By Marc Apple● 9 min read
Table of Contents
TL;DR: Creating and sharing content online offers therapists and mental health professionals a way to meaningfully connect with clients and potential clients while reaching a wider audience and growing their online presence.
Crafting Relevant Content for Mental Health Topics
Content marketing and original content creation are powerful marketing strategies for a mental health professional’s practice.
Creating and sharing relevant content does these things: one, it builds credibility and trust with a broader audience of potential clients, it also establishes and reinforces your expertise with current clients, and lastly, it showcases your unique therapeutic approach to a host of vexing mental health topics.
You can start your planning by thinking about four key areas:
- Knowing your audience of clients and potential clients
- Having a content marketing calendar
- Creating relevant content addressing the mental health topics serviced by your practice
- Promoting your content through avenues like email, your website, social media, and Google ads
As you build your reputation as an authority figure by showcasing your resources and mental health services, you’ll undoubtedly boost your online presence.
This can often translate into potential clients seeking your services, completing a contact form or calling, and making an appointment.
Knowing Your Audience
You know the needs of your clients and potential clients best. Knowing how you can serve them will enable you to create content that truly resonates while meeting board guidelines.
Define your target audience by considering these 13 data points:
- Demographics – age range, gender, household income, education level
- Geographics – urban, suburban, rural
- Relationship and family status – single, married, divorced, widowed, children, caretaker
- Current profession, employment history, or military service
- Interests and hobbies
- Values and beliefs
- Personality traits and upbringing
- Overall mental and physical health
- Mental health issue(s) and symptoms
- Motivations and aspects of practice for seeking qualified therapists
- Barriers to accessing care
- Communication preferences – email content, inspiring tools, social media accounts, blog content, video, opt-in forms, etc.
- Learning styles
This isn’t an exhaustive list; you can add or remove factors as needed.
Identify Your Ideal Client
The more you can identify your ideal client, the more natural it will be to create and tailor content to that person who needs your services most.
Take, for example, the emotions, thoughts, and feelings of a teenager struggling with anxiety. This person may very well feel overwhelmed by academic and peer pressures.
Another might be someone struggling with grief due to the loss of a loved one.
One more may be a couple banding together to save and strengthen their marriage.
Reflecting on questions like, “What do I know about their interests, symptoms, and motivations?” and “What action do I want them to take after seeing my content?” along with hypothetical examples, ensures your well-planned approach.
Audience development is an ongoing process that will evolve with your target client. Use insights like client interviews, intake and opt-in forms, survey responses, Google ads, and metrics from your social media content.
Remember to document your audience development! It will come in handy as you get into content planning.
How to Create a Mental Health Practice Content Plan
Now that you are clear on who you’re creating content for, the next step is to get organized with a content plan.
At a high level, a content plan includes:
- Documenting the topics you can cover
- Associating them with your target audience
- Deciding which mediums you would like to use
- and scheduling deadlines for when you’ll post
You may find topical ideas flowing freely at first. If they aren’t coming easily, consider addressing more common mental health issues or certain aspects about your audience.
The cadence of posting and sharing your content is entirely up to you and the needs of your practice. Aim to create content in diverse formats, some written and others not.
Varying your content allows you to meet your target audience where they are.
Utilizing a content plan will help you stick to a routine, ensure a balance of different types of content, and allow you to be more efficient with your time.
Why Therapist Should Embrace SEO
You are well on your way to marketing your practice through relevant, original content!
Let’s talk about a next step, SEO. The practice of SEO allows you to reach those seeking your services and is crucial to have your content discovered online.
Here are some SEO tips for therapists:
- Construct keyword research by identifying the terms and phrases people are likely to search for when looking for your services
- Search engines can detect intent. Make sure your content is focused on helping people, not just ranking high in search engines like Google
- Ask an agency about their SEO methods
Some SEO methods are technical in nature and have little with your content. An agency can deliver recommendations you can implement for quick wins.
Should Therapist Produce Website Content?
Before going any further, you will want to make sure your content adheres to ethical and board guidelines as well as respects client confidentiality.
With that important caveat, establishing your voice and tone within your content creates distinction from other therapists.
All these factors can lead to that person contacting your office to schedule an appointment or doing so through your website.
