everyone I know has an Instagram and use it daily.
And then also, again, it's free.
Yeah, I think those are it.
Awesome.
Bart just asked, will it be possible to review the recording of this presentation later?
Yes, we will be sending this via email by tomorrow.
Awesome.
Well, if we'd like to resume for the second half.
Yeah, let's get it started.
So thank you Shannon.
Now we are going to go into optimizing your Instagram profile page.
Since I love this, I think it's one of those underrated things and I'm going to just give
you kind of my best practices on making sure that your profile is optimized.
So these are the essential, the essential things that I want you to put into your profile.
Number one is profile picture, name, profession, location, headline, call to action, also known
as a CTA, and then also the link in bio.
So for the people who are not that familiar, it'll kind of give you a little bit of a layout
of what your profile should look like.
And then also if you already have an Instagram account, this will help kind of clean it up
for you.
Make sure all the relevant and the most important information is on here.
So the first thing is profile photo and I recommend you use a headshot of yourself
and not a business logo.
The only exception is if you own a massage therapy business and you have multiple massage
therapists working underneath you, other than that, I highly recommend using a headshot.
Okay.
It's your digital first impression.
So for me, I wanted to be a little friendly looking.
So I found a photo of me that I'm smiling and again, it's your first impression.
Maybe your style is a little bit different, maybe you're a little bit more serious.
You can have a little more stern look on there.
But again, find what works best for you.
But I highly recommend a headshot.
Kind of in this age of social media, we want to have kind of like a connection with the
person potentially that we're working with.
So being familiar with the face can go a long way with getting them to trust you.
And then also, you know, it's really easy to take a great photo in 2024.
So there shouldn't really be that big of an excuse on taking a really crappy photo.
So it should look nice enough.
And the easiest thing you can do is just use your phone, use your phone.
And you know, if you have an iPhone, there's something called portrait mode, where it'll
kind of blur out the background and make it look super nice.
So just, you know, stand in front of a window, get some good lighting and do a portrait photo
of yourself.
It'll look super nice.
You can also go to the professional route to, and then if you have Android, I'm sure the
Android camera is way better than iPhone.
I actually know for a fact it is.
So you'll even take, even better picture too.
So no excuse.
Make sure you have a good headshot as your profile photo.
Next thing is name, kind of self-explanatory here.
I use my human name, my real name, Joe Yoon.
So I don't recommend putting your Instagram handle unless it is your real name.
But I put my real name there.
Yeah.
I'm really fancy about that one.
And then profession, this is something that I like to connect to my name on Instagram.
So I put Joe Yoon, and then I put a dash there, and then for me, I put sports massage therapist.
This accomplishes two things.
The first is that you instantly know what I do, and then there are some search engine
benefits from it, or at least the search bar in Instagram.
So someone is searching for massage therapist, sports massage therapist.
My name potentially will pop up to the top of the search.
So put whatever yours is, it could be, you know, cupping massage therapist, prenatal massage
therapist.
We'll put it at the top next to your name.
I think that's a huge benefit.
And the next one is location.
Please put your location somewhere in your profile.
I have mine here down at the bottom.
Another great place is to actually put it back up where your profession is, so you could
do Orlando massage therapist, Orlando sports massage therapist, and potentially that will
pop up in search.
But please put your location somewhere.
You will reach people who are not in your local area on social media, which is fine.
But for the people who are in your area that stumble on your profile, you want to make
sure that they know exactly where you are from and where you do your sessions because
I've had people reach out to me and book sessions years later just to say, I just never knew
you were in Orlando.
And a lot of my content says Orlando in it, it's tagged Orlando profile says Orlando.
Some people just don't realize it because, again, we kind of live in this scrolling fast
era.
So make sure it's there because sometimes it just takes a little bit for people to see,
you know, your location.
So place that either somewhere in the profile at the top is great too by the name.
And then next is the headline, which is basically that first line underneath your name and keep
it simple.
For me, I like to keep things very clear.
So clear, not clever.
So something super clear, an easy way to create a headline is who you help and what value
do you bring.
So for me, this is my current one, I put helping athletes move better and recover faster.
