Podcast Launch & Your Damaging Obsession With Instagram...

It's Finally Here!!

It's been a really enjoyable little side project whilst I've had so much going on with my consulting work and LTF projects etc, to re-imagine my personal brand/consulting website, and even more excitingly, my FIRST EVER PODCAST!! "Digital In Aesthetics" is now available on all reputable Podcast platforms, including Spotify and Apple.

In this first episode, I sat down with successful Aesthetic Doctor and Software Entrepreneur, Dr.Askari Townshend. Founder of ASKINOLOGY , and more recently, Collums - the fantastic new clinic software package that is taking the Aesthetics world by storm.

We covered a lot of ground, from Askari's early days in Northampton, to his whirlwind 5 years with SK:N clinics, to the building of Askinology, and now Collums - with all the trials, tribulations, and successes that came along with that journey.

I'd love for you all to check it out and give me some feedback. Think of this as a pilot episode! Maybe a bit rough round the edges, but the beginning of something great I think.

And Now For This Week's Educational Piece...

And I want to talk to you all about why your "obsession" with Instagram could be hurting you and your clinic...

As we probably all know. in medical aesthetics and aesthetics generally, there is an obsession with Instagram. Now, as you probably also know, I do a lot of work in social media in aesthetics and it is important and it has its place. But my issue is kind of twofold:

The first part of it, which really is probably the more important is that I have data and ten to fifteen years' worth of experience that tells me the return you will most likely get for your effort and investment from Instagram, in terms of what it will return to your clinic, your profile, your presence, your business, your revenue, is diminishing year on year.

And if you think about it, that makes sense. It makes sense because more and more people are entering the aesthetics field, more and more people are publishing content on social media in a in an attempt to raise awareness of their individual clinic or business. And so in the home feeds of the people you're trying to reach, there's only so much space and Instagram have to decide how do we get our adverts in here because they're really important, because they make the money. And then, with the tiny bit of space left, of all the tens of thousands of aesthetic clinics, who are we gonna give space to here in this feed? Whether it's a Reel, Story, a Grid post or something else.

So it kind of makes sense. It's coming becoming more and more crowded, so it's harder and harder to get your content seen. We already knew or you should already have realised that organic reach, meaning how many people will see your post unless you pay, has been dropping year on year. For those reasons, they want to get more advertising in and they need to fit a growing amount of content into each person's home feeds that they hope is relevant and interesting to those people, because the primary objective on Instagram is to keep people scrolling.

So organic reach is diminishing, more and more noise, more and more competition, which means it's harder and harder. Now, you can engage people. You can find new patients. No doubt about that at all. However, however, the other issue I have, which is making this problem worse, I think, is that there are lots....it's not just one, it's not just two, there are lots of people / "experts" / agencies selling you a dream . There's not necessarily anything wrong with selling you a dream, but I think it's an unreachable dream in so much as you might be told you can build a million pound or multimillion pound clinic through Instagram alone. And that's not true. You can't.

You might be told you can do that relatively quickly. That's also not true. You can't.

People that have achieved that did it over a long period of time. It wasn't the only thing they can attribute that success to. Certainly not the only channel and there were lots of other factors and support elements, etc. Not only that, but that success may have been at a time where it was a bit easier. It's harder now. And so it seems to me a bit disingenuous at best to sell that dream to you because I don't believe it's likely to happen if you only focus on Instagram.

So those are the two main issues and where I think focus is better used and placed is actually Google Local, which is what I talk about a lot, I write about a lot, and what my agency does for dozens and dozens and dozens of you guys.

It isn't rocket science, although there's a lot involved. Some of it can be done by you guys, some of it you need help with. But either way, look into it. This is not a sales pitch. This is me telling you, "go and find out about it. " Learn! I've put out plenty of free content about it.

Google local, what is it, if you don't know? It's the map with the results at the top of Google when anyone searches for anything. Usually on their phone, but also on a desktop device, when they are looking for what is likely to be a bricks and mortar business, which is what you have. And usually, you guys have one clinic in one location. Some of you have more, a few of you have a chain. In every one of those cases, Google local bring can bring you potential patients who are at their highest point of intent, because rather than just scrolling their Instagram feed, they're proactively looking for a solution to a problem, which you can provide potentially.

So it might be a skin condition, it might be a particular treatment they've heard of or are interested in. They're searching for it. The way they search for it is more sophisticated than it used to be, which is something you need to know when you're trying to optimise your Google business profile. There's lots of ways you can do that, ask me, read my content, come and see us, whatever. But the more effort you put into that, the higher the return you will get year on year, the more quality of lead you will get if you do it right versus Instagram.

You know, I know doctors, nurses, clinicians with quite large authentic followings.They do a really good job, which takes a lot of effort and sometimes money on their content, and they get very, very little in return. If you put your effort instead, primarily into Google local and providing a fantastic website experience to convert those people from Google local, quite a few things happen:

• Number one, you get a greater share of the potential high intent traffic in your twenty to thirty mile radius, which is what you want. On Instagram, you have no idea where those people are or their radius or their point of intent or if they fit your demographic or target, or if they're gonna be a tire kicker or a pain in the bum. You've no idea. Google local, you got much better chance, much more targeted and then your website experience can do the rest of the filtering and qualifying and automated follow-up for you.
• Something else really interesting happens as well if you focus primarily on your position in Google Local for all your treatments and for providing a great website experience, is you get more Instagram inquiries as a result!! Why? Because people find you on Google local when they're at a high point of intent. They check out your website, and if they don't book straight away, they follow you on social media. So you're then picking up much better quality of followers because they were in a radius of your business at a high point of intent, got a specific thing they're looking for, and they found you. And if they haven't already booked or downloaded something from your site (and by the way, your whole site needs to be full of lead magnets so that you don't just offer two options on a website, which is book or leave, which most of you do). You need to give a middle option, which is, hey, download this wicked guide and give us your email. But you're then getting followers as a result. So in a roundabout way, you improve your social media presence and the quality of following and the frequency of engagement and inquiries by focusing less on your Instagram and more on attracting local relevant high intent potential patients through Google local.

It makes perfect sense to me, but take it or leave it quite frankly as advice.You know, I've not been doing this very long, only twenty four years. So when when I see people selling the Instagram dream, it feels to me disingenuous and that they're promoting that because it's all they know, to be honest. Nothing wrong with that either. As I've said, you can succeed with it, but your return is diminishing.

I know from speaking to hundreds of Aesthetic practitioners, that keeping up with social media content is a high stress point. And If something's a high stress point, it had better be serving you well. It had better be serving you well because otherwise, why are you doing it? I'll leave you with that thought.