22 Ways to Use Storytelling on Your Mental Health Blog
Here are some considerations for storytelling to resonate with your audience:
- Share a personal anecdote or experience related to your topic
- Be authentic and genuine. Your audience will connect more if they sense real emotion and honesty
- Make sure your stories have a purpose and relate to helping the person
- Use vivid details and imagery to paint a picture and evoke emotions Communicating this way helps the person feel immersed in your story
- Employ a compassionate, approachable, empathetic, non-judgmental tone
- Consider that stigma is a massive hurdle for people to overcome in seeking care for their mental health
- Consider sharing success stories or aspects of your knowledge with your audience, demonstrating healing, growth, and breakthroughs
- Reinforce your position as an experienced therapist by showing there is hope
- Educate those seeking help by providing facts and statistics that counter stigmas
- Demonstrate mental illness is a medical condition, not a character flaw. Therapy and engaging with a therapist are effective treatments
- Be conscious of your languag.
- Avoid using stigmatizing terms
- Use person-first language like “person with depression” rather than labels like “depressed person”
- Be transparent
- Explain your approach and what therapy will entail
- Be open about your credentials, skills, and experience. Those seeking your services will feel more comfortable divulging information and their sensitivities.
- Validate their perspective by avoiding arguing or contradicting their views, even if you disagree
- Reinforce that you are listening to your audience by saying things like, “I understand why you would feel that way in this situation”
- Use positive body language in videos
- Maintain a relaxed and composed posture in your video.
- Face the camera lens and lean in
- Your body language helps disarm, ease apprehension, and convey safety and acceptance
The right stories shared genuinely can be incredibly powerful.
By opening up strategically and thoughtfully in your content, whether that’s in video, through audio, or written, you can build rapport and help clients feel understood.
Integrate Your Content with Your Social Media
Social media platforms provide therapists powerful tools to share content and engage with a broader audience.
By actively utilizing sites like Instagram, a blog and/or video on your website, YouTube, or a podcast platform, therapists can vastly extend their online reach and deliver helpful, compassionate, and sophisticated content in front of scores of potential clients.
When sharing new blog posts, videos, podcasts, and other relevant content types on social media sites (and in your email communications), remember to craft compelling headlines and summaries to capture attention and tell the reader/viewer what they can expect with this piece of content.
For example, pulling an interesting statistic or key quote from the post, podcast, video, or otherwise can entice your audience to click a link leading back to your website or share the post with their network.
A picture paints a thousand words! Using visuals like images, photos, video stills, and infographics can help your content stand out in busy news and social feeds.
It’s important to share your content multiple times rather than just once. Go back to your audience knowledge to help determine when and where to repost your content.
Tips for Encouraging Engagement with Your Content
Social media also enables valuable two-way engagement with clients and potential mental health clients. Therapists can monitor comments and feedback on posts to see what resonates most with their audience.
Therapists can build rapport by liking, commenting, and sharing followers’ content. Just remember to adhere to your social media policy!
Repurposing your content across social media accounts, your email list, your website, and other platforms can help it be found by more people.
Remember to share your content at different times and days of the week.
Strategically use hashtags and mentions to connect with wider communities and maximize reach. Identifying hashtags like #mentalhealth or following the accounts of professional organizations can expand visibility.
Final Thoughts on Why Therapist Content Matters
Therapists can connect with clients through content to grow their audience and position themselves and their practice as trusted resources for mental health advice, care, and support.
Therapists can improve their online visibility by consistently working from their content plans, creating relevant, original content, and understanding how to optimize their content for SEO.
Documentation is key, lest you want to “reinvent the wheel” because you didn’t capture information about your audience and your topics, keep tabs on what’s working, and use planning tips meant to keep you organized.
FAQ About Using Content to Connect with Mental Health Clients
How will using content enable my therapy practice to connect with future clients?
Using content enables you to promote your practice in many beneficial ways. Your original content demonstrates your professional capabilities and experience and imprints on the reader or viewer how you may be able to help them with their emotional and mental healthcare needs.
What is the best way to engage in a content endeavor without overwhelming my schedule?
Planning is the key! Having a content plan and corresponding editorial calendar will keep your thoughts organized by topic and audience and allow you to schedule posting your content in advance.
How do I know which content method is right for me?
There is no wrong answer! Experiment with those mediums you are naturally drawn to — a blog for writing, podcasts for audio, and video for a visual medium. By sharing your content on your website and your social media profiles, you begin to see which medium resonates most with your target audience and can concentrate more of your time and efforts there.
How detailed does my audience profile need to be?
You’ll know best, but the more detailed, the better. Each person you help with their mental health is truly unique! Certainly, some factors like age and marital status may be more frequent than others. However, how you approach each individual is unique to that person. The more profile data you collect, the more topical ideas for content may become visible to you.
Does this mean I have to be on every social media site?
No, far from it. The same applies to determining which content method is best for you with your social media presence. Be sure to align your social media profiles with the mediums matching your content. For example, Instagram thrives as a visual environment, whereas a podcast wouldn’t be the best place for an auditory medium.
