Latest / Beyond the Needle: The Aesthetics Business Podcast / The Instagram Strategies Working For Aesthetic Practitioners Right Now

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The Instagram Strategies Working For Aesthetic Practitioners Right Now · Beyond the Needle: The Aesthetics Business Podcast

0:11
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Beyond the Needle, the Aesthetics Business Podcast.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: Each week, I'm here to share real, actionable strategies and bring on expert guests to help you level up, attract more patients, and build a standout brand.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: Let's turn your passion into a thriving business together.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: If you're running an aesthetics clinic, you'll know there's a lot more to it than just treating patients.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: From managing bookings and patient records to staying compliant and growing your business, having the right systems in place can make a huge difference.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: That's why I'm delighted to have Aesthetic Nurse Software sponsoring this season of Beyond the Needle.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: Trusted by over 4,500 practitioners, ANS is designed specifically for medical aesthetics, helping doctors, nurses, dentists, and other medical practitioners save time, stay compliant, and grow with confidence.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: Whether you're just starting out or you're running an established clinic, ANS gives you the tools and supports to make managing your business that little bit easier.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: Head to aestheticnursoftware.com and select Bloom when signing up to get 20% off your first three months.
1:24
SPEAKER_00: Hi everyone, welcome back to the Be on the Needle podcast and welcome back to season seven, the first episode of season seven.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to kick off this season with a solo episode because I feel like it's been a long time since I've done one.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: I have so many amazing guests lined up for this season again.
1:41
SPEAKER_00: But before we properly kick off and get into the season, I wanted to come on and talk about Instagram strategies that are working right now for SSI practitioners, especially as we head towards the end of the year.
1:53
SPEAKER_00: And naturally, a lot of you might be looking at what you're doing marketing-wise and different things that you can be doing, things that you can be doing to improve what you're doing.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: So today I'm talking about Instagram, and it's something that I've talked about on here hundreds of times, but we know Instagram is an ever-evolving machine, and the things that worked six months ago, a year ago aren't necessarily what's working today.
2:15
SPEAKER_00: There are endless posts, podcasts, and so-called growth experts telling you how often to post, what hooks to use, whether reels are dead, whether carousels are back, whether you should be using trending audio, whether you need to talk to camera, and whether posting three times a week is somehow going to magically fix your business, or whether you need to be posting every single day.
2:33
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to do that today.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: What I want to do is talk about what I'm seeing working right now for aesthetic practitioners in clinics, how the way people consume content has changed, and what I would actually be focusing on if Instagram was an important part of how I wanted patients to discover, trust, and eventually choose my clinic.
2:51
SPEAKER_00: Because one of the most common things I hear is some version of I'm posting regularly, but nothing is really happening.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: The engagement might feel a little bit flat, the follower number barely moves, just spending hours thinking of ideas, filming reels, putting carousel posts together, writing captions, and you still don't really know whether any of what you're doing is translating into patients.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: I think the bigger issue is that a lot of content is still being created around what the clinic owner, the practitioner posting the content thinks that they should be posting or that people want to see or hear, or they're posting things that they want to be posting before they've properly asked what the person on the other side of the screen actually needs to hear from them.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: And that really matters because information itself is no longer scarce.
3:38
SPEAKER_00: Your patients can Google the treatment, they can ask ChatGPT, they can scroll TikTok, they can look on Reddit, they can watch 10 different practitioners explain a very similar thing before they've even found your clinic.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: So simply being the practitioner who explains what microneedling does or what a skin booster is or why collagen declines with age is not enough of a differentiator anymore.
4:01
SPEAKER_00: The advantage now is becoming the practitioner whose content makes someone think, I really like the way this person thinks, I trust their judgments, they understand what I'm worried about, they don't seem desperate to sell me something.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: If I do decide to have treatment, I want to go and speak to them.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: That is the goal that you should have as an assessed practitioner posting on Instagram who wants to be getting more leads and inquiries from the platform.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: One of the things I first notice when I look at a clinic's Instagram account is how much of the feed exists simply because something needed to be posted.
4:33
SPEAKER_00: You know, there's not really much rhyme or reason behind what's being posted, and there's not really much strategy or purpose behind the post.
4:40
SPEAKER_00: You know, it could be a treatment graphic, then a before and after, then a supplier post, then a team photo, then a real treatment being carried out with the name of the device written over the top.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: None of those things are inherently bad, but the problem is there often isn't a clear reason for that particular post to exist beyond keeping the account active.
4:57
SPEAKER_00: That's where content becomes really draining because you're constantly having to come up with something new without knowing what problem the content is meant to solve.
5:04
SPEAKER_00: If you're sitting down every Monday asking, what are we going to post this week?
5:08
SPEAKER_00: I'd go back one step and ask, what does the business need Instagram to help with right now?
5:13
SPEAKER_00: Do we need more relevant people discovering us?
5:15
SPEAKER_00: Are enough people finding us but not inquiring?
5:18
SPEAKER_00: Are we attracting the wrong kind of patients?
5:21
SPEAKER_00: Do people still not understand what we specialize in?
5:24
SPEAKER_00: Are we known for injectables when we're trying to build more of a skin business?
5:27
SPEAKER_00: Do we have a quiet period coming up that we need to get ahead of?
5:30
SPEAKER_00: Are people visiting the profile but never clicking through to the website?
5:34
SPEAKER_00: Those are business questions and they should shape what you create far more than whatever Instagram trend is getting attention that week.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: I find it really useful to think about content in three broad stages.
5:45
SPEAKER_00: Discovery, trust, and action.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: Discovery is the content that helps the right people find you.
5:53
SPEAKER_00: Trust is everything that helps somebody understand how you think, how you make decisions, what your standards are, and what it might feel like to be your patient.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: Action is where you make the next step easy, whether that's booking a consultation, replying to a story, downloading something, joining your mailing list, or simply starting a conversation.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: The mistake is expecting every post to do all three things at once.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: Someone might discover you through one reel, follow after seeing another, spend three months watching your posts, reading your posts, looking at your stories, check your website twice, and then eventually book after a friend then mentions your name.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: Instagram has played a significant role in that journey, even though no single post caused the booking.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: And that is how I think clinics need to start looking at the platform.
6:42
SPEAKER_00: Now, one of the biggest mistakes local service businesses make is assuming that more reach automatically means better marketing.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: And I hear this from people all the time.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: You know, people get so hung up on how many views their videos get.
6:56
SPEAKER_00: If you are an influencer whose income is going to rely on the brand partnerships that they have, the amount of followers you have and the amount of reach your posts get is important because that directly correlates with how much income you are going to be able to make.