Help athletes help them recover faster.
That's it.
Again, whatever you do, find what works best for you and keep it nice and clear, keep it
nice and simple, straightforward.
Then call to action as a massage therapist.
Our call to action should pretty much always be book a session.
That's the end goal.
We want people to visit our profile and then we want them to book a session with us.
So that is what the call to action should be.
And I also recommend just doing one call to action.
There's this thing called like mental fatigue, where if you just have too many options, you'd
be surprised.
People just get like frustrated and they will leave your profile.
So one solution or sorry, one option, one link, one call to action makes things a lot
easier for the customer.
I'm huge on reducing mental fatigue.
That's why I like everything clear and simple.
And then lastly, link in bio.
This is where you can actually link out from your Instagram account.
And for me, this is my website.
That way they can get a little bit more information about me and then ultimately book a session.
Again, kind of going back a little bit, there are things like link tree where you can do
multiple links in your profile, it kind of sends you to another profile where they have
little sections where you can pick different options.
There's also a native feature where it's built into Instagram where you can put multiple
links.
And again, for a massage therapist whose main goal is to book sessions, I recommend just
doing one call to action, either to your website or to your booking website for the most part.
But yeah, one call to action, please.
And then a little bit of housekeeping.
I like to use bullet points when it comes to the profile.
I think it just makes it easier to read.
So using things like dashes, numbers, I use a lot of emojis probably way too much.
If you ever text me, I'm using emojis and GIFs a lot.
But for this one, I'm using the pointing emoji and I think it just breaks things up
a little bit and it makes it easier to read.
So that works best for you.
So again, it could potentially look like this over here on the left where it's just one
long sentence and I see this often too.
And it's just a wall of text.
My brain just can't comprehend it.
So just using things like simple bullet points in your profile can make a big difference when
it comes to just being able to read it a little bit more easily.
So you might be asking yourself, how do you know if my profile is optimized?
So I like to do something called the five second clarity test.
And this is how you do it.
You send your profile to someone, you know, and even better, someone you don't know that
well.
And then just tell them to look at your profile for five seconds and then ask them if it was
clear on what you do and who you work with.
So again, this is really easy or a lot better if you don't really know the person that well,
maybe it's like a friend of a friend and you just show them your profile real quick for
five seconds and can they tell you after five seconds what you do?
If it takes them longer, like away longer, then you need to adjust it.
If they have any questions about it, you need to adjust it so it's a little bit more
clear.
Again, our attention spans are very short nowadays.
So if we don't get it, we might just leave.
So if you look at my profile here, if we take five seconds, I'm sure you'll see, okay,
his name is Joe.
He's a massage therapist, athletes, Orlando.
And then you kind of piece it together.
Okay, he's a sports massage therapist that works with athletes in Orlando.
That's pretty good.
So I want you to try to do that once you have everything figured out on your profile.
So again, after watching this webinar, review and then optimize your Instagram profile and
then ask people to do the five second clarity test.
You know, maybe get five people to review it and see if they can really pick out who
you work on and what you do, what kind of value you bring to them and also location too.
But again, it might be a little bit easy with people that you might know, but at least if
they know exactly what you do, your massage therapist and who you work with.
All right, so I wanted to stop there again, just as a quick pit stop because that is the
full section on optimizing your profile.
But if there isn't that many questions, we can go ahead and just move on.
It looks like we just have a couple of questions that are more specific to the categories.
We had a question, can you mix massage therapy and dance together on Instagram?
So you can.
A lot of people know me because I do some stretching stuff too.
I'm technically a personal trainer and massage therapist, but my practice in Orlando is for
massage therapy.
So I think for a lot of people, that makes you even more special and gives you a little
bit bigger difference from someone else.
It makes you stand out as a massage therapist, I would just be very mindful on which one maybe
that you want to prioritize for your business, but you can totally find a good blend that
helps you out there.
It could be massage therapists and I forgot what it was, was a Pilates instructor or a.
I believe it was dance and yeah, so dance and massage, something you can do is your massage
therapist who really specializes in dancers, something like that because again, that's
what makes you so much more different from the other massage therapists, you know, across
the street and you become a little bit more specific too.
