The Fastest Ways to Break Trust on Instagram as a Local Health Practitioner [Episode 185]

Molly: Hello, friends. I've missed you. I'm considering going back to weekly episodes now that I have an amazing new fractional COO who has just, like, simplified my day-to-day so much. We still have, we still have some work to do for sure, but I feel like I'm, like, able to come up for air again. So anyway, I've missed talking to you and, um, yeah, DM me if, like, you think you want me to go back to weekly episodes.

And if you haven't yet, please can you just... If you go on Apple Podcast, if you use Apple Podcasts, leave me a review. That also helps me know that you're listening and helps me kind of see if I need to go back to weekly. I'm really wanting to get to 100 reviews before the end of the year, and I'm so close, so that would be great.

Okay, I'm going to do... These are gonna be... Uh, this is gonna be a short episode. I'm gonna make it, like, a two-part series, if you will, and it's gonna be all about trust. So I don't know if you have heard the term that we are in a, quote, "trust recession." If you haven't heard that term, I don't think I need to explain it to you.

You know what it means. There's so many people out there posting, especially in the health and wellness field, so much content, people who have far fewer credentials and lived experience seeing patients and clients than you do. So how do we make sure that your authority actually comes through? And on top of that, how do we make sure that your humanity comes through and your personality?

The more and more I do this work, the more I've realized that my superpower isn't in... You know, I'm never going to be the marketer who's, like, teaching you fancy KPI tracking and funnels and all of this. Uh, that- that's just not me. I think all of that's important, but that's... Like, I'm not the person that you would go to for all of that.

My superpower is helping you harness your humanity and your personality and infusing that into your clinic or practice's Instagram page, even if you have multiple practitioners, multidisciplinary clinic. Even if you're a private person and you're like, "Oh my gosh, no, I want to keep business and, and, and my personal life separate," you can still do that and, like, show your humanity.

So that's kind of what we're gonna talk about in this two-part series is the trust recession, like I said, how, how we establish trust. Um, so let's dive in.

Hey, welcome to Holistic Marketing

Simplified. This podcast boils down to the fact that we wholeheartedly believe that more humans need to know about holistic health solutions, and you didn't go to school to learn how to be a full-time content creator and show up on Instagram and do all of this marketing stuff all day, every day.

So let's come hang out while we chat all things easing your marketing, and my goal is that you shift your mindset around your marketing from a, quote, "should" to a, "I get to." More dream patients and clients? Yes, please.

Nic: Hi, I'm Nic, certified yoga therapist in Victoria, British Columbia, and I help people with back pain and anxiety, and I listen to and love the Holistic Marketing Simplified Podcast.

Molly: Okay, I hate it when people read statistics, but I think these are important for you to hear. A recent... This was from Pew Research Center. It says 36% of Americans get health information from social media, which is crazy. 35% of surveyed patients have chosen a doctor based on their social media presence. 35%, that's crazy.

And then 61% of Americans surveyed said they wanted their doctor to have an established personal brand. When you hear the word personal brand, I don't want you to get, like, all in your head because, um, I just presented at a chiropractic conference actually this past weekend. I got to present in a hot tub, a mineral pool.

It was so cool. Courtney Gowan Busby from Wander Learn helped, um, Dr. Rosemary Bataneski and, and Dr. Jennifer Bondi from Chiro Freedom Formula. They're, uh, amazing chiro business coaches. You should check them out. She helped facilitate this amazing CE session, like, poolside in Dallas. Anyway, it was amazing.

But that's one of the questions that I got was, like, do I need to have a separate personal account from my clinic page? And I'm not gonna dive into that today. I'm gonna talk about that on part two of this series. But, um, just know that you don't necessarily have to have... So don't let-- Don't hear personal brand and think, "Oh my gosh, now I've got to have a personal brand Instagram and a practice Instagram."

No. Um, there are instances where, you know, you do, and like I said, I'll talk about that in two weeks on the next episode. But, but no, you don't, you do not ha- like, have to have two separate accounts. Um, I really teach you how to infuse that personal brand feel into your clinic account, okay? So I'm just gonna use the word clinic and practice interchangeably here because I know y'all kind of have different words that you use for that, okay?