7:13
SPEAKER_00: But you, as a clinic owner or a practitioner, although I know this, you know, some people do go down that route where they want to kind of grow a big audience and and work with brands, that that is some people's goal.
7:24
SPEAKER_00: But for most people listening, your goal probably isn't to become, you know, a skin influencer or a doctor influencer.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: Your goal is probably just to get more brand awareness and get more leads and inquiries through your social media.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: So if you're a clinic in Surrey, reaching 300,000 people scattered across the world might make your insights look impressive and a little part of your ego feel great.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: But commercially, it's probably going to do very little.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: You don't need everybody to see your content.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: You just need the right people.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: Someone close enough to realistically visit the clinic, someone with a concern you treat well, someone in the kind of demographic you want to work with, someone who is already thinking about doing something and just needs help deciding who to trust.
8:07
SPEAKER_00: There are clinics with relatively modest audiences generating insistent inquiries from Instagram because the audience is relevant.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: Their followers include existing patients, prospective patients, local women researching treatments, people who recommend them to friends, and people who may not book this month but probably will eventually.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: That is far more valuable than a huge following built from one random viral reel.
8:31
SPEAKER_00: And virality can often make the audience less useful if it attracts thousands of people who followed because of one funny controversial or completely unrelated post who have very little interest in the actual clinic.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: The follower number looks better, but the audience has become more diluted.
8:50
SPEAKER_00: So your future content is not then going to have the same effect as it would have done without all of those random people following you.
8:57
SPEAKER_00: So if I were a clinic owner, and well, I am a business owner, and I would take, you know, 2,000 highly relevant views from people in, you know, who people who are my audience, and for you as a practitioner clinic owner, that will be people in and around your area over 500,000 random views every day of the week.
9:20
SPEAKER_00: The goal is not just to get reach for the sake of it, you know, it should be to get relevant discovery, to get the right people finding you.
9:27
SPEAKER_00: And you know, the people who I see get the most out of Instagram in terms of leads and inquiries are often the ones who have grown their audience very slowly, very gradually over time.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: Because when you grow your audience slowly and gradually, you grow it with the right people.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: But if you grow your audience, you know, if your audience jumps from 2,000 followers to 20,000 followers because of one viral reel or a couple of reels that did really well, suddenly, you know, your followers are all sorts of random people all over the world who are probably, you know, very, very unlikely going to book with you and are probably not going to be that interested in your future content either unless it's all very, very similar to that one viral reel that attracted them in the first place.
10:15
SPEAKER_00: You know, I could really talk about this until I'm blue in the face because it is so important, I think, for people to understand.
10:22
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's the posts that get the lowest engagements, but are talking about a very specific concern or treatment that isn't going to resonate with everyone who follows you, but is going to resonate with enough people that it actually generates a few inquiries in the inbox or a few consultations being booked via your website.
10:39
SPEAKER_00: Now, when it comes to things that are working, the biggest shift that I'm seeing is from information to interpretation.
10:46
SPEAKER_00: A few years ago, simply explaining treatments could differentiate you so much because so much clinic content was quite poor.
10:55
SPEAKER_00: That bar has moved.
10:57
SPEAKER_00: Patients have access to endless information now.
10:59
SPEAKER_00: So what becomes more valuable is interpretation.
11:03
SPEAKER_00: What that means is I don't just want you to tell me what a treatment does.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: I want to know how you decide when to use it.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: I want to know what would make you choose something else.
11:15
SPEAKER_00: I want to know what you look for before making a recommendation, what makes you say no, what you've changed your mind about over the years in your career in aesthetics, and where you think the marketing around certain treatments gets ahead of reality.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: If someone comes to you asking for filler, tell me what you assess before deciding whether filler is actually appropriate.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: Tell me the solutions for gels that don't involve filler or surgery.
11:39
SPEAKER_00: One of my clients posted a reel about that recently and it did very, very well.
11:43
SPEAKER_00: If you offer several devices that all broadly sit under skin tightening or, you know, skin quality, explain how you decide between them.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: If there are patients you would refer to a surgeon rather than continuing with non-surgical treatment, talk about how you make that decision.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: That is judgment, and judgment is one of the most valuable things your patient is paying you for.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: The same applies to before and after photos.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: A result image on its own tells me that something changed, but the more interesting part is often everything that happened between those two photographs.
12:15
SPEAKER_00: What did the patient come in asking for?
12:16
SPEAKER_00: What did you notice?
12:17
SPEAKER_00: What did you choose not to treat?
12:19
SPEAKER_00: Why did you recommend one approach over the other?
12:21
SPEAKER_00: What did you expect to happen over the following few months?
12:24
SPEAKER_00: You know, start to really tell stories with your before and after photos.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: Because when you start to add that context, a before and after photo stops becoming proof of a treatment and starts becoming proof of you and your skills and your thinking.
12:40
SPEAKER_00: And even when a patient hasn't consented to photographs being shared, you can still talk anonymously about the scenario.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: You know, the patient who arrived convinced they needed filler when you assess them and could see that the issue was actually skin quality and filler wasn't going to give them the result that they wanted.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: That is the kind of content that sets you apart from other people, that helps people get to know you as a practitioner instead of just being another account that talks about the benefits of provilo and microneedling.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's deepening the value that you give and it's positioning you as a real expert and thought leader in people's minds.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: Another thing that I think clinic owners and practitioners should be doing that works quite well is finding a core topic and making that a bit of a theme in their content.
13:23
SPEAKER_00: So think about a concern that you really enjoy treating and you want to be known for in your area as the go-to person for that concern.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: Or it could be a treatment.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: Let's take Gals for an example, because so many practitioners tell me, I feel like I'm talking about this subject too much.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: And what we have to remember is not everybody is going to see every piece of content that you post.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: And even if they do, they're probably not going to remember in a few days' time what you specifically posted about a few days ago.
13:54
SPEAKER_00: You know, we are seeing hundreds and thousands of pieces of content every single day, not just on social media, but you know, all around us.
14:01
SPEAKER_00: When we're walking down the street, we're seeing things, when we're watching TV, we're seeing things, you know, we're being consumed by content.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: So someone is not going to remember what you posted three days ago, word for word.
14:12
SPEAKER_00: You know, if if they're a loyal follower, they might remember vaguely what you talked about.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: But, you know, you have to, if you want to become known for something, you have to be talking about it a lot.
14:22
SPEAKER_00: And I think the people who do this get a lot more out of their marketing because they kind of become known as the go-to person for something, and it starts to attract a niche.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: So let's go back to that Giles example.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: You could explain why jules happen in a direct talking head reel.