So you definitely can just make sure again with the clarity test, if someone's reading
it that they're not too confused, they're not like, well, are you a dance instructor or
you mostly massage?
So there's a little thing, you know, little things that you have to do to play with just to make
sure your messaging is clear, but you totally can have both.
Awesome.
So this is kind of a similar question from Pamela, I would like to know if you think
I should have separate pages for LMT and Esthetician.
The thing with having multiple pages is it's double the work.
I do see the benefit that it is more focused on one thing.
If you are a solo practitioner, I would probably just keep it under one page because
I have done everything under the moon.
In the past seven years, I've had multiple pages, I've had multiple websites, and I've
gone back to currently where I'm really trying to keep everything under one, kind of one
brand and umbrella instead of branching out too many things because again, when you start
getting busy, you start to kind of get unmotivated on the things that you're doing.
And if you just have too much work to do and double the work, it's a lot more stressful.
So I recommend trying to keep everything underneath one umbrella unless you really
have to open that extra account.
Awesome.
Looks like we have a question from Patrice regarding location space.
If you're inside of another space, not having your own space, so you list the Instagram
of that space.
I would just put your city or your town.
So I work out of a location that I do not own.
So I work with a company and I basically essentially rent a room out of their facility.
But I always put Orlando because that gives people an idea of where you're at.
If you put inside of X studio, people are not going to know where that is.
So just make it super clear, just kind of high level, what town or city you're in.
And I'm technically just outside of Orlando.
But I still put Orlando because it kind of gets the point across.
So whatever that high level city has put that.
Awesome.
Someone asked, would you recommend having someone manage your Instagram account for you?
For a lot of people, I guess it just depends on how busy you are.
I do like to at least start my social media.
So I know the ins and outs of things.
It's like having a business.
When you hire a marketing company or someone to write copy for you or you're an accountant,
you want to at least know the basics to know if they're doing a good job or not.
So I'm a huge fan of especially starting out, kind of going through the weeds and trying
to figure out what works best for you.
But I think you can also add kind of your personality into these posts.
So I keep, I'm very hands on with my social media because I think it's kind of an extension
of how my sessions go and my personality.
But you totally can.
Again, everyone's going to be different.
But I do recommend at least going through it for a couple months and learning the ropes.
That way if someone does, if you do contract someone to manage your account, then you know
if they're doing a good job.
Again, I'm also big on keeping overhead low.
So if it's costing you money to create content, then definitely try to get some help too.
Awesome.
And then we have a question from Bergdorf.
Should I list LMT and PTA after my name in the bio, since I'm also a physical therapist
assist as well?
Yeah, totally.
So kind of going back to how I put sports massage therapists, you know, in the past that
foot trainer there too.
And then I start to kind of just kind of bring it down to massage because I've been doing
a little bit more of that.
But you can definitely start off with.
I would put massage therapists versus LMT because a lot of people just don't know what
LMT is and then they'll have to look it up and maybe they'll piece it together.
But again, it's one of those clarity test things.
If you look at it in five seconds to someone who does not know what LMT is, then you know,
you probably want to change that because we're in the industry.
We assume people think we think we assume that people know exactly what we are and what
the abbreviations mean.
But you have to really dumb it down when it comes to like marketing and copied.
So keep it super simple.
I would put a massage therapist and then, you know, physical therapy aid or try to find
something like that.
Great.
And then we have a question from Elizabeth.
Does it look unprofessional to share posts amongst multiple pages if you do have them
or is it better to just get rid of extra pages?
Again, I'm more of a fan of keeping things under one account.
If you have like a personal page, which I know people do and then a business page, then totally
have two different pages.
But for the most part, having multiple pages, again, is just extra work, just too much
brain power.
So trying to bring it down, again, depending on where you're at, you know, a lot of the
people I know just are solo practitioners that either have their own space or they rent
a room.
So keeping things as easy as possible just makes things much easier on a day to day basis.
Awesome.
And then Lori asks, what if you work with pretty much anyone?
I do Reiki.
