Advocacy and You: LinkedIn & Google+

We have looked at how to build your advocacy efforts into your facebook and twitter accounts. This week we will look at how to amp up your LinkedIn profile and Google+ account.

For LinkedIn:

• Connect: Build your network and make sure it includes people outside of the music therapy or creative arts therapies. People who do what you do, know the importance of it. In order to be an effective advocate, you need to teach as many people as you can.
• Let your profile speak: Put as much information as you can on your profile that relates to what music therapy, art therapy, etc. can accomplish. Make sure you don’t publish anything that would violate HIPPA. But the more you can put that explains what you really experience and accomplish for clients, the better you can spread the power of your profession.

For Google+

Google+ is a tricky social media site. For month’s it was private and you could only get in with an invitation. Then it was opened to the public and many people didn’t find a use for it. But there are some advantages to being on Google+ and how you can use them to be a better advocate.

• Google+ is a Google product. This means Google will naturally favor it in their search engine algorithm. Having any type of presence on Google+ will help your organization and advocacy efforts get higher rankings in Google searches.
• Use the Circles: If you don’t know what circles are, they are ways you can group your Google+ connections. You can easily create lists of people you can advocate to and how people fit into different advocacy outreaches.
• +1: This is like the Facebook “like” button but it works directly with Google searches. You can build the +1 button into your website or encourage people to plus when searching. The more “plus 1s” you get the higher you will show up in searches as well.

I hope you now have the tools to increase your advocacy efforts on social media. Feel free to share your success stories and efforts in the comments below. Join us on Wednesday to learn more about branding and marketing and why it IS important for your private practice.

Advocacy and You: Facebook

So how do you become an effective advocate? There are so many ways you can fight for the things you believe in and with the power of social media you can expand your efforts.  In honor of #MTADVOCACY month, we want to show you how you can expand your advocacy efforts with your social media profiles to achieve your goals.

Facebook is a great tool for advocacy. With over 800 million active users, you have an attentive audience to preach to. Here are some ways you can expand your advocacy efforts with Facebook:

• Gather the troops: In order to be an effective advocate you need to have a variety of people who support your cause. Facebook is a great tool to do this. People actively use the site and spend a majority of their time there.  You can create a page in support of your cause and spread it through your network. Encourage people to like the page and share it with others who will support the cause. The more “likes” you get, the farther your advocacy megaphone will reach. You will have more success getting people to join a Facebook page than subscribing to another newsletter.
• Encourage conversation: What better way to get people motivated? Use your wall to strike up a conversation about your cause. Share your passions and thoughts and encourage others to do the same. The more people talk about your cause, the more support you will get. One great example I have of this is of a Music Therapist who took to advocating for their profession on a blog where people were criticizing it. Her passionate comments caused her to be contacted by people who were moved by the power of Music Therapy and wanted to be a part of it. She not only educated outsiders, but also was able to move people to make a change in their life. (Another benefit of having a running conversation on your wall is that you will have a record of who is extremely passionate. You can reach out to the most active people to get them more involved.)
• Digital Petitions: Ahh, the petition. Going door-to-door collecting signatures to encourage your government to take action on your cause, who has time for that anymore? You can use Facebook to get your petition in front of more people in less time. I highly recommend the site CARE2 (http://www.thepetitionsite.com/create.html). You can create a digital petition and automatically have it available on Facebook. You can easily share it with your own network, your active advocacy page, and encourage people to spread the petition for you. It will help you spend less time on collecting signatures and allow you to actually advocate for your cause.
• Expand: You can’t get complacent with your Facebook advocacy efforts. Too often we encourage people to get involved with a cause on Facebook but that is it. We don’t give them any sort of follow up or action they can take to the real world. Use your Facebook page as a central hub for your efforts on-line, but provide resources to help people get involved offline. Facebook is a vast landscape and people can easily forget about your cause if you don’t get them interested. If Facebook was a country, it would be the 3^rd largest in the world. With so many other distractions, don’t let people get lost in the crowd and forget about your cause.

Try to start incorporating the tips into your Facebook advocacy efforts. Remember to never give up. It takes a long time to grow support for your cause, and the best way to ensure success is to keep moving forward. Check back on Friday to see how to optimize your Twitter account for your advocacy efforts.