With that, I wanted to talk about some ways that we can instantly, like, break trust. So these are some things that I see commonly. It's just gonna be like a little bit of a rapid fire list. These are things that I commonly see when I am auditing clinic or practice pages that I'm like, "Okay, these are the things that are automatically break trust with potential patients or clients," okay?

The first is AI-generated images and AI-generated, like, copy slop, even down to, like, AI-generated flyers and, like, graphics. Like, people aren't, people aren't reading those, guys. Like, there's usually... So I actually saw this really funny meme, like, making fun of AI-generated, like, flyer type graphics, like, if you're having an event and how it's like a treasure map because you're, like, trying to fit so much onto one screen.

Uh, just had an amazing client switch to our agency from someone else, and they were, like, the other agency was posting AI clone videos of her talking, like that is like an instant trust breaker. AI photos of you working in your practice. I... No, this is gonna be like controversial because a lot of people I like love and trust do this, but I am not even a fan of AI headshots.

I think you can tell, and I think they all kind of look the same even now. So like I said, that's just, that's just me. Now, we use AI in our business every single day. We use AI for all our agency clients. I have three new Claude skills in my membership Holistic Marketing Hub that help you, um, with your messaging.

I have a skill that writes your bio for you based on your messaging, and I even just put in a brand new Claude skill that interviews you and uses my content ecosystem to, um, map out 12 posts at a time for you. Um, actually that would be-- I didn't even plan to talk about that in this episode, but if you haven't jumped into the Hub, you should because it's exactly like the ethos of these two episodes.

It's like how do you infuse like that personal thought leadership type of content in with the educational content? I get that question all the time, and this new Claude skill that I have inside of the Hub like literally does that for you. It like walks you through it. So anyway, um, that, that little side quest disclaimer was just to say I'm not anti-AI, but you still have to, you still have to be human, okay?

The other thing that breaks trust is syndicated stock content. So I know this exists for chiropractors, acupuncturists. I've seen it for essential oils. I've seen it for-- I mean, I'm sure, like, every business has this, where it's like, okay, you pay a monthly fee, and you subscribe to a social media service, and they've got all of these pre-made Instagram posts that you can just throw up.

I'm telling you, whatever amount of time or money you think you're saving by subscribing to one of those, in twenty twenty-six and beyond, it, it is no longer. You are either wasting your time or wasting your money. I bet you a million dollars you're getting two likes on those, if any. So it's just not the landscape they were in anymore.

They used to work. Listen, I have some Canva. If I look way back in the yesteryear of my Canva, you'll see posts I created that are just like that. Like, that's kinda how I started my business. In fact, I actually-- one of my first ideas for a business model was gonna be called Social Download, and I was gonna do all these chiropractic templates, and I had hired a photographer to take stock photography for me, but it's just, like, not the landscape anymore.

You just can't do it. So again, that's another way of, like, breaking trust. And when I say breaking trust, like, it doesn't have to be all that serious. I just mean, like, if I come to your profile and see either AI-generated flyers, AI-generated photos, videos, syndicated stock content, I'm not booking you because I'm like, "Eh, I don't feel like I know this person."

So that's kind of what I mean by trust. I don't mean like, "I don't trust you." Like, not necessarily that deep, okay? The other thing that breaks trust is having zero photos or videos of you actually working with patients or clients. I, I don't believe you. You know what I mean? Like, there's this world out there of people saying, "I do XYZ," but where's the pr- what's that?

What is that Jerry Maguire? "Show me the money." Like, I actually wanna see that you're doing it. Whether that's, you know... I-- go back to my episode, we'll link it in the show notes, where I talked about professional photography being, like, literally the very first thing I would do. Make sure you're getting that video.

Film in 4K, thirty frames per second for the best video. Make sure you're getting that video of you actually working with clients or patients. If you don't wanna show faces of, like, kids or anything like that, totally fine. Get the back of their head. Get their feet. Whatever. You don't have to show faces to still have, like, real humans in your content.

Now I'm gonna get into some more that are a little, I don't know, a little more spicy. The first is acting like the goal of your, you know, being under your care or the goal of health or wellness is always being 100% symptom-free. This drives me crazy. It actually put me... Like, when I first started going the holistic health rabbit hole, like, I don't know, 15 years ago, because I was on four prescriptions in my mid-20s, um, and I just like, w- and now I'm on none, thanks to all of you, so thank you.

