Don’t know about you, but one of the first things that many therapists decide to do after having set up a directory profile on counselling directory or BACP or Psychology Today, and maybe written a website, is they think, what else can I do to get clients? And that, what else can I do to get clients, is often the thought of, I’ll start a social media page? And there’s many a social media page that actually is sitting there feeling somewhat unloved. And the therapist might actually be feeling somewhat guilty about that unloved page because it’s there, they’ve created it, but they don’t really know what to do with it. So in this episode I’m going to help you with what you can put on your social media page for the month of April.
I hope you get some ideas and that you’ll come away feeling inspired. One of the things that used to really puzzle me and kept me from being able to share anything on social media, and what I know puzzles a lot of therapists who have a social media page. And it’s this really simple question, but it’s one that can be really difficult to answer, and that is, what the hell do I post? Today, I’m going to just talk a little bit more about your social media pages and how you can make them a little bit more topical and interesting for your followers. Now I’m recording this at the end of January, and I popped into Marks and Spencer’s the other day, and the first thing I saw was their Valentine’s Day display, and it was full of pink and red, full of nightgowns and pretty lingerie because that’s what somewhere like Marks and Spencer tries to sell around Valentine’s Day.
And what we can learn from this is the fact that retailers tailor their products according to the season, don’t they? There’s no point then talking about Valentine’s Day just before Christmas because we’re all thinking about Christmas. But once we get to January, our thoughts turn towards what’s the next thing coming up, and that’s Valentine’s Day in February. And we can apply that principle to a certain extent to our social media pages. Now I’m not suggesting that you start selling laundry, but what I’m thinking is that we are effectively selling the same thing week in, week out.
We are actually selling our counselling services. And it doesn’t matter what time of the year it is, that’s what we’re always trying to promote on our social media pages. So effectively, even though all the time we are sharing about our counselling services, we can use the seasons and various topics that come up during the year to make our social media pages a little bit more interesting and relevant to people. So what I’m going to do now is I’m going to run through some ideas for April, because you’ll be listening to this in March, and you might be thinking, okay, so what can I talk about? So obviously, if you haven’t done anything about it yet, we’ve got the school holidays coming up over the Easter break, so that could be something that you focus on.
And you could do a focus towards Easter, towards spring, you know, some of those pictures that we associate with the Easter periods, such as lambs and daffodils. You could start talking about renewal, about new growth. You can use these seasons as almost a metaphor for our lives, and that’s something that you could include. You can do silly posts about hot cross buns, for example. You know, do you like hot cross buns?
Love them or hate them? And the reason for doing a post like that is that it does help to bring some more engagement to your page. Those sorts of posts are easy for people to answer, because what they’re doing is they’re able to immediately say yes or no. They know whether or not they like hot cross buns. And you think, well, what is the point of doing that on my social media page?
It doesn’t tell them anything about counselling. It’s got no relevance at all. But what it is doing, actually, is it is helping your social media page to get in front of more people. And if you get a post like that, that, a lot of people will like or join in with, that helps your page engagement. And that means it’s much more likely that when you publish the next thing, people will see your page.
So that’s the point of doing those sorts of silly, irrelevant posts. But I’m gonna talk a little bit about April and some of the things that you could focus on in April. So the first thing to say is that April is actually stress awareness month. So you’ve got the whole month to talk about stress. Now you could do this as a series of blog posts for example, if you’re blogging on your website, and what you could do is you could pick out aspects of stress that would be relevant to the types of people that you’re trying to reach.
So, for example, if you are trying to reach women, milated women, for example, who might be what is called the sandwich generation. You could talk about the stress of bringing up children and looking after elderly relatives. It’s what a lot of women in that sort of age group might be experiencing and juggling work as well. So that’s one example of how you could make stress relevant to your particular type of client who you’re trying to reach out to. Or if you’re trying to reach out to working people, again, you can talk about stress.
If you’re somebody who perhaps offers a service that is an outdoors type of therapy, you could talk about how working outdoors can help to relieve stress levels. If you do other types of therapy, you could talk about how your particular type of therapy is effective in helping people with stress. So there’s an awful lot you could do all around stress. Moving on, another thing that’s coming up in April is World Autism Acceptance Week, and that’s happening from the second to the 8th April 2024, with the World Autism Awareness Day on the 2nd April. So if you work with people who are autistic or you work with the neurodivergent community, this is a really good week for you.
And you can talk about acceptance, you could talk about how the world needs to make more accommodations for autistic people. You could talk about how you work with autistic people. This is just a really wonderful opportunity for you to show people that this is an area that you have a lot of expertise in. If it isn’t something that you work with, you could actually do other things. So for example, if you work with families, with parents, you could talk about the finding out that your child has autism.
You could find out what support there is for people and share those sorts of resources on your page. You could talk about the stress of having a child with neurodivergent conditions, such as how difficult it is at the moment to get support, the difficulties of finding schools or getting statements. You could talk around the stress of that for parents as well, because that would show your understanding of what it’s like for people when they have neurodivergent children. So this again, you know, let your mind just wonder. Think about your clients.
Think about the sorts of things that they might be interested in hearing about. You know, so many people now are beginning to wonder if they are neurodivergent, so although we’re talking autism, you might want to bring in other aspects such as ADHD, and you might talk about why there’s so much in the media at the moment about, neurodivergent conditions, the fact that it hasn’t been recognized for a long time, it’s beginning to be recognized more. You could talk about the signs and symptoms of autism, for example, just so that you’re raising awareness about it. If you work with autistic people, you could talk about the accommodations that you make in your practice, and you could talk about the extra needs that people who are autistic might have for therapy, and you could show how you meet those needs. So you could really go to town this week on showing why you’re a good person to choose in terms of working with autistic people.