So that goes into a little bit more of trying to figure out your specialty.
That's a little bit longer conversation.
You can specialize in, and this is what I've seen, you can specialize in certain techniques.
I have found it easier when you work on specific techniques, but a certain clientele.
So let's say, you know, instead of Reiki, let's say stretching for athletes or cupping
for athletes, something like that, it makes your messaging a lot easier.
When you say, I just do Reiki and you work on everyone, it sometimes doesn't feel like
you have a specialty and you can't fix a certain problem for specific demographics.
So there's nothing wrong with it.
It's just hard from a messaging standpoint and a value standpoint.
But that is something that I go in more in depth in my course because it just takes a
little bit longer to try to really kind of carve out your specialty.
But for now, yeah, being kind of specialty and Reiki is good, but I do feel like there
needs to be a little bit of a trajectory towards specialty of clients.
Awesome.
I believe that that was the last question for now.
Okay, cool.
So we just have one more section to go through, and this is on the content side of things.
So we went through why Instagram is great, optimizing your profile.
So basically your new business card, and now we're going to go through things that will
help kind of fill out your portfolio.
What's the post?
Great foot photo here.
I don't know why I picked that one, but let's get it started.
So what's the post?
So this answers one of the questions from before.
The majority of what you post in 2024 should be videos.
I put 80% here, it could be higher, but I just wanted to give you just a nice kind of
easy number to work with.
And these types of videos should be videos with clients you want to attract.
And then second is demonstrate how you help.
And one of the easiest things you can do is just show the techniques that you use with
clients.
It's easily one of the most simple things you can do.
And again, this is what I did.
You can actually see some empty spots here because this is my first actual full page
of videos on Instagram.
And I did a little bit more photos back then, but times have changed.
But you can see just from this photo, working with people who are probably lifting weights,
you see a lot of instrument assisted, which is very popular, still is pretty popular nowadays
with the athletic community and mixed in with some photos.
That comes to photos maybe 20% nowadays and doing things like pictures with clients, testimonials
from clients.
And before and afters do a really good job, at least from a range of motion standpoint.
But again, it could be clients just saying how much more relaxed they feel after this session
and just happy clients.
And going into how to create these posts, you do not need fancy expensive camera or set
up to start.
I think this is one of the big hurdles people need to get over is that things don't have
to be perfect, especially now, it's easier and easier to create really high quality contents.
And this is how I create like 99% of my posts.
I use my iPhone.
This is my iPhone that's about three years old.
And I use it for about like 95% of the content that I use.
Back in 2017, I was still using the iPhone that had the physical button home screen button
on it.
And that was probably three years old back then too.
So you don't need these fancy expensive cameras.
The majority of people that I know who have plenty of success, they just still use the
phone.
They're so high quality.
You can get 4K, HD, slow mode, it's so good.
So just use your phone.
And then on top of that, find a stand to prop your phone on.
In the past, when I was starting, I would just prop my phone up against like my water
bottle.
Again, I was really cheap back then, not cheap, I just didn't have any money.
So I didn't want to spend it.
And then eventually a friend was getting rid of their tripod, which was probably 20, 30
bucks.
And I just took it.
I was like, do you want to?
I was like, hell yeah, I want that free stand.
My content will be way better.
So going Amazon, I think they range from 10, 15, $20.
And they can go as high as a couple hundred dollars depending on how professional of a stand
you want.
But again, I've used mine.
That was free.
That probably cost 20, 30 bucks on Amazon.
And I've been using it for the past six, seven years.
But this is the easiest but most effective way to create videos.
It's just to show your technique for about seven to 15 seconds.
Add a title to the post.
Add some music, which is very easy to add inside of Instagram.
It kind of goes in sequence on upload the video.
You put a little title on it and then you add some music and then that's pretty much it.
And you add a little caption for some context.
And the other thing is I want you to make sure that the video is vertical, not horizontal.
So not like this way.
Not like you would see on YouTube because we want to fill out the screen like this.
It's just the way that people consume content now.
It's more of this vertical type of video, at least on Instagram and these other platforms
like TikTok.
