Why Your Content Isn’t Working
I see physios doing this all the time.
They spend hours creating content. They post Reels three or four times a week. They make carousels. They talk about the latest research. They demonstrate exercises. They explain different treatment techniques.
Then six months later they say:
“Social media doesn’t generate any patients.”
And when you actually look at their content, the reason is normally pretty obvious.
They’re writing posts for physios. Not patients.
Now, if your objective is to build an audience of physios, crack on. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
But for the majority of clinic owners I speak to, that isn’t the objective. They want new patients. And if you want patients, you need to create content for patients.
It sounds ridiculously obvious. But scroll through the average physio clinic Instagram account and look at who the content is actually speaking to.
You’ll see posts about the latest research. You’ll see exercise demonstrations. You’ll see explanations of different treatment techniques. You’ll see terminology that another physio would understand immediately but means absolutely nothing to the average person scrolling through Instagram with a bad back.
Then we wonder why nobody books in.
“You need your patient to see the first line of your post and think: ‘That’s me.'”
Your Patient Doesn’t Care About the Same Things You Do
This is probably the biggest shift you need to make.
You are interested in physiotherapy. Your patient isn’t.
You might be interested in the latest research around tendinopathy. Your patient wants to know why their Achilles hurts every morning when they get out of bed.
You might be interested in the biomechanics of running. Your patient wants to know why their knee starts hurting after 5K when they’re training for a half marathon.
You might want to explain the latest evidence around lower back pain. Your patient is lying in bed wondering why their back is always worse first thing in the morning.
That is the content. Because that is what is actually going around inside their head.
The best patient content speaks directly to an internal frustration, worry or question that somebody already has.
“This is why your back is worse first thing in the morning.” “Why does my knee hurt when I walk downstairs?” “Why does my shoulder hurt in bed but feel fine during the day?” “Do I actually need an MRI for my back?” “Why does my Achilles hurt for the first ten minutes of a run and then disappear?”
Those are completely different posts from: “Three exercises for lower back pain.”
One is generic physio content. The other makes somebody stop scrolling because you have just described something that is happening to them.
And that is the game.
You need your patient to see the first line of your post and think: “That’s me.”
If you can consistently do that, your content will become infinitely more effective.
Ask Your Front Desk What People Are Asking
There is another source of content sitting right under your nose.
Your front desk.
Go and ask whoever answers your phones: “What questions do people ask you all the time?”
I guarantee they’ll have loads.
“How much is an appointment?” “Do I need to see my GP first?” “Do you treat sciatica?” “Can you help if I’ve already had an MRI?” “How quickly can I get seen?” “Do I need a referral?” “Is it worth seeing someone if I’ve had this for years?”
Your front desk team hears the questions people ask before they become patients. That makes those questions incredibly valuable.
Because these aren’t questions from someone who is already bought into physiotherapy. They are the questions and objections people have while they are deciding whether to book.
So answer them publicly. Make videos about them. Write blogs about them. Turn them into emails. Create posts around them.
You are basically removing objections before somebody ever picks up the phone.
Then Use AI to Find the Questions You’re Missing
If you want to take this another level, use the information you already have.
Think about how many conversations your clinic has every month. Emails. Instagram comments. DMs. Website enquiries. Social media messages. Maybe WhatsApp messages.
There is an enormous amount of information sitting there about what your potential patients actually care about.
Connect whatever AI application you use to the platforms you can safely and appropriately analyse, and get it to look for patterns.
What questions keep coming up? What are people worried about? What stops people booking? What symptoms do people repeatedly mention? What language do they use to describe their problems? What misconceptions keep appearing?
Then create your content around that.
You are no longer guessing what your target market wants to hear. They are literally telling you.
And the language is important as well. If your patients constantly describe something as a “trapped nerve”, there is probably a content opportunity around trapped nerves. You might not use that terminology clinically. That doesn’t matter. It is what your patient is typing into Google and saying to their friends.
Meet them where they are. You can educate them once you’ve got their attention.
Stop Trying to Impress Other Physios
This is probably the bit that some people won’t like.
A lot of physio content is created, consciously or subconsciously, to impress other physios. We want to demonstrate how much we know. We want to show that we’ve read the research. We want other clinicians to look at the post and think we’re good at what we do.
But your patient doesn’t care.
And if your objective is to generate patients, other physios aren’t your target market. Your patients are.
So before you post anything, ask yourself one question:
Would one of my patients actually care about this?
If the answer is no, don’t post it.
Listen to what people ask you in the treatment room. Speak to your front desk. Look at your emails. Look at your DMs. Look at your comments. Find the questions, frustrations and worries that keep appearing.
Then answer them.
Do that consistently and your content stops looking like every other physio account on Instagram.
More importantly, potential patients start seeing your content and thinking:
“This person understands exactly what I’m dealing with.”
And once you can create that feeling at scale, your social media stops being somewhere you post exercises. It becomes a patient acquisition channel.
Joe