14:40
SPEAKER_00: You could then create a carousel on three things you assessed before recommending a treatment for Giles.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: You could do a patient scenario, you could compare three treatment approaches and rank options based on who they're actually suitable for.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: You could have a willing model sit on your treatment couch while you kind of talk through what's happening to their lower face, why they're seeing the changes that they are, and what you would recommend for them in that, in you know, in that in their case.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: You could talk about common misconceptions that people have about treating jowl non-surgically.
15:12
SPEAKER_00: You could make a what I do if real.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: You could answer questions on stories.
15:17
SPEAKER_00: You could make a personal post about how your own view of lower face aging has changed as you've gotten older or the things that you're doing yourself or the things that have worked for you.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: Same topic, but completely different experience for the audience.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: And I really do think the practitioners should be testing this deliberately.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: If one idea matters to your business, don't just change the hook over and over again.
15:38
SPEAKER_00: Try different ways of presenting it.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: Maybe director camera videos get the most profile visits, maybe the comparison carousel gets the most saves.
15:47
SPEAKER_00: Maybe the patient scenario generates the most DMs.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: That tells you something useful about how your particular audience likes to consume that subject.
15:55
SPEAKER_00: And like I said earlier, not every piece of content has the same goal.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: Some content that we post needs to help people discover us, some content needs to help people trust us, and then some content needs to provoke some sort of action out of our audience.
16:10
SPEAKER_00: And all those different ways that I just listed of talking about jaws, each of those will fit somewhere differently in between those three things.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: Some of those will help people discover you, some of those will help people trust you, and some of those will make people take action.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: So we need to constantly be thinking about that and producing content that does those different things in order to get the most out of our social media marketing.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: Another thing I think people get wrong is the idea of relatable content.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: They too often go too broad.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: And we know if we're trying to speak to everyone in marketing, we're not really speaking to anyone at all.
16:46
SPEAKER_00: For example, if you're worried about aging applies to an enormous number of people, which is exactly why it won't land very deeply with people.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: But if you said you started pulling your jawline back in the mirror to see what your face used to look like, that describes an actual behaviour.
17:02
SPEAKER_00: If you're nervous about injectables, it's quite broad, but you've saved dozens of before and after photos, but still haven't booked because you're worried everyone will know you've had something done.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: That's specific.
17:13
SPEAKER_00: Menopause skin changes is a topic, but your skincare worked perfectly for 10 years and suddenly everything seems to irritate you is an experience.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: The more specific you are, the more people will recognise themselves in what you're saying.
17:28
SPEAKER_00: And this also changes how I think about target audiences.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: Women over 40 is technically a demographic, but women in their 40s who suddenly feel like every treatment recommendation online is aimed at making them look 25 is much more interesting.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: Mothers is broad, but the mum who has looked after everyone else for 10 years and has finally booked something for herself gives me a real person that is identifier content.
17:54
SPEAKER_00: It's not just who they are on paper, but it's a situation that they recognize themselves inside.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: And people who are being super specific in their content in terms of who they're speaking to and how they are relating to people in these different ways, they're the ones whose content is doing the best.
18:12
SPEAKER_00: Because what you want when someone reads your content or listens to your content, you want them to recognize themselves in it.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: You want them to think, yeah, that's me.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: She's describing me.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: This is exactly how I'm feeling right now.
18:23
SPEAKER_00: This is exactly what I'm worried about.
18:25
SPEAKER_00: Because if people can see themselves in your content in what you're describing, they will decide that you are the person for them.
18:31
SPEAKER_00: Why would they go to Sally down the road, who's maybe a little bit cheaper?
18:35
SPEAKER_00: When you so clearly get them, you are clearly the person who can solve all of their problems because you really do understand them.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: So the more specific you can be in your content, and the more relatable you can appear, and the more you can help your content resonate with very specific types of people, very specific types of problems, the more you will see in terms of results.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: There's also a clear move at the moment towards more kind of conversational, FaceTime style, less overproduced content.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: And I think this suits practitioners very well because patients are really, you know, they're choosing people.
19:09
SPEAKER_00: They want to hear how you speak.
19:10
SPEAKER_00: They want to see whether you see measured, warm, confident, and easy to talk to, you know, approachable.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: Often going and having an injectable treatment for the first time is very scary for a lot of people.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: But if you can come across, you know, warm and approachable and easygoing and you know nice to be around, they're not going to feel so worried about coming to see you.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: So they want to know whether you sound like somebody who is going to listen, who's going to understand them.
19:35
SPEAKER_00: And often people appear more approachable and authentic when their content is less produced.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: And by that what I mean is just simpler production.
19:45
SPEAKER_00: So it could be, you know, a practitioner sitting in the car after clinic saying something came up in a consultation today that I think more women in their 40s really need to hear.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: That style of video feels far more compelling than the same idea filmed three weeks later after it has been scripted and rehearsed into something that no longer sounds remotely like that person.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: You know, a lot of people are using ChatGPT to script their videos these days and it really shows.
20:10
SPEAKER_00: And I think we're very good at detecting that subconsciously when we're listening to a video.
20:14
SPEAKER_00: If something feels authentic, you know, if it's something that we can connect to.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: But if it's overly scripted and rehearsed and just clearly being read off a screen reader, that can really feel kind of distant from the person watching it.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of people are very conscious about how they sound and how they appear on camera, and they can put on a bit of a camera voice and they can sound like a presenter.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: Whereas in consultation, they don't sound like that.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: They sound natural and articulate and warm.
20:43
SPEAKER_00: But when the camera turns on, that kind of gets pushed down and this kind of polished, highly presentable person comes out.
20:51
SPEAKER_00: But what people want now, you know, is just that kind of natural, relaxed, chatty style video.
20:58
SPEAKER_00: Like you're just speaking to another person in front of you.
21:02
SPEAKER_00: You know, even acknowledging the fact that you're creating content can help.
21:05
SPEAKER_00: You know, for example, I was supposed to film something completely different today, but this has come up twice in clinic, and I think it's far more useful to talk about.
21:13
SPEAKER_00: Or I've recorded this three times already, but every time I say skin quality, I realize most patients probably have no idea what I mean by it.
21:19
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna come on and I'm gonna talk to you a bit about skin quality and what that actually means and why we are moving more towards that in aesthetics than volume restoration.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: That kind of breaking the fourth wall content immediately feels less performative.
21:33
SPEAKER_00: And I really do think that is only going to become more valuable as AI makes polished content easier for everybody to create.
21:39
SPEAKER_00: And what people want is content that connects.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: You know, I see people who spend a lot of money on having videos produced, and then they might have a video production, like a proper videographer come in, not a content creator, but a videographer come in and film videos with them for their social media.