I'm not anti-medication by any stretch of the imagination, but they were just, you know, things that I was misprescribed and blah, blah, blah. That's a story for a different day. But I do hate it when People overpromise in their content. Some days you're just not gonna have a good night's sleep, right?

Sometimes you're gonna wake up to pee in the middle of the night because you drank too much water before bed. Sometimes you're gonna have a headache no matter if you get adjusted, you go to acupuncture, and you've drank tons of water. Okay? So I always like to almost, like, pad, if you will, our clients' content.

Okay, an example of this in one of our client's posts who... We, we tend to attract a lot of pregnancy and, um, pediatric chiropractors. So for example, this post was about, "I've helped thousands of pregnant mamas feel their best and actually enjoy their pregnancy. Here's what I wish, um, you knew sooner." Then the post continues to say, this is a carousel, the second slide is, "Constant pain during pregnancy is not, quote, 'just part of it.'

Your pelvis is shifting, your ligaments are loosening," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. "Real support is available for all of it." And then underneath that, this is what I mean by, like, padding and, like, not trying to pretend like the goal is to be 100% symptom-free, and that's like you're either well or you're not.

You know what I mean? It's like we all know it's like a continuum. So we put in italics, "I'm not saying you'll be 100% pain-free all the time, but we can definitely get you way more comfortable." I'm immediately trusting this person more than the person who's, like, guaranteeing I'm never gonna have a pregnancy ache or pain ever again.

So that's what I mean by, like I said, like, padding your stuff. I also, for... On that same topic, we, um, for those of you who have our Dr. Mo, um, research content bundle, if you don't, um, actually you should go ahead and grab that. That's actually my next point. I'll talk about that next. But one of the posts was on chiropractic.

Uh, one of s- one of the research studies was on VBACs and chiropractic care, and I thought it was very important to add in a slide that's like, C-sections save lives. Like, this is not an anti-sec- this is not a shame... Like, this is a shame-free space. Like, I hate when people go all in and so swing so far to where they act like there's, like, this one perfect way when there are, I know plenty of people who do, quote, "all the right things" and still end up needing a C-section because it's medically necessary.

So that's what I kind of mean by, like, padding your content and, and not writing your content in a way, like, the goal is, like, this or that, all or nothing. Okay, in that same vein, on that same topic, is cherry-picking research Guys, I saw a c- a cl- not a client, no, we would never do this. I saw a practice that went crazy viral for cherry-picking some data that didn't actually prove what they thought it was.

Um, it was on sensory processing disorder and C-sections, and oh my lord, they got so much hate in the comments. So that is why I partnered with Dr. Monique Andrews for-- to create our chiropractic research bundle. I have taken all of her chiropractic research reviews. If you don't know Dr. Monique, Dr. Mo knows, come on, like, what are you doing?

For my chiropractors. For my non-chiros listening, um, if you have a thought leader in the research space in your modality, let me know. I would love to partner with them. But anyway, I took the... Like, she takes chiropractic, like, the big long, like, PubMed papers and all that, and then she breaks it down into, like, easy-to-understand language.

And then I took all of that and put that into Canva templates that you can just change out and put your branding and your own photos, whatever, and post on your own Instagram that's obviously, like, written from a patient-facing lens. And so that, again, like going back to the VBAC thing, it was very important to me that we weren't misrepresenting the data or cherry-picking data to try to prove a point, because that is one of the fastest ways to lose trust.

And listen, I don't-- I didn't mean, I didn't plan to get on this soapbox, but I do see a lot of holistic practitioners who like... 'Cause this actually goes beautifully into my next one. Another way to break trust is content that bashes other practitioners and modalities. That definitely breaks trust. And I get it, like, so many of us came to this world because we literally could have sued twice.

My grandmother's doctor, my dad's doctor, I probably could have sued. I was misprescribed a steroid for six years. I was on a corticosteroid, fludrocortisone, for POTS for six years because the cardiologist who put me on it did not tell me that it was short-term, and they just kept refilling it for six years.

So listen, no one's more, like, salty than I am. But when you act like, like I said, this is, um, this actually, I'll merge this into my next point, which is, uh, a- another way you can break trust is content that makes it seem like your modality was heaven-sent and everyone else's view on healing is garbage does not build trust, okay?

