Recently, I’ve been collaborating with Dr Brandon Harshe over at The Atlas of Life, one of the most valuable and active chiropractic blogs on the internet. The quality of his articles and the consistency with which he produces them is amazing. The blog covers everything from inspirational chiropractic stories, to advice for young chiropractors, and even social media culture.

Rod Campbell: Hello, Dr. Harshe. I’ve been following your blog for several months now and really appreciate your work. The content and presentation make it one of the best chiropractic resources on the web. How long have you been a chiropractor?

Dr. Harshe: Thanks Rod, I appreciate the compliment. I’ve actually been a chiropractor less than a year. I walked the stage at graduation from Parker College of Chiropractic last August 15th. My official graduation date was September 9th, 2009. So, I’m coming up on a year of officially being graduated.

Rod Campbell: Why’d you decide to become a chiropractor?

Dr. Harshe: My wife talked me into it. Seriously. She wanted to go to chiropractic school and suggested we go together. My response was “No way! That’s too hard!” Then when she surprised me with the news of being pregnant with our first child several months later, I realized I needed to do something with my life. I started rethinking that whole chiropractic thing.

Rod Campbell: Weirdest or funniest story from gradschool?

Dr Harshe: Well, at one point I quit chiropractic school and never wanted anything to do with it ever again. I wasn’t handling the stress well and didn’t have any direction within chiropractic. So I quit and we moved back to Arizona. I worked in real estate with my wife’s grandparents during that time, which was around the time the economy was taking a dive. Not much fun.

I had a dream on New Year’s Day 2008 that I had gone back to Parker and was getting ready to finish the chiropractic program. It had a profound impact on me, so I decided to bring it up to my wife. Her jaw almost hit the floor when I told her. She thought I would never go back, because I always said I wouldn’t. That was in January.

In April 2008, we sold pretty much everything we owned to move back to Dallas so I could return to chiropractic school in May. Quite a ride indeed.

But I shudder to think how it would have been had I not quit school. With no direction in chiropractic, I might not even be practicing right now.

Rod Campbell: As a chiropractor, what’s your biggest day-to-day challenge?

Dr Harshe: There are 2 things. First, it’s keeping my passion in check. Most people in our society don’t know there is an alternative to drugs, surgeries, and invasive therapies. So if I start spouting off about chiropractic philosophy the first day new patients come in, they might turn around and run out.

Second, it’s trying to learn as much as possible as fast as I can. I will be taking over a practice in a few months, but first I am currently training on how to actually run a successful chiropractic practice. From exams, to x-rays, to communication, to marketing, to finances, it’s a ton. But it’s also a blast. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else right now.

Rod Campbell: The Atlas of Life is becoming a powerful chiropractic resource- where’d the idea come from? Is it challenging to continually produce great content?

Dr Harshe: When I quit school, I started to become interested in blogging/social media/internet marketing. I really enjoyed it a lot. I started reading blogs like problogger.net, doshdosh.com, shoemoney.com, johnchow.com, etc. I learned a lot about what made for a successful blog. I started a blog for my wife that I dreamed would make us a lot of money. I mean, if Darren Rowse of Problogger can make 6 figures a year from blogging, why can’t I? Yeah… that didn’t work out so well.

So after a few trimesters of being back at Parker, my enthusiasm for upper cervical chiropractic was so much that I needed an outlet. My wife will put up with my ranting and raving for only so long. So, at the beginning of Tri 8, I started The Atlas of Life. It was between that and The Atlas of Health. But I wanted to get away from the generic health/wellness model, so I picked The Atlas of Life. It was originally an upper cervical chiropractic blog, but I’ve made it a principled chiropractic blog in general.

Overall, I have a really good time writing and maintaining the blog. I started it out posting 3x a week. Then I upped it to 5x a week. In March, I upped it to 7 days a week for the sake of getting as much info out on the web as I could. I know that the more I put out on the web, the higher The Atlas of Life will rank in the search engine rankings. Considering I want people to know about what chiropractic REALLY is (health and vitality, as opposed to just pain management), I figure I should get out as much information as possible.

Rod Campbell: How do you think social media websites like Facebook and Twitter will affect chiropractors?

Dr Harshe: I know a lot of chiropractors use Twitter and Facebook quite a bit now. Facebook has become a juggernaut. I personally use Facebook to promote The Atlas of Life. Once I start my own practice, I will use it to promote that very heavily.

I don’t use Twitter as often because I have The Atlas of Life set up to automatically “tweet” a new post to Twitter each day.