21:55
SPEAKER_00: And for some people, that is fine, that's what works for them.
21:57
SPEAKER_00: You know, I know people that do that because they like.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Someone to come in, batch film all of their content for the next few months and they don't have to worry about it themselves.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: And for some people, that's just that works for them.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: That's the only way they can produce content.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: I get that.
22:10
SPEAKER_00: But what I do see is that content performs less well when it comes to kind of reach and engagement because it doesn't feel authentic for the most part for people to watch that.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't feel like something they can connect with.
22:25
SPEAKER_00: You know, if you think about it, if somebody sat, you know, at a desk and the video is very polished, it looks very professional, and then you see somebody who's just holding their phone up, maybe they're sat in the car, or they're just like sat in the treatment room, maybe like leaning forwards towards the camera.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: It's you know, they've not got any special kind of equipment or anything like that.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: They're just being chatty and they're starting the video in that chatty way that I kind of gave just gave a few examples on.
22:52
SPEAKER_00: You know, I was supposed to film something completely different today, but this came up twice in clinic, and I really think more people need to hear it, you know, where it's just a bit more chatty, a bit more kind of easygoing, like you're having a conversation with a friend.
23:04
SPEAKER_00: Out of those two scenarios that I've just described, which one of those do you think is going to connect more with people?
23:09
SPEAKER_00: Which one of those do you think is going to relate more to people?
23:11
SPEAKER_00: Which one of those do you think is going to say to people that this person speaking is warm and easygoing and approachable, which is what people want in content?
23:22
SPEAKER_00: It's going to be the second one.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: It's going to be the one where you've just picked up your phone and you're just having a chat with the camera.
23:27
SPEAKER_00: And that is often what performs best when it comes to social media.
23:30
SPEAKER_00: That's what people want.
23:32
SPEAKER_00: And when you overly produce content and you have those highly produced videos, it can also look like an ad, which puts people off because they feel immediately before they've before you've even opened your mouth before they've even listened to what you've had to say, they feel like they might be about to be sold to.
23:47
SPEAKER_00: So they scroll on.
23:48
SPEAKER_00: Whereas people aren't going to feel that when they scroll and you appear kind of leaning, just holding up your camera, chatting.
23:55
SPEAKER_00: So breaking the fourth wall of content is what I call it.
23:59
SPEAKER_00: That is what I see.
24:01
SPEAKER_00: That is one thing I see working really well for people right now.
24:03
SPEAKER_00: Storytelling is another strategy that's working really well for people.
24:07
SPEAKER_00: We know that educating and giving value and teaching people is a key part of content strategy when it comes to marketing ourselves as business owners.
24:19
SPEAKER_00: You know, the best way to kind of to grow and to deliver content is to educate, is to give our audience some value, give them a reason to follow you, give them a reason to trust you and to stick around.
24:29
SPEAKER_00: But there is so much educational content out there now.
24:33
SPEAKER_00: So we kind of need to look at how we are delivering that educational content.
24:38
SPEAKER_00: And if we can weave storytelling into it and deliver the education slightly differently, that suddenly makes it far more powerful.
24:45
SPEAKER_00: It makes it relatable, people can see themselves and things, and it's also a way of educating that makes it unique to you because anyone can talk about why sunscreen is important or the benefits of microneedling, but no one can talk about those things with the same experiences or stories that you have to tell that kind of fit them.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: So to give you some examples, instead of three reasons why you should be wearing SPF every day, talk about a patient who thought her pigmentation treatment had failed and what was actually happening.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: You know, she wasn't wearing her SPF properly, and this is what happens when you don't do that.
25:23
SPEAKER_00: Instead of benefits of microneedling, talk about a patient who arrived asking for something more aggressive because they thought that would help them get results quicker, and why you chose microneedling instead, why that was the best treatment for them and the results that has had for them.
25:37
SPEAKER_00: The lesson can be identical, but the audience now has something to follow.
25:42
SPEAKER_00: The same applies to carousel.
25:44
SPEAKER_00: You know, a carousel doesn't need to be seven disconnected facts.
25:47
SPEAKER_00: You can create progression.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: You might have one slide that says she booked because she thought she needed filler.
25:53
SPEAKER_00: Then the next slide, within five minutes of the consultation, I knew I wasn't going to inject her.
25:58
SPEAKER_00: Then explain what you noticed.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: Then you might say, but the part she was most surprised by was dot dot.
26:04
SPEAKER_00: Then the recommendation, what happened, and what somebody else can learn from this case.
26:09
SPEAKER_00: Each slide gives enough information to satisfy the current thoughts, but it leaves enough unfinished that the swipe feels natural.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: And that is very different from point one, point two, point three.
26:20
SPEAKER_00: And people really respond to that because it's like getting their attention and it's piquing their interest, and they're thinking, yeah, what happened next?
26:26
SPEAKER_00: And what and what and what then what happened?
26:28
SPEAKER_00: And then what happened?
26:29
SPEAKER_00: So they keep swiping and keep reading.
26:31
SPEAKER_00: And I also really like to use a secondary hook on the cover.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: So instead of simply what I do if I were 45 and starting from scratch with my skin, you might add where I spend my money first, what I wouldn't do, and the treatment I definitely wouldn't rush into.
26:46
SPEAKER_00: That tells somebody why it's worth swiping.
26:49
SPEAKER_00: Photo carousels, they're also working really well.
26:52
SPEAKER_00: So not every single carousel needs to look like a mini clinic brochure.
26:56
SPEAKER_00: There is another format that I really think is worth experimenting with because so many clinic carousels still look like little corporate presentations, you know, perfectly designed slides, brand colours, icons, headings, blocks of copy, then the logo at the end.
27:08
SPEAKER_00: Don't get me wrong, like this is normal.
27:11
SPEAKER_00: It's what a lot of people do.
27:12
SPEAKER_00: And I think some carousels work better like that.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: You know, having your branding on your feed is important, but you know, so there's nothing wrong with that style, but it doesn't need to be the go-to, it doesn't need to be the default, it doesn't need to be the only thing you're doing.
27:23
SPEAKER_00: One format I really like at the moment is using ordinary photographs from clinic life and letting those images carry the story.
27:30
SPEAKER_00: So it could be pictures of you leaving clinic at the end of the day, sitting at your desk between patients, setting up a treatment room, walking into work, coffee on your desk, a training day, a screenshot of your notes, like a nice candid photo of the team, or even something from your life outside the clinic if it connects naturally to the thought that you're sharing.
27:47
SPEAKER_00: Then instead of designing a traditional educational carousel, you put one thought or a few sentences over each photo and let the post kind of unfold like a conversation.
