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Hi Friend,
Happy belated Valentine’s Day! I hope your life is full of love.
Today’s post branches out from my focus on wellness practitioners and clinics, to the broader industry associations that bring them together. Because they can benefit just as much from blogging!
Happy writing,
Linda
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Wellness blogs serve a definite purpose for practitioners and clinics looking to attract new clients, but blogging makes good sense for wellness associations as well. In fact, there are multiple winners when health and wellness associations blog well.
The public wins, when the association publishes high-quality educational material about the services their members deliver, as well as general tips that inspire and equip people to live healthier lives.
One group that does an excellent job with this is the Canadian Chiropractic Association. Their blog includes a wide range of topics related to chiropractic treatment and general health and wellness.
The association wins, as they attract more trust, attention and awareness from both the general public and their prospective members.
The members (wellness practitioners) win, by being able to share this quality content with their own network. This highlights their credibility as both a trusted resource and a member of an industry association.
Blogging is a healthy marketing strategy
Beth Kanter is the author of The Happy Healthy Nonprofit: Impact without Burnout, a book about how nonprofit professionals can practice self-care and activate a culture of wellbeing in the workplace.
I asked Beth why nonprofit associations would want to blog. “A blog can help keep your website less static and allow you to cover breaking news in your field,” she told me. “It can also form the basis of your content strategy for social media and other digital channels.”
That is such an important point, especially for organizations who wonder how to stay active on social media. As I noted in this article about blog post promotion on social media, people are always searching for and sharing content that will provide value to their network. You can provide that content.
Stepping into the spotlight
Blogging is also a great way to highlight and recognize members and other stakeholders, Kanter noted. And, for those writing the blog posts, she says, it can help build their subject matter expertise and thought leadership.
There are two ways associations can spotlight their members, which benefits the members and also the association, since this feature can attract new members and encourage member retention.
The first way is to profile their members, who enjoy additional exposure and credibility. For example, Dietitians in Integrative and Functional Medicine (DIFM) regularly feature their professional members as well as student members.
The second is to invite members to write articles for the site, giving them the same benefits as blogging on their own website. DIFM feature member recipes on the blog, with a detailed bio and photo at the bottom of each post (read why I recommend bylines as well).
Blogging tips for health and wellness associations
Whether your wellness association is a non-profit organization or a business, these three tips from Beth Kanter will help you blog better:
- Schedule for success - Kanter recommends (as do I) having an editorial calendar that identifies themes and topics you will write about.
- Build a team - she also notes it’s a good idea to have different authors who cover different beats so you can spread the workload.
- Use a template - your bloggers can write more efficiently using templates for different types of articles, e.g., how-to posts versus personal opinion posts. DIFM uses variations of the same basic set of questions for their member profiles, making these very straightforward posts to replicate.
When you blog from your wellness association website, everybody wins - you, the members you serve, and the clients they help.
P.S. Click here for more tips about running a multi-author blog.
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Wellness Tips and Industry News
To see the newest links I’ve shared about blogging, wellness, the wellness industry, small business, productivity, and other topics, please visit me on Twitter or Facebook. |
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About Linda:
 Linda Dessau is the author of Write Your Way to More Clients Online: How to craft captivating content for newsletters, blogs and social media. She has been blogging since 2004 and launched Content Mastery Guide in July 2005 to help other business owners get their ideas into writing. Read more blogging tips. |
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