Most people use the Internet to find their health care provider of choice, so as chiropractors we better use these tools. We will never become mainstream like medicine, so network or cable television and print media are out of the question. But we can utilize the Internet to really promote our profession and what we do effectively. Look at Howard Dean in 2004 and Ron Paul in 2008. No one knew who these guys were. Next thing you knew, these guys are in the conversation about winning the Presidency of United States.

So the moral of the story is that the Internet is vital for spreading the chiropractic message.

Rod Campbell: How about advice for chiropractic professionals who are new to the internet?

Brandon Harshe: Honestly, those chiropractors new to the Internet are probably very busy with their practices, so learning about all the stuff that I do, or that ChiroHosting does, is just too time consuming. Especially when you throw in family life, recreation, outside marketing, etc. Trust me… I know this first hand.

My advice would be to find a good company that can truly help you and guide you on how to effectively market yourself and your practice online. Chirohosting is a great company to do that. I’ve been very impressed with what they offer and how they do it.

Having had a number of interactions with ChiroHosting Marketing Director Rod Campbell lately, I can tell you this guy knows his stuff. Not only that, but he has a real passion to help chiropractors market themselves on the Internet, as opposed to just taking their money and giving them a sub-par product.

I would highly recommend using ChiroHosting to assist chiropractors in their internet marketing endeavors. They know what they’re doing.

Thanks for reading, check out Brandon’s blog (The Atlas of Life) and check back here for more interviews with modern chiropractic professionals!

Roderick Campbell
Marketing Director
Chirohosting.com

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Chiropractic Facebook Service

Press Release for about our chiropractic Facebook services

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For some reason, chiropractors seem to be bombarded with snake oil selling “marketing experts” who claim to know a mysterious secret that will boost your website to the top of Google rankings. If you’re not running for the hills, you should be. These internet outlaws prey on folks who are relatively new to the web. They make promises of first page Google ranks, huge website traffic, hordes of new patients, and just about anything else you may want.

The truth is, there aren’t any marketing shortcuts or SEO secrets. The only way to make it to the top of Google (without eventually getting banned) is to create high quality material, optimize your keywords, and create inbound links- all of which you’re capable of doing on your own and for free!

These are some common scams to beware of:

“You can cheat Google by joining our website. We’ll create fake reviews for your practice and cheat on Google Maps. This will put you on the top of Google overnight!”

Frankly, this is terrible advice. Because 1- it doesn’t work and 2- when Google finds out you’re cheating, they will stick you on the bottom of results or ban you permanently.

“We’ll optimize your website keywords by inserting keyword rich content.”

This is usually a nice way of saying, we’ll cram your website with hidden keywords and temporarily boost your website’s search rankings- at least long enough to make off with your hard earned cash. Of course, they’re long gone by the time you start getting de-ranked or banned by Google.

“We’ll automate your patient newsletters and bring in new patients by targeting people in your community.”

Always be careful with newsletter services. You need to be 100% certain the newsletter service is legitimate, legal, and conforms to the CAN SPAM laws. If the newsletter service sends emails to people without their explicit permission, you can be held liable for violating the law. Additionally, I’ve spoken to several DC’s who have paid $75-$150 per month for automated newsletter services, only to discover that newsletters were never being sent. Take time to verify that newsletters are being sent and are high quality!

“We can set-up an optimized Facebook profile for you with 500 friends for only $250.”

First off, Facebook profiles are free and incredibly easy to set-up. Second, the 500 friends you receive will be largely fake accounts, which provide no real benefit. Third, these scam artists often charge a monthly fee to maintain the profile. Getting a professional to maintain and contribute to your profile isn’t a bad idea, but you can’t do it on the cheap without getting ripped-off. A qualified Facebook specialist will typically run $200-$300/month, this kind of person creates content specially for your Facebook profile and targets only potential patients- so don’t expect to see explosive results and overnight sales increases.

Here’s my advice: if you run across a service and aren’t 100% sure if they’re legitimate, give us a call or send us an email and we’ll try to help you out. We’re full of chiropractic marketing ideas and provide professionally written articles, search engine optimization advice, how-to videos, and social media tools for free. You might as well take advantage of them!

Rod Campbell
Marketing Director
Chirohosting.com

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It haunts us. It torments us. We can’t escape it!

Spam.

Not the canned food substitute – the unsolicited advertising. Every day, millions of innocent web users innocently open their emails, only to be swarmed by scams, viagra, and Nigerian bankers. Promises of wealth, cures, and inappropriate personal ads have become as common on the internet as sand on a beach. Fortunately, email providers like Gmail have gotten pretty darn good at filtering out the daily assaults of junk mail.

Unfortunately, however, spammers are now following us to social media sites like Facebook and Twitter! Our chimpanzee lab is working on a prototype “spam-a-ray”. For the time being, it looks like a stick. In lieu of a magical spam-away weapon, I suggest ignoring the junk and minimizing our own contributions to global spamming.