Even YouTube is really doubling down on these types of posts.
So I do not want to see these landscape type of videos with two bars at the top.
And you'll just have to adjust your camera angle for that to get the shot.
So again, to show your technique from one angle for around seven to 15 seconds, it could
be a little bit less.
It could be more, but super simple, super, super simple.
I've done this since the beginning and, you know, I have a couple little tweaks here and
there.
Maybe I'll show two angles, but you know, I've been doing this type of work for seven plus
years on Instagram and I still go back to this.
And again, it keeps things less stressful when you are trying to figure out what to post.
So show your technique.
And then also, it's really easy because you can batch content easily.
So if you have a client coming in that's willing to do some content, a lot of the times I'll
just actually go through the session and I'll just take my camera, I'll prop it down, make
sure my angle is good, and then I'll do my session.
Maybe I'll work on the feet for five minutes.
Oh, time to move to the hamstrings.
I move the camera and then I work on the hamstrings.
You know, sometimes the clients doesn't even know that I'm doing it because I'm just kind
of adjusting super quick.
And then you go to the quad, change the angle, go to the back, change the angle.
And not only do you have a ton of content, you have different types of content too because
you're working on the foot, you're working on the hamstring.
You have a video for the quad, you have one for the back.
And then you can clip those videos and just batch them and save them for later.
So right now, if I did all of these in one session, I have four pieces of content that
I can post sporadically on my page.
And there's so many body parts.
So if you have two clients and you do a full body session, that's, you know, how many body
parts times two.
And then next is adding a title to the post.
For this one, it probably could have been a little better.
I put feet killing you, but people whose feet might resonate with this one.
It did pretty decent, but it could be different depending on the type of client that you're
trying to attract.
So maybe you're attracting busy professionals, office workers.
The title could be stand a lot for work.
This foot massage can help with the pain.
Maybe your specialty is runners.
This foot massage is great for runners.
Struggle with plantar pass shadows.
Try this.
So depending on what type of client you work with, you can totally just use that same video
and cater to a different audience.
So find what works best for you on this, what demographic you use, and then just put a little
bit of text at the top just to give a little bit of context when people see it.
And then how to find people for your videos.
Again, this was a question from earlier.
First is ask regulars.
A lot of the clients that I've had for years, they're just like, yeah, do whatever you want.
I'm also in an industry where it's more athletes and they don't really care about having their
clothes off and me working on them.
So for me, first is asking regulars because they're probably be more comfortable with you
because they've known you a lot less.
Another thing is just incentivizing them.
I've had so many people where I just reach out because I'm low on content and I just tell
them I'm, give you a free session.
Do you mind me just filming it?
And then I'll have content for a few weeks or a month and just kind of drizzle it in there
on my social media.
If you're not comfortable with that, you could say the next session, 50% off, 25% off.
But for me, the content is so valuable to get my name out there and the business and what
I do that, especially my regulars, I'll just tell them, hey, come in and do you mind me
doing this session?
I'll give it to you complimentary.
That's another thing that I did when I had zero clients too.
I know there's a lot of people don't give free sessions.
At the beginning, you're just fighting for anything at that point.
You just want to get your name out there a little bit.
So at the beginning, I used to just go to the gym I worked out at.
I knew like a couple people there and it's asked, could I do a session for you?
Like, I'm just starting my new business and do you mind if I film you, you know, it'll
be free.
And, you know, there's a lot of people that are super nice that are willing to do that.
And that's actually how I got my start on social medias.
I asked the person at the gym who was super friendly, he was friends with everyone.
And then I just did the session right at the gym in the corner and people would come up
to me and ask me, wow, you know, what are you doing?
And then, you know, my clients like, this is the best thing ever, like it works instantly.
And that's how I got my initial clients and then word got out and, you know, I start to
work with a lot of those people at the gym.
So incentivize them, you know, give the session for free.
And then if all else fails, friends and family, that's always a great option, you know, and
if they're not comfortable with it, you know, a lot of the times they're face down.
So you don't really actually have to see their face, but usually friends and family
will help out.
And again, the people online don't know if they're family or friends.