27:57
SPEAKER_00: So your first slide might simply be a photograph of you leaving the clinic with, or a photo of you kind of sat at your clinic desk with something a patient asked me today that I think more women need answered.
28:08
SPEAKER_00: Then the next photograph continues the thought.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: Maybe she came in asking for treatment because she'd seen it repeatedly online, but once you assessed her, the thing she thought she needed wasn't actually the thing that you would prioritise or recommend.
28:20
SPEAKER_00: You can use the following slides to explain what you noticed, why you thought differently, and what another patient could learn from that situation.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: The carousel is still educational, but it doesn't feel like a traditional educational graphic.
28:32
SPEAKER_00: And I think people connect and resonate to those kinds of carousels a little bit more because again, it's like the video thing that I just explained.
28:40
SPEAKER_00: When things are really polished and professional looking, sometimes it can be, it can feel less authentic to people, it can feel more like a business, right?
28:50
SPEAKER_00: And it reminds people that your goal there is really to sell to them.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: Whereas if it's just less polished photos, people connect with that more.
28:58
SPEAKER_00: It feels more like you're on their level.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: You feel more relatable.
29:02
SPEAKER_00: It feels more like just another content creator online.
29:05
SPEAKER_00: And you can use this format for far more than patient stories.
29:08
SPEAKER_00: You know, it could be what I've been thinking about after 10 consultations this week, three things I've changed my mind about since I started practicing aesthetics, what nobody sees before the treatment starts, things I've noticed in clinic this month, what I'm learning from treating more women in their 40s.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: You know, I created one recently for a client that was showing kind of the before and afters of their clinic space after the renovation.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: And we wanted to share because it's been such a huge transformation, we wanted to share like the before and afters, but I wanted to do it in a way that kind of grabbed people's attention and hooked people in and got them interested.
29:42
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, it was just a series of photos on you know, one on each slide, but it made it I made it feel more like a journey that I was taking people on.
29:54
SPEAKER_00: You know, the first slide started with a photo of the clinic now with a title over the top, things you wouldn't believe used to be inside our clinic, swipe to see the transformation, and then there was a photo on each slide with a little bit of text that just kept people going naturally from the from one side to the next.
30:08
SPEAKER_00: So it's things like that kind of hook people in and it tells a bit of a story over kind of eight to ten slides.
30:15
SPEAKER_00: I would keep the copy relatively light on each slide, you don't need a paragraph over every photo, you know, think of the image as one beat in the thoughts, one image, one idea, enough wording to move the story forward.
30:26
SPEAKER_00: And I think this format is great because it also removes some of the production pressure around content.
30:30
SPEAKER_00: You don't need a designer every time you have something useful to say, or you don't need to think too hard about how it's about the appearance of the post.
30:37
SPEAKER_00: If you already have a decent bank of photos from clinic life, you can create something thoughtful much more quickly.
30:42
SPEAKER_00: And strategically, it gives you another way to talk about the same subject.
30:45
SPEAKER_00: A traditional carousel about treatment planning might feel structured and educational.
30:49
SPEAKER_00: The exact same underlying idea told through photos from your week can feel more personal, observational, and storied.
30:56
SPEAKER_00: That's why I keep coming back to formats.
30:59
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you don't need another topic, you just need a more interesting way of presenting the one you already have.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: So if you don't already have a big bank of kind of photos that you've taken yourself in clinic, make that your goal this week.
31:09
SPEAKER_00: You know, start taking more photos.
31:11
SPEAKER_00: Take photos, you know, selfies of you in clinic, mirror selfies, you know, those are great things to use for your first slide of a carousel.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: And then like little photos of the room, of the team together, of you know, treatments in action where you can, of people doing different things in clinic and start to build up your bank that way.
32:21
SPEAKER_00: I think people so often put a lot of pressure on themselves to make the content look super high quality and professional and produced, but that's really not the direction Instagram is going in.
32:33
SPEAKER_00: And I think you'll see a big difference in what you get out of your content when you do start to go down that route.
32:39
SPEAKER_00: Now, personal content is another thing that I'm seeing working well.
32:42
SPEAKER_00: This is an area that I think clinics are still too cautious.
32:45
SPEAKER_00: You know, practitioners often believe every post has to justify itself by being treatment related or educational because anything more personal feels maybe unprofessional or irrelevant.
32:53
SPEAKER_00: I think that misses a huge part of why people choose service providers and small independent clinics.
32:59
SPEAKER_00: Patients are assessing you as well as your expertise.
33:03
SPEAKER_00: Like I said earlier, would I feel comfortable with this person?
33:05
SPEAKER_00: Do I like how they communicate?
33:07
SPEAKER_00: Do they seem judgmental?
33:08
SPEAKER_00: Do they seem warm?
33:10
SPEAKER_00: Do they understand women like me?
33:12
SPEAKER_00: Would I feel silly telling her what I'm worried about?
33:15
SPEAKER_00: Those things matter enormously in aesthetics.
33:17
SPEAKER_00: So I would bring more personal content into a clinic strategy, particularly if the clinic is founder-led.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: Now that doesn't mean turning your Instagram page into your personal diary, and not every single post should be personal.
33:33
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I do see a bit of an imbalance.
33:35
SPEAKER_00: I see people go too far the other way, where it's just kind of it does feel a bit like a personal diary.
33:41
SPEAKER_00: And like I said earlier, every single post has a different purpose.
33:45
SPEAKER_00: You need to be doing a mixture, you can't just be doing 90% of one and 10% of the others.
33:51
SPEAKER_00: So the goal isn't to turn the page into your personal diary, but it is to give people enough context to understand the person behind the expertise.
33:59
SPEAKER_00: And if you have a team, if you have other injectors, if you have therapists, it's bringing their kind of personal content in for them as well.
34:06
SPEAKER_00: So it's not just about you as the founder, but it's about everybody in your team.
34:10
SPEAKER_00: And that could be, you know, talking about how working in aesthetics has changed the way you see aging.
34:15
SPEAKER_00: It could be you talking about something you used to believe about beauty or aging that you no longer do.
34:20
SPEAKER_00: It could be about motherhood and how it changed your relationship with appearance, if that is genuinely part of your experience.
34:26
SPEAKER_00: It could be about you could talk about exercise, menopause, confidence, business ownership, training, your own skincare routine, the things that you're doing for your skin as you get older, something you're learning, something you've changed your mind about, the part of your job that you enjoy the most.
34:41
SPEAKER_00: Some personal content can sit directly beside your niche, and some of it can simply just be personal.