It’s all too easy to jump on a site like Facebook and begin barraging the masses with “special offers” and “excellent services”. Please don’t. Social media websites are communities, not billboards. You’ll do yourself and everyone else a favor if you stick to providing valuable information and creating personal connections. Personally, I recommend starting a chiropractic blog and posting witty, fun, and informative articles frequently, then sharing them with your friends one on Facebook and Twitter. This strategy works especially well if you host the blog on your website because it’ll draw a steady stream of traffic.

Rod Campbell
Marketing Director
Chirohosting.com

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Remember those 1950′s and 60′s science fiction comics? The intrepid adventurer, the unlucky lady, and the robotic androids from planet 9? Back then, the ray guns and rocket ships were pretty hi-tech gadgetry. There were even computers capable of speaking 13,000 languages, communicating across the planet, and serving hot coffee. Here at Chirohosting, we do everything except the coffee – but we’re working on that.

Don’t get ripped off by gimmicky spinning graphics or flashy gizmos. Real-life technology should blend into a website seamlessly, in fact, it should feel simple, functional, and efficient. Here at our labs, we have an assortment of highly qualified chimps in lab-coats who work tirelessly to invent micro cold fusion processors. The technology is…in progress.

In the mean time- we focus on making dynamically customizable websites with loads of interactive features and eye-pleasing designs. We’ve also learned that it’s important to go above and beyond for our customers. In fact, we typically get to know each customer by name and even our owner takes customer service calls. We may not be Captain Future but we’re pretty darn cool.

Rod Campbell
Marketing Director
Chirohosting.com

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If you’re wondering how to set up a Facebook account, you’ve come to the right place. We’ve created a handy video that explains how to get started with Facebook.

If you have any questions about how to use Facebook or other social media sites to market your practice, give us a call at (800) 295-3346 and we’ll be happy to help you.

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Fact: people watch 2 billion Youtube videos per day.

Fact: people want free education.

Solution:

Pick up an inexpensive ($120-$200) camera that records video and start producing mini educational videos on the benefits of chiropractic. Then do a little video tour of your clinic and a brief interview, introducing yourself. These days, people need a sense of personal connection on the internet – it isn’t just a big phone book full of advertisements.

When you’ve got 2-3 little videos put together, upload them to Youtube and embed the video on your website. Even know people won’t read 2 paragraphs, they’ll sit and watch a 6 minute video (if it’s interesting!). Don’t have the technical skills to record the video and upload it to the web? There are a dozens of tech-savvy middle schoolers who’d jump at the opportunity to make $20.

Trust me, it’ll be the best 2 hours and $150 you’ve ever spent on marketing.

Rod Campbell
Marketing Director
Chirohosting.com

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What does all this mean? It means you should invest some time and energy into creating a social media presence for your business. If you don’t, you’re likely to be left in the dust.

Overwhelmed? Not sure where to begin? Send me your chiropractic marketing concerns: Rod@ChiroHosting.com. You can also find great information in our free Online Marketing ebook.

Rod Campbell
Marketing Director
Chirohosting.com

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Did you know that Google uses 200 different factors in determining how to rank a website?

Matt Cutts from Google describes some of these ranking factors and how you can use this information to optimize your website:

If you have questions about how to optimize your chiropractic website for Google search, we’re here to help. Just give us a call at (800) 295-3346 or email me at mike@chirohosting.com, and we’ll give you some useful tips that will help you boost your site ranking.

Mike Melton

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1. Host an annual food drive to support a local charity. Provide free exams in exchange for canned food donations.
2. Offer patients a $10 gift certificate for every new referral they bring in.
3. Give construction workers a coupon for a free or lost cost exam.
4. Launch a Google Adwords Campaign – check our free ebook for tips!
5. Start a Facebook page for your practice.
6. Optimize your website for search engine results – (free SEO guide) .
7. Get a good website. You’re wasting your time and money if your site drives patients away. Avoid neon or “carnival” colors, skip the bells and whistles, and never use animations or sounds – trust us.
8. Start a blog and post new articles often – even short, imperfect ones (like the one you’re reading).
9. Include your website address, twitter account, and facebook page to all of your stationary and business cards.
10. Simplify the content on your site. People don’t read long paragraphs anymore – they need bullet points.
11. Sponsor a local sports team, Boy Scout troop, charity, or Boys and Girls club.
12. Attend local events and don’t sell anything. Being friendly and educational will attract more patients.
13. Take care of your existing patients. If you really impress them, and I mean go way above and beyond, they’ll evangelize you. Nothing attracts new patients like other happy patients.

Rod Campbell
Marketing Director
Chirohosting.com

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