They just know that you're working on a client.
So find any way to work on someone for content.
And this is one of the last slides, actually, and it's something I wanted to hit on because
I think it's something where people tend to overthink things a lot.
I still do too, but it's don't major in the minors.
So don't worry about things like hashtags.
Again, that's kind of like dated information.
Don't worry about fancy edits.
A lot of the time I'm not putting any edits.
I'm just chopping up the video and that's it.
So try not to think about those things and try not to have that perfect content.
Don't let that delay your action on posting on Instagram because a lot of this will be volume.
And then you also will start to learn as you start to post.
So you just want to make sure that you're posting.
That's the number one thing.
And then in this screenshot here, this is the CEO of Instagram.
And he's talking to a very popular YouTuber who does tech videos.
And in this video, the YouTuber, which is kind of funny because he's on Instagram,
he's a YouTuber, he asked the CEO, you know, hashtags don't work, right?
Or they don't increase reach.
And he confirmed that it does not increase reach.
So whenever you're talking about hashtags, like, don't overthink it.
You know, you can still put them in there, but it's probably not going to move the needle a lot.
Focus on the big picture.
Focus on the content, what type of clients you're putting out.
And then fill out that online portfolio.
So I always like to give some very simple actionable tips, not homework, actionable tips.
So after this webinar, you know, within a day or two, please optimize your Instagram profile.
You know, it's something that you can do probably just in one sitting.
I just go through it.
Just go through the checklist that I have in this webinar and just optimize it.
And then do that five second clarity test with as many people as possible.
And then also, you know, to kind of rip the Band-Aid off if you're not used to doing content,
try to post one video every week.
Again, you don't have to post every single day.
But if you're just starting out, again, it can get super overwhelming.
So do something that's easy to accomplish.
So just do one every week.
And if you do one every week, you have 52 videos by the end of the year.
And that's pretty good.
People will have a good idea of what you do and, you know, what kind of content or type
of techniques you do as a massage therapist.
So optimize your Instagram profile and then also post one video every week.
Also, just a little shameless plug here at the end.
If you did enjoy this webinar and you want more, I do have a continuing education course
called Digital Marketing for Massage Therapists.
It's approved by NCBTMB.
And, you know, some of this information is actually in that course.
So if you enjoyed this, we can go a little bit more in depth.
You know, this course is not too long.
I try to keep things as clear as possible that way you actually execute on it.
But yeah, if you would like to support or you want a little bit more information,
and this will help really nail down your specialty.
So kind of talking about the Reiki and trying to, you know,
specialize in how to kind of navigate that.
You know, we talk a lot about that in module one of this.
And then we start talking a little bit more about the websites, trying to create trust
without meeting people, again, just kind of going over those things
to cover that digital foundation.
Some really cool review from some really great people.
So that's all on my website.
And then that's it.
Thank you for joining.
I'm hoping that you got a lot out of this and can answer any more questions.
Awesome.
Thank you so much, Del, for your time.
Super, super appreciated.
A lot of people in the comments are saying that this was super helpful to them.
We do have a few questions that we can kind of dive into.
Looks like niche asks, I have been on that hiatus for about two years.
What do you suggest of how to create content after being MIA?
Most videos are old.
Yeah, just create new content, kind of pick up where you start.
And that's what I see commonly with massage therapists, especially the ones who follow me.
If I see a massage therapist follow me, I'll actually click on the account
because I'm curious to see what their Instagrams look like.
So I might have seen some of yours already.
But yeah, if you've taken a little bit of a hiatus, which is totally fine,
just go through the steps, see if you can find some clients to create content.
And then again, just start posting, you know, start off slow
because we don't want to have that two-year hiatus again, you know,
film some content, try to post every week until it becomes a habit.
And then it's interesting, once you get that first client or a couple clients
through social media or online, you get addicted.
You're like, oh, there's ways that I can get my business out in front of people.
And I'm just creating content online.
So start slow, create content, and try to stay as consistent as possible.
Awesome.
Just going to combine a question here from Brian and Valerie.
Do you have any video editing apps that you make content?
And also where do you store your footage?