34:47
SPEAKER_00: So a photo dump from your week or your month, or a training day, or a book you're reading, or what you like to do to switch off, what happens before clinic opens, a day in the life from your day off from clinic.
34:59
SPEAKER_00: Not every personal post needs to end with a forced lesson about skin or aging.
35:04
SPEAKER_00: The point is that by the time somebody eventually sits opposite you in a consultation, there's already familiarity there.
35:10
SPEAKER_00: Like they come in and they say, I feel like I already know you.
35:12
SPEAKER_00: I feel like we've spoken before because I've been following you for such a long time and I've been reading and consuming your content.
35:19
SPEAKER_00: For founder-led clinics, especially, the practitioner is often the biggest trust asset in the business.
35:25
SPEAKER_00: Beautiful branding, of course, matters, but your patient is not booking a logo.
35:30
SPEAKER_00: Signature formats, signature kind of series, are also doing really well at the moment.
35:35
SPEAKER_00: So creating a signature format that people will recognise, this links directly to the idea of becoming memorable.
35:40
SPEAKER_00: So instead of constantly inventing posts at random, create formats that people start to recognise.
35:45
SPEAKER_00: In clinic this week could be one pattern or conversation that kept coming up, and that's something that you could share on a weekly basis.
35:53
SPEAKER_00: What I'd do if could take a different patient scenario each time, and you know, you talk a little bit about how you would solve that problem.
36:01
SPEAKER_00: If you were my sister, could be kind of a way that you give very direct advice, and you know, you use that to share things about the industry or about treatments that you wish more people knew in general.
36:11
SPEAKER_00: What patients ask for versus what they really mean could explore patient psychology and what you often recommend for different kind of goals and pain points that people come to you with.
36:21
SPEAKER_00: What I look for before recommending gives people access to your assessment process.
36:26
SPEAKER_00: What I've changed my mind about gives you an endless source of kind of experience-led content.
36:30
SPEAKER_00: These aren't simply recurring topics, they're recognisable.
36:34
SPEAKER_00: And the bigger goal isn't simply for Instagram to happen to show somebody your content, it's for somebody to actively think, I wonder what she's posted about that this week.
36:43
SPEAKER_00: That's why I like thinking of Instagram less like a feed and more like a channel.
36:47
SPEAKER_00: What are the programs people come to you for?
36:49
SPEAKER_00: One might be, you know, common patient questions, one might be personal reflections, one might be treatment comparisons, one might be case stories.
36:57
SPEAKER_00: You don't necessarily need to publish them on the same day every week, but the point is that you're consistent with these things and the account begins to have shape.
37:05
SPEAKER_00: It could just be as simple as, you know, rating treatments or products for different concerns, where people start to expect that content and they go actively looking for it to see what you've posted next.
37:19
SPEAKER_00: Stories as a listening tool is another thing that's working well, and I think stories are still massively underused by clinics.
37:25
SPEAKER_00: So the feed is really good.
37:27
SPEAKER_00: You know, the posts that you put on your feed are really good for helping people discover you, but stories really help them become familiar with you.
37:33
SPEAKER_00: You know, they see a bit of behind the scenes of what's going on clinic, they hear what came up that day, they see personality, they see ordinary life, they see an opinion or a quick kind of 60 seconds on camera where you're sharing something that happened that day, or a question that you've been asked that you're hearing a lot right now, and this these are your thoughts on that subject.
37:53
SPEAKER_00: All of those things create familiarity.
37:56
SPEAKER_00: And stories can also be incredibly useful for research.
38:00
SPEAKER_00: If you ask, have you been thinking about doing something for your under eyes but feel completely confused by all of the options out there?
38:06
SPEAKER_00: And 20 people tap yes, that is useful information.
38:10
SPEAKER_00: You now know that 20 people in your existing audience have an active interest in that exact problem, and that should influence what you create next.
38:17
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it becomes a reel where you really start to explore the treatment options for the under eyes, or you share a patient case study a before and after photo and talk about how you achieve that result.
38:27
SPEAKER_00: It could become a signature series.
38:30
SPEAKER_00: What you know, what I was just talking about, you know, where you rate treatments for under-eyes, or you rate products for under-eyes, or you break down what I'd do if I wanted to improve, and you could focus on a different under-eye concern in each video.
38:42
SPEAKER_00: So, what I'd do if I wanted to improve under-eye hollowing, what do I do if I wanted to improve under-eye creepiness?
38:47
SPEAKER_00: What I'd want to do, what I'd do if I wanted to improve under-eyed dark circles, what I'd do if I wanted to improve under-eye pigmentation.
38:54
SPEAKER_00: Well, you make that a series because you know there are people in your audience who are really interested in that subject.
39:00
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it becomes an email, maybe it becomes a QA, maybe it becomes an Instagram live.
39:05
SPEAKER_00: The audience has told you what they want.
39:08
SPEAKER_00: Don't waste that information.
39:09
SPEAKER_00: The same applies to question boxes and DMs.
39:11
SPEAKER_00: The questions people ask repeatedly are great raw material for the content that you create.
39:17
SPEAKER_00: I also think clinics can do much more with the gap between somebody consuming content and actually booking.
39:22
SPEAKER_00: The next step doesn't always need to be booked now.
39:25
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's reply or DM the word skin and I'll send you more information about this treatment.
39:31
SPEAKER_00: Or comment menopause and I'll send you a free guide.
39:34
SPEAKER_00: DM wedding and we'll send you our treatment planning timeline.
39:37
SPEAKER_00: You can handle those conversations manually or automate the first step appropriately.
39:41
SPEAKER_00: But the important bit is that you're reducing friction when somebody wants to learn more or wants to get in touch.
39:47
SPEAKER_00: Someone who is interested but not yet ready to book has been given a very small, easy next action to take.
39:53
SPEAKER_00: And once somebody starts a conversation with the clinic, the relationship changes.
39:57
SPEAKER_00: That is much more useful than endlessly putting link in bio under everything, which of course is the natural next step for a lot of people.
40:05
SPEAKER_00: But I just think we should be thinking about how we can make it easier for people to get in touch, how we can make it easier for people to learn more or to get more value without necessarily being ready to book a consultation.
40:16
SPEAKER_00: So if you think about again, like some of the things that you want to be known for, maybe you want to build, you maybe you've got bridal packages that you really want to start pushing.
40:24
SPEAKER_00: So create a free kind of five, six-page guide on Canva about you know, planning for your wedding, you know, what you should be doing when for your skin as a bride.
40:36
SPEAKER_00: Give us some easy tips, give a treatment planning kind of guide in there that people can kind of follow and look at, and automate that.