So, like, I get it. So many of you have a cult following, and you're like, "I only want the people who know that there's a better way to do wellness." But I don't know what the st- um, stats are for, like, acupuncture or homeopathy or functional medicine or whatever, but I know for chiropractic care that it typically stays around twelve percent.

Like, only twelve percent of the population is under active care. Y'all correct me if I'm wrong on that. So it's like if you, if we want more people under care, not just in chiropractic, but all of these modalities, then we have to change the way we've always done things. And I am more interested in building bridges than, like, being so far on the spectrum where you're like, "Oh, no, this is like, this is terrible."

That's kind of the things, like I said, that totally breaks trust Okay. The very last one, and I don't think this is gonna apply to a lot of you, if you are running paid ads, that, that doesn't break trust. But, um, if you're only running paid ads and you're not still posting organically on your feed, that also breaks trust.

You don't have to be posting, like, all the time. You could probably run paid ads and post once a week. But just so that people, like, when they see a paid ad of yours and then they come back to your page, like, your organic page, they're like, "Oh, they're still in business." Let me tell you why this is important, and I don't know if this is your consumer behavior, but this is certainly mine, and I know I'm not alone.

When I get served up an ad on Instagram for a product or a service or a coach or whatever, I don't click on the link in the ad. The first thing I do is click on their Instagram page and go to their organic content and see if they're still actively posting. I see if they're getting comments from current, you know, user- like, users of the product or, you know, if, like I said, if it's a service, like, clients of theirs, and that's how I decide whether or not it's trustworthy.

I was looking at these, like, sleep gummies, for example, and I was like, "Oh, these are, like, really interesting to me." And I got to their organic social page, and they hadn't posted in three years. And literally, the most recent post they had from three years ago, everyone was commenting, "Are y'all still in business?"

So that is, like I said, uh, the last way. Oh, wait, I forgot my most important one. It was at the very bottom of my outline. Y'all know, y'all know about this one. I have other episodes where I dive into this more, but oh my gosh, stop using fear. Stop using fear, clickbait to get rage bait, to get views. Guys, I saw...

I've seen some egregious things where I'm like, "You are the most uneth- ethical practi- practitioner." Like, I don't wanna call out something specific I recently saw because it's so specific. I'm afraid like, like y'all would know who this person was. But basically, it had a whole bunch of red flags, and it was about, like, on the...

It had, like, the post had red flags on it, and red flags for me too. But it was talking about something with your kid and, like, their health. And anyway, it just created instant anxiety in my body, and it's like we can talk about pain points. You can still talk about pain points in marketing without using fear and scaring the crap out of people.

So if you are, like, looking over your hooks and headlines and you're like, "Ooh," you, you have that, that little barometer inside of you. You start getting that feeling. You're like, "Mm, I don't know," then, then that's the problem, right? So, okay, like I said, there are... How many ways was that? That was one, that was, like, 10.

That was, like, 10 ways to break trust, I guess. Maybe it wasn't 10. Who knows? But anyway, I hope this was super helpful for you, and stay tuned for part two in two weeks. I'm gonna give you some more, like, tactical ways that we, you know how we, uh, going back to the beginning about bringing that humanness to your page in order to establish trust, um, trust.

I'm gonna give you some actual specific prompts of posts and, like, post ideas that you can do to bring that more personal brand feel onto your clinic or practice page so that we can continue building trust. Don't forget to grab Dr. Monique Andrews. If you're a chiropractor, don't forget to grab our, um, chiro research bundle.

It's on sale for Black Friday. At the time this goes live, the coupon should already be live. The coupon is just Black Friday. Uh, we'll link it in the show notes, or you can go to mollykahill.com/chirobundle and grab that there. It gives you $200 off. So I hope y'all have a fabulous day. Bye. Thank you for listening to Holistic Marketing Simplified.

And hey, you know how every podcaster at the very end of their episode asks you to rate and review their podcast? Well, that's because it's super important. These podcasts take a lot of time and heart and effort to produce to bring you free information. So in order for me to be able to continue doing that, we need more people to find out about the show.

So if you could, please just take, like, two minutes out of your very busy day to leave me a rating and share this on your Instagram stories and tag @mollyakahill. That's C-A-H-I-L-L. I would greatly, greatly appreciate your support. I know your time is valuable, and I can't wait to see you in the next episode.