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The proper (and only effective) approach to chiropractic patient education has changed significantly over the last 6-12 months.
So has the process by which a chiropractor achieves expert status and valuable “health advisor” positioning.
No longer is the sheer disseminating of additional health and wellness information – via office handouts, blog posts, Facebook and Twitter comments, virtual health talks, etc. – desirable to prospective patients.
In other words: patients and prospective patients no longer just want more information from you.
Today, with the explosion of health information available to (and thrown at) patients and prospective patients on the Internet, cable television, satellite radio, magazines, books, and via family and friends, prospective chiropractic patients are looking more than ever to “opinion leaders” who can condense and edit content for them and direct them towards the relevant and essential information they need.
I call this approach to patient education and expert positioning: Chiropractic Content Curation (or C3, for short).
Contrasted with the old-school method of sheer “content creation” – the distributing of your created information to patients and prospective patients – C3 involves mostly the act of aggregating, organizing, and filtering the plethora of health information already being published.
I say, “involves mostly” this act, because there’s still value in creating and publishing your own chiropractic content – especially for SEO purposes on your chiropractic website. But, today, only about 20% of the content you distribute should be new and your own. The other 80% should be curated content.
So, before we go any further let’s define what we mean by “content curation”.
Content curation is really nothing more than the act of collecting, analyzing, filtering, and then sharing the most essential health information with your patients.
But, if it just stopped there, that would really just be “content aggregation” – the collecting and distributing of information.
Instead, the curation of content for your patients involves first aggregating and filtering… and then adding in your own editorial spin.
In other words, C3 is about you sifting and sorting through the flood of health information out there. Deciding what’s valuable to pass along to your patients and prospective patients. Then, adding in a bit of editorial content sharing your perspective on why the content is valuable and something you feel they should know.
This approach to patient education (and education-based marketing) eliminates the need for patients and prospective patients to go on frustrating search expeditions looking for guidance and information.
As well, it positions you as an incredibly valuable health advisor and resource on the newest health and wellness discoveries, news stories, journal articles, etc.
Best part of all… C3 is a much, much easier and more efficient way of creating expert positioning for yourself, educating patients, and doing education-based marketing.
Why?
Because you’re not actually creating much content. You’re organizing existing content and then passing it along.
How do you do this?
It starts with a free tool from Google called Google Reader.
Google Reader is an RSS aggregator that allows you to keep up with new content, stories, articles, etc., being published on different websites across the internet… without having actually visit each of the different sites you want to stay up-to-date on.
In other words, with Google Reader you’re able to subscribe to an unlimited number of websites. And, anytime those websites add a new story, it will show up in your free Google Reader account.
And, to access these new stories, you just visit one page in your Google Reader account.
That’s it.
Each day you can take 10 minutes to scan all of the new health and wellness stories that were published in the last 24 hours.
Then, when you find a story you want to share via Twitter, Facebook, or email, there’s a button you can press to pass the story along to correct channel.
So, literally, C3 can be done in 10 minutes a day.
Meaning: you can position yourself as a incredibly knowledgable health and wellness resource and educate patients and prospective patients on the latest information… in just 10 minutes a day.
Here’s what I recommend you do to get started:
First, go create a free Google Reader account.
Second, subscribe to the RSS feeds of different websites and blogs that publish new health and wellness information. (Think: Yahoo Health News categories) You can find a 5-minute tutorial here - Google Reader Tutorial
Third, begin checking your Google Reader account each morning.
Weed out the stories of no value. Pass along the stories you feel your patients and prospective patients really need to be aware of.
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