40:45
SPEAKER_00: So when people DM the word wedding or comment the word wedding, they are send that automatically to their inbox.
40:49
SPEAKER_00: It gets them on your mailing list too, which is a great way to nurture them through your email marketing.
40:54
SPEAKER_00: So getting things working more like a funnel.
40:56
SPEAKER_00: I also think that everyone is taking a little too much inspiration from other people in aesthetics at the moment, and it the content becomes a bit repetitive.
41:05
SPEAKER_00: You know, a lot of people using the same hooks, the same audios, the same kind of carousel ideas.
41:11
SPEAKER_00: I really think that we should be spending more time looking at formats outside of the industry: food creators, fashion, fitness, interiors, parenting, business, travel, looking at what some of the top creators are doing in different industries, in different niches, and paying attention to the things that made you stop, the things that made you save, the things that made you kind of scroll on and read the full carousel.
41:34
SPEAKER_00: And then thinking about why you took action, why you did something.
41:38
SPEAKER_00: Was it the format?
41:39
SPEAKER_00: Was it the humour?
41:40
SPEAKER_00: Was it the way the story unfolded, the visual, the hook, the relatability?
41:44
SPEAKER_00: And then thinking about how you can take that structure and create something similar that will be relevant to your audience and what you do.
41:52
SPEAKER_00: A format that works brilliantly for a fashion creator can become a treatment comparison.
41:57
SPEAKER_00: A home renovation series can inspire a patient journey series, a ranking format from food content can become a practitioner explaining how they think about different treatment options.
42:07
SPEAKER_00: The strongest formats travel very well between industries.
42:11
SPEAKER_00: So often it's the formats that are the most important, the structure, you know, that's what you should be taking inspiration from.
42:17
SPEAKER_00: And then just changing the content so it's relevant to your audience or what they want to see.
42:22
SPEAKER_00: And one thing I really can't finish this episode without talking about, you know, we've talked about reach and virality and why that shouldn't be, you know, the key thing that you're measuring when it comes to your content.
42:34
SPEAKER_00: But I also want to talk about likes because this is another thing, you know, and it goes back to that personal content.
42:38
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people will say to me, you know, and personal content like Cryphagestics filled is important and it's one thing that is working well for people right now, and it probably always will work, you know, that's nothing new.
42:48
SPEAKER_00: But a lot of people will say, you know, if I do a post about me or you know, people just love to see my life, they love to see if I post something, you know, my holiday that will just get you know 150 likes.
42:58
SPEAKER_00: Whereas, you know, if I post about wrinkles or my best treatments for jails that might only get like 20, 30 likes, and that's that that's not how you should be evaluating what works well.
43:08
SPEAKER_00: Of course, a post with your holiday pictures is going to do really well, like that's going to attract the likes of all your friends, your family.
43:17
SPEAKER_00: It's something that you know everyone can kind of relate to in a way, you know, it's something that naturally people are going to like on Instagram.
43:25
SPEAKER_00: If you post a raw kind of vulnerable post about mistakes that you've made along the way in your business journey or things that you wish you knew in your 20s about your skin, the lessons that you've learned from motherhood.
43:39
SPEAKER_00: If you post things like that, of course they're going to do better in terms of likes, but that doesn't mean that they've done better overall.
43:45
SPEAKER_00: That isn't the way you should be evaluating your content.
43:48
SPEAKER_00: But that's how people see it.
43:50
SPEAKER_00: One post gets 30 likes, another gets 170.
43:52
SPEAKER_00: So the second one must have worked better.
43:54
SPEAKER_00: But maybe the 30-like post generated two DMs and a consultation or made 10 people go over to your website.
44:02
SPEAKER_00: And very likely the personal one, the 170-like post of your holiday pictures, was mainly liked by other practitioners and peers and family.
44:13
SPEAKER_00: Which one mattered more?
44:14
SPEAKER_00: And this is particularly true in aesthetics where patients don't really want to publicly engage with content about something they feel insecure about, you know, hair loss, acne, menopause, aging, teeth, creepy skin under the eyes, jowls.
44:28
SPEAKER_00: They might watch every reel you post on that subject but never like or comment on a single one.
44:33
SPEAKER_00: They probably are saving them though.
44:35
SPEAKER_00: They're definitely making mental notes.
44:37
SPEAKER_00: And then six months later, you get a message starts that starts with, you know, hi up, I've been following you for ages.
44:43
SPEAKER_00: Every clinic gets that message.
44:45
SPEAKER_00: That's why visible engagement cannot be your only measure of impact.
44:50
SPEAKER_00: I really want clinics to look at the broader journey.
44:52
SPEAKER_00: Someone sees a Content, visits the profile, follows, they consume more, they watch stories, they visit the website, they send a DM, they inquire, they attend consultation and they become a patient.
45:04
SPEAKER_00: It's not a smooth journey.
45:05
SPEAKER_00: It's not seizepost books for most people, anyway.
45:10
SPEAKER_00: Instagram can influence several stages of that journey without getting credited as the final source.
45:16
SPEAKER_00: So I would ask every new patient two questions.
45:19
SPEAKER_00: One, where did you first hear about us?
45:22
SPEAKER_00: A lot of the time people will forget though.
45:24
SPEAKER_00: Then, was there anything you saw online that helped you decide to book?
45:28
SPEAKER_00: Those answers are often completely different.
45:30
SPEAKER_00: A friend might have recommended the clinic, but Instagram may have spent six months converting that recommendation into trust.
45:38
SPEAKER_00: Or they might have found you on Google and then followed you for six months before they finally trusted you enough to book.
45:44
SPEAKER_00: If you only record referral, you miss that.
45:47
SPEAKER_00: And if you ask them, was there anything online that helped you decide to book?
45:51
SPEAKER_00: And they can actually remember a specific piece of content that they resonated with.
45:55
SPEAKER_00: And I've had people say to me before that they've posted, like, you know, patient story where they might have done a video and they've talked about, you know, this patient came to see me, and they were so worried, they'd be pending off treatment, they were so worried about looking unnatural, they were so worried about people noticing something going wrong, and this is the result, like this is the end result of that treatment, and they, you know, they couldn't be happier and they was wish they'd done this sooner.
46:16
SPEAKER_00: And so many people resonate with that.
46:18
SPEAKER_00: You know, that's often the thing that leads them to then inquire, even if they've spent, you know, six, seven, eight months watching that person's content.
46:26
SPEAKER_00: But that's the thing that pushed them over the edge and made them think, Right, I need to go and see this person.
46:31
SPEAKER_00: You know, I've had people say that to me a lot.
46:33
SPEAKER_00: That kind of content works very well for people when it comes to conversions.