Yeah, so everything's on my phone from a footage standpoint.
You know, sometimes it does get a little bit overloaded.
So I just go back and delete some things.
And then I'm a huge fan of more recently, CapCut, C-A-P-C-U-T.
It is a paid app.
I forgot what it is.
Maybe it's like a few dollars a month or like $60, $70 a year.
But that's the one that I found probably the easiest to use with the most features.
There's also the native editing inside of Instagram,
which I'll use on more to simple edits, which is for the most part,
plenty for most people, especially if you're starting out.
But just using Instagram.
And also, CapCut, if you are doing maybe a little bit more advanced types of videos
in editing.
But Instagram's software works perfectly fine.
Awesome.
We have a question from Natasha.
Would your course be beneficial if you're just starting out?
Yes.
And I'm huge on this because as massage therapists, I wish I knew this stuff earlier
because I came out of school thinking, you know, I'm just going to be busy.
I think there's this notion that the more information you have
and the smarter you are, the most techniques you have,
that you'll just automatically be busy.
But that's not necessarily the case.
Of course, it's good to have and be good at what you do.
But there is this part of marketing that you just kind of have to have
to really get your face out in front of people in your business.
So I think just getting a good foundation early on,
just understanding the basics can go a long way, especially in the future.
It's really tough when you're in the business for a long time
and then things kind of go to crap and kind of struggle out of that.
So I'm a huge fan of trying to learn as much as possible,
at least the basics, that way you can build off of that.
Because again, I came out of school thinking I would be busy
as long as I took every continuing education course under the sun.
So getting a good understanding is very important.
Awesome.
And then we had another question.
When you get as busy as you want, how do you maintain your account to stay relevant?
So busy, like schedule busy or busy, OK, got you, I got you, took me a second there.
My brain is mush right now.
So when you're super busy and it's just tough to get content out,
the more you do it, the easier it's going to be to create the content.
When I was at my busiest, when I was really doing a ton of sessions,
my rate was a little bit lower, so I was much, much from like eight to eight busy.
I still wanted to do content.
Some regulars, again, I sneak those sessions in where I'm like,
hey, can I film you?
Because they're a little bit more lenient on what we're doing.
It's like if you have those clients who are kind of friends at that point,
you're like, yeah, do you mind me filming?
And I would just get the content at least.
The filming part's probably one of the easiest things you can do
because you're just propping your camera up in different sections.
And then when I do have time, even if I'm super busy,
I'll take some time to edit that.
Again, when you start to do just technique videos like I showed you here,
it doesn't take that much time.
That's why I start to rely on those a lot because you could pump out a lot of content
with the least amount of effort.
I think where people go wrong is that you try to complicate, not you,
but people tend to complicate the process.
And then a video takes two hours to edit.
If it's more than like 20, 30 minutes, I'm like, this is too much.
So even if you're super busy, the more you do it, you can just pump them out like that.
And you can still do it on your own.
And again, don't feel pressured.
It's more of that portfolio mentality.
If you find something that's irrelevant, that might help.
Maybe you have a cool client that you worked with, highlight that.
Again, you don't have to post all the time.
Awesome.
I did post the course, your course for digital marketing for massage therapists
in the chat with that $50 off.
And just a reminder that that will also be sent to you via email
with the recording of the webinar by tomorrow.
So you'll have access to that $50 off coupon for the course.
Awesome.
Perfect.
Well, I think that that we don't have any more further questions.
It looks like.
Awesome.
People are just saying, thank you.
This has been super helpful.
Thank you for your time.
Huge fan of yours from Jean.
I appreciate it.
Yeah.
If you have any questions too, feel free to DM me on Instagram.
Joe therapy DM me.
I'm in there occasionally.
So if you have any questions specific to this webinar or the course,
please feel free to DM me.
Perfect.
I also just drop that in the chat.
So go give Joe a follow.
Awesome.
Well, thank you so much again for hosting today.
This has been excellent.
And thank you everyone that attended the Massage magazine
Insurance Plus in session webinar series.
Bye everyone.
Thank you so much.
Bye.
Thank you.