Thanks for your fantastic response to my roll call for private practice therapist using Twitter! Therapists from all around the globe have joined the list. I’ll will continue to add therapists to the list so feel free to join anytime by commenting on that post.

I wanted to do the same thing for Facebook Business pages to help you connect to other like-mined therapists to share resources, ideas, practice building tools, and referrals. Only licensed mental health therapists will be listed.

Here’s what you need to do to join the Facebook List…

Post a comment below and include the following information:

1. Facebook page name &  page link (Facebook business page, not personal profile)
2. your name & credential
3. your city & state
4. specialty areas

As the comments come in I’ll post comments and paste your info in the body of this post below to make it easy to click through and “like” the Facebook pages listed.  I look forward to connecting with you. Feel free to forward to colleagues.

TV interviews are a great way to educate about relationship and mental health topics and to raise visibility for your private practice. Over the past few years, I’ve actively sought out interview opportunities and have found that over time, they have bolstered my credibility, fostered trust in my knowledge and clinical skills, and raised visibility of my private practice.

Thanks to social media, TV interviews can reach beyond the viewership of the live broadcast to a larger audience. One example is this short, live interview for a local Utah TV lifestyle program.  “How To Handle A Narcissistic Mother” has had over 9000 views on YouTube (and yes, I’m still working on not saying ,”um”).

Many therapists have ugly offices. Does your therapy office reflect your personality, practice specialty, and appeal to your ideal client? Here’s one creative solution.

During a private practice consultation meeting a few weeks ago psychologist Kimberly Sieber, PhD expressed excitement about securing a large office space at an amazingly low rent for her private practice Good Medicine Healing Community. New to private practice she was concerned about the costs of furnishing such a big space. We estimated a budget and listed the basic furnishings she’d need to start seeing clients: a couch, chair and desk for one office, and a few chairs for the large waiting room.

She turned to me with a worried look and asked, “But what about the walls? They’re blank and white and ugly!”

I recently blogged about ways to use Twitter to build your private practice, and encouraged you to tweet your elevator speech/basic practice message in 140 characters or less. Those posts got me wondering, “How many therapists in private practice are actively using Twitter?”

So, I’m taking a roll call to help you use Twitter to connect with other like-minded therapists around the world to share ideas, resources, and referrals. Only licensed mental health therapists will be listed.

Here’s what I’d like you to do…

Post a comment below and include:

1. twitter handle & link
2. your city and state
3. specialty area

As the comments come in I’ll post comments and paste your info in the body of this post below.

Learning about marketing your private practice and actually doing it are very different things. I recently interviewed several successful private practice therapists about marketing strategies that have worked for them in the “real world”.

My goal is to inspire you to effectively market your practice. You don’t have to do all of these to build a successful practice. Just start with one that speaks to you and build from there.

1) Public Speaking

Public speaking not only educates your community, but also raises visibility and attracts clients to your private practice. ”I did a lot of public speaking in neighborhood institutions – schools, churches, synagogues, hospitals to get my name recognized,” says Dr. Roberta Temes of New York City. Parenting After Loss founder Amy Luster, M.A., LMFT also offers community presentations on on her specialty areas: infertility, high-risk pregnancy, and miscarriage patients as well as to the health-care providers that treat them as part of her marketing strategy.  Presentations on hypnotherapy have proven tan effective marketing tool for  Dr. Mary Sidhwani. “The community learns more about the effectiveness of hypnotherapy and also creates exposure for my practice and services,” Sidhwani says.

My grandpa used to say, “I never met a shrink who didn’t need one,” as if that was a valid reason for not seeking help for mental health problems. After being a therapist for nearly two decades, I totally agree with my Grandpa.

Therapists are an interesting and colorful bunch and we definitely have our own share of mental health problems. I’d take grandpa’s phrase even farther by saying I’ve never met a person who didn’t need a shrink. We can all benefit from examining our experiences and getting an outside perspective from a mental health professional during difficult times.

The most effective therapists I’ve worked with, as a colleague and as a client, are those who’ve already worked through some of their own mental health and relationship struggles with a therapist, have a handle on their own pain and vulnerability, understand their family relationship patterns, and are comfortable walking with others through their pain. Not only is working through issues with your own therapist good for your own mental health and personal relationships, it’s also good for your therapy practice.

Your most powerful tool to build your private therapy practice in the digital age is an effective practice website. The Internet allows us to talk directly to potential clients who are seeking mental health information and services. The majority of Americans, 62 percent, use the Internet to find health care information (Pew Internet and Family Life Study, 2009).

Few therapists have training in website programing and design, but as technology evolves, more options become available to create a cheap or free website that looks professional and accurately represents your practice. My websites are built on WordPress, a fairly easy platform on which to build a website or blog. There are thousands and thousands of free WordPress themes that you can use to customize your practice website. Therapy Sites, another website resource for therapists, allows you to select a template and customize it for your practice based on a monthly fee.

As I’ve consulted with therapists, developed my own websites, and done a lot of internet research, I’ve noticed some common mistakes that therapists frequently make when it comes to building websites.  These are the top five mistakes I’ve seen and suggestions for how to fix the problem to make your website more effective.

What is Twitter?

Twitter is a popular social media platform where users can send short updates that are up to 140 characters long.  Twitter is basically the equivalent of a Facebook status update newsfeed. If you have no idea what a “newsfeed” or “status update” is, then you may want to stop reading here and start by setting up a Facebook account.

Facebook is THE social network site and is the most effective way to build your practice through social media because of it’s high number of daily users. Here’s an article on how to set up a Facebook Page for your practice.  If you want to know how to use Twitter, here are a few suggestions on how to effectively tweet to build your practice.

How can Twitter help you build your practice?

Twitter, like all social media platforms, is a forum for conversation and connecting with other people online. It is also a great way to spread the word about your practice, to educate the public about issues you care about, and to share your areas of expertise. The point of social networking sites like Twitter is…uh…the social networking. If your Twitter followers find value in your tweets they will share them by retweeting your information their Twitter followers. Over time you can grow a network of people who are sharing your tweets which helps you get the word out about your private therapy practice.