Now if that doesn’t appeal, there’s another week coming up, and it’s a bit confusing because it’s more of a US day, and it’s called National Conversation Week. And in fact, when I’ve checked online, there seem to be 2 National Conversation Weeks that are written down. And to be honest, it doesn’t really matter if you get it wrong. So the main one that people are talking about is in May. But also I found a date for April as well, 15th to 21st.
And this is an example of how you can use something like an awareness week to just spark off your thinking. You don’t actually have to say, it’s national conversation week, because let’s face it, it’s a bit confusing. There seems to be 2 different weeks, but you could think about conversations. So that week on social media, you could talk about the importance of having conversations. This is right in our street, isn’t it?
This is something that we really believe in. We believe in the power of conversations. So you could do a series of posts, you could do a post where you’re, like I said before, where people know the answer, so you could ask them a question about conversations. So you could ask them, do you hate conflict, or do you handle conflict, Or something like that, which is a question that people would know about. Do you run a mile from conflict, or do you face it head on?’ That might be an example of a sort of answer that someone might be able to give straight away.
And then you could lead into talking more about the importance of conversation. You could talk about some of the results that you’ve seen. Obviously, we have to be really careful about sharing testimonials, but if you have had someone who’s been happy for you to share how therapy has helped them, you could share something this week that talks about their testimonial. You could make up a fictionalised account, because sometimes it’s difficult, isn’t it? We aren’t able to talk about our clients, obviously, on social media.
But you could do what some people do when they write therapy books, is that they fictionalise clients, but, you know, they might change their sex, they might change details about them, but essentially they tell a story that isn’t actually your client’s story, but is adapted, and it’s an example of how conversation works. And you could say, this is a fictional account of how I would work with a client, but how conversation can really help, and it’s drawn from my experience. I’m not making it fictional because of confidentiality purposes, but this is an example of how therapy could help. Or the other thing you could do is you could talk about how therapy helped you, how having conversations have helped you. You could talk about it from a self care aspect.
I was watching a little trailer about attachment, and about how securely attached people often are able to regulate themselves by having a conversation with other people, and how that helps to regulate you. And you could talk about that, and talk about how when people are traumatised, it’s much more difficult to get that regulation. And so what you do is you enable people who are traumatised to be able to regulate through the use of therapy, and you could explain a little bit more about that. So lots of ideas about conversations, and those are just a few of mine. I’m sure you could think of better ones.
Something else that’s coming up for our LGBT community is the several days that could be covered under that sort of LGBTQ umbrella. And that is, on the 6th, we’ve got international asexuality day. We’ve got non binary parents day on 18th April, and we’ve also got lesbian visibility day on 26th April. So a few days there where you could reach out to people who are, under the LGBTQ umbrella. And if you don’t have people in your practice at the moment who come under that umbrella, what a great opportunity to show that you understand and that you’re willing to work with them.
So, again, you could raise awareness. You could point to resources for people. A lot of people wouldn’t necessarily know what asexuality means, so you could use that as a day to raise awareness. You could talk about, for example, with non binary parents day, you could talk about some of the assumptions that people make. And finally, the other thing I just wanted to mention is it’s also, pet day.
Now it says national pet day, and that’s on the 11th of April. That, again, may well be a USA day, but it really doesn’t matter because any opportunity you have to get people to talk about their pets is really great for the algorithm, this thing that we talk about. But it’s a great way of getting people to contribute to your page. And the day I’m recording this, I just popped a post onto my good enough counsellors Facebook group, and I said, share the latest picture of your pet. And honestly, I looked an hour later, and there were so many comments because people do love to share pictures of their pets.
And let’s face it, most of us love to look at pictures of pets as well. And there’s too many for me to answer in this particular instance. So I’m going through, and I’m loving them because they really are so lovely to see, and it’s just another great way to get people to interact with you. And if you’re just starting out, you probably won’t get hundreds of photos, so do interact with the people who are making comments. That’s really, really important, because when people make the effort to leave a message on your page, it’s really good to reply to them, to acknowledge them.
Because who wants to leave a message and never have it acknowledged? And essentially, what you’re doing is you’re forming relationships with people. And okay, it might be your auntie’s friend, because that can happen, can’t it? But if you chat away to her, then you don’t know. She might recommend you to somebody because a lot of what social media pages are about is just about increasing your visibility, reminding people that you exist, that you’re a counsellor.
And, yeah, if your auntie’s friend said to you, can I come and see you? You might think to yourself, I’m not sure because that’s too close a relationship, or it might be okay with you depending on how close you are to people. But as much as anything, see that they may well recommend you to other people, and that can be really good, a really good way of getting people to like and follow your page. They might share your page, and that might reach people who you don’t know. So see it as a way of increasing your visibility, and use these various awareness days to just help spark those ideas and to answer that question of what the hell do I put on my page?
Thanks for listening. Do come and join my Facebook community, Good Enough Counsellors. And for more information about how I can help you develop your private practice, please visit my website, josephinehughes.com. If you found this episode helpful, I’d love it if you could share it with a fellow therapist or leave a review on your podcast app. And in closing, I’d love to remind you that every single step you make gets you closer to your dream.
I really believe you can do it.