46:37
SPEAKER_00: So ask people because you will learn a lot about what actually works well.
46:41
SPEAKER_00: And you might think, Wow, gosh, that post, it only got eight likes, but it's it made them finally book after months of following me.
46:49
SPEAKER_00: That is the powerful part that sadly so many practitioners don't think about, and they just want to post, they see the personal content doing well.
46:58
SPEAKER_00: You know, by doing well, I mean it gets a hundred plus likes, and they think that's what they should be doing.
47:04
SPEAKER_00: But vanity metrics are not what you should be measuring.
47:07
SPEAKER_00: Yes, like I said earlier, personal content it serves a purpose, it can help people get to know you, relate to you, it humanizes you, it makes you feel less like a business trying to sell something to somebody and more like a person who understands them and you know you're just like them.
47:23
SPEAKER_00: You're a mum too, you're a dad too, you're a someone who's had treatment themselves, you're someone who experiences aging too.
47:29
SPEAKER_00: It humanises you, but it it's not the only thing that you should be posting.
47:33
SPEAKER_00: It's not the only thing people need to see from you in order to trust you.
47:36
SPEAKER_00: And if you actually sit and you look at the people who like those holiday pictures and those personal posts, a lot of it will be existing patients, it will be peers, it will be other people at the industry, it'll be family, it'll be friends, but it won't necessarily drive leads and inquiries.
47:51
SPEAKER_00: Before I wind down, pinned posts are another thing I want to mention.
47:53
SPEAKER_00: They're working very well on Instagram right now.
47:55
SPEAKER_00: Not in terms of maybe driving new reach or anything like that or followers, but I think we're moving away from highlights.
48:02
SPEAKER_00: This is something a lot of people ask me about.
48:04
SPEAKER_00: Is sh, you know, my highlights are really old, do I need to be redoing them?
48:07
SPEAKER_00: You know, Instagram at one point was talking about removing them not so long ago.
48:10
SPEAKER_00: If you ask yourself, when was the last time you went to a profile and looked at somebody's highlights, story highlights, you know, those little circles at the top underneath their bio.
48:18
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people don't know what story highlights are, that's what they are.
48:21
SPEAKER_00: When was the last time you went and someone's profile and looked at those?
48:24
SPEAKER_00: You probably don't remember, I certainly don't.
48:26
SPEAKER_00: Pinned posts, you can have three pinned posts at the top of your feed.
48:29
SPEAKER_00: They're the first, you know, on the first row at the top of your feed, that's what your pinned posts go, that's where your pinned posts go.
48:35
SPEAKER_00: You see the full posts, they're bigger, they have more of an impact.
48:38
SPEAKER_00: I think that is what people should be investing their time in now, rather than story highlights.
48:43
SPEAKER_00: And I think you should have a pinned post that says tells people who you are and what you do, a result, a transformation, you know, a great before and after photo of a patient who's had a treatment that you kind of enjoy doing and you kind of want to push.
48:55
SPEAKER_00: Maybe, and the third pinned post could be something that's going on in the clinic right now if you've got an event coming up, or if you've got some sort of offer on.
49:02
SPEAKER_00: It could be a post that just gives people useful information like around parking or how to find you or the nearest tube station, you know, that kind of thing.
49:10
SPEAKER_00: Or it could be something that's kind of topical at that moment in time around a treatment that you really want to push or a helpful piece of educational content that is going to give people a little bit of an insight into what kind of content they can expect from you when they follow you.
49:23
SPEAKER_00: So that's what I would be doing now is just really optimising your pin posts and making sure that they give value and they give people good a little insight into who you are and what you do when they land on your profile for the first time.
49:36
SPEAKER_00: Because yeah, I just think story highlights are yeah, they're kind of being probably going to be phased out at some point.
49:43
SPEAKER_00: And I don't think many people are looking at them.
49:45
SPEAKER_00: So if I was a clinic owner right now, just to summarize, I would stop opening every reel with the treatment name.
49:52
SPEAKER_00: I would stop posting supplier graphics without adding my own thinking.
49:54
SPEAKER_00: I would stop trying to sound like a presenter on camera.
49:56
SPEAKER_00: I would stop assuming expensive production automatically makes better content.
50:00
SPEAKER_00: I would stop changing the topic every single time I posted because I was worried people might get bored.
50:05
SPEAKER_00: I would stop trying to explain every treatment on the menu.
50:08
SPEAKER_00: I would stop hiding the practitioner behind the clinic brand.
50:10
SPEAKER_00: I would stop judging content after 24 hours based mainly on likes.
50:14
SPEAKER_00: I would stop making every call to action book now, and I would stop treating personal content as somehow less strategic than educational content.
50:21
SPEAKER_00: And I would make sure I'm doing a mixture of things that are going to help people discover me, trust me, and eventually take action.
50:28
SPEAKER_00: But most importantly, I would stop treating Instagram like a machine where you insert a few posts and expect a consultation to magically emerge.
50:36
SPEAKER_00: You know, that's not how trust works.
50:38
SPEAKER_00: So if your Instagram feels a bit flat right now, go through your last 20 posts and ask yourself whether someone could genuinely get a sense of you from them.
50:45
SPEAKER_00: Do they know what you believe?
50:46
SPEAKER_00: Do they understand how you make decisions?
50:48
SPEAKER_00: Do they know what kind of patient you work with best?
50:49
SPEAKER_00: Do they see your personality?
50:51
SPEAKER_00: Do they hear real language that they resonate with?
50:54
SPEAKER_00: Do they see things that you have learned by doing the work?
50:57
SPEAKER_00: Are there kind of content series or recognizable formats that help you stand out?
51:02
SPEAKER_00: Could most of the posts have been published by another clinic with a logo swapped out?
51:05
SPEAKER_00: The goal isn't necessarily to become great at Instagram, it's to make Instagram useful to your business, to help the right patient find you, to help them understand the way you think, and to make them feel familiar with you before they ever meet you.
51:16
SPEAKER_00: That is where I think the real value of this platform still sits.
51:19
SPEAKER_00: I really hope this episode gave you something useful.
51:22
SPEAKER_00: If it did, send it to another practitioner or clinic who know who you think would find it helpful.
51:26
SPEAKER_00: And as always, if you have any questions, if you want to chat things through, come and send me a DM on Instagram.
51:31
SPEAKER_00: My username is at Bloom and Beyond Studio.
51:35
SPEAKER_00: And if you want more practical advice on growing your clinic, marketing it properly, and understanding what actually influences patient decisions, make sure you're following Beyond the Needle on your listening platform so you don't miss next week's episode.
51:49
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for listening, and I'll see you in the next one.