Ep 75 - Stop wasting time on social media and start attracting clients instead

Episode Show Notes

As a health professional, you didn’t train for years just to spend your time dancing on Reels or scrambling for content ideas. And yet - here we are.

If you’ve ever felt like social media is draining your energy without delivering results, you’re not alone. The problem isn’t you. It’s the lack of strategy.

In this post, I’m breaking down the exact shifts you can make to build a social media strategy that actually grows your business, attracts ideal clients, and puts an end to posting for the sake of it.

Why Social Media Isn’t Working For You (Yet)

Let’s start with the truth: most dietitians and clinicians are educating, not marketing.

You’re creating valuable posts - answering questions, sharing tips, busting myths - but nothing’s happening. No new enquiries. No discovery calls. No paying clients.

That’s because giving value without structure doesn’t move people toward working with you. Instead, your posts float around in the ether helping… no one in particular.

You don’t need to post more. You need to post with purpose.

Shift #1: Every Post Needs a Job

One of the biggest mindset shifts you can make is this:

Stop asking “What should I post today?”
Start asking “What is this post meant to do?”

There are 3 essential types of content every strategy needs - and each one supports a different part of your client journey.

1. Visibility Content

Designed to help new people find you and say “Ooh, this is relevant to me.”
Think:

• Myth-busting posts
  
• Tiny educational tips
  
• Relatable quotes or common struggles
  
  

2. Nurture Content

Helps warm followers deepen trust and connection.
Think:

• Personal opinions or stories
  
• Behind-the-scenes insights
  
• Client journeys or case studies
  
  

3. Conversion Content

Encourages people to take action - whether that’s downloading your lead magnet or booking a discovery call.
Think:

• Testimonials & case studies to inspire
  
• Calls-to-action where you ask them to take the next step.
  
  

You only need one type per post - but you need all three in your strategy.

Shift #2: Smaller = Stronger

Many dietitians try to teach too much in every post.

The result? Overwhelmed followers who scroll past your caption mid-way through.

Your job is not to teach - it’s to spark interest and build connection.

Here’s what works instead:

This is especially important if you're trying to get seen by new people. The scroll is fast, people are multitasking, so you need content that’s clear, quick, and highly relevant.

Shift #3: Speak Emotionally, Not Just Professionally

Most clinicians write in their educator or clinical voice.

But your ideal client isn’t on social media looking for education — they’re looking for relief from their daily struggles.

Instead of writing a post like:

“Top tips for iron-rich toddler meals”

Try:

“You’ve just had your child’s blood test back. Low iron. You’re panicking, wondering what you did wrong. Here's one iron rich food you can serve for dinner tonight.”

This shift  from head to heart is what builds true resonance. It shows your audience that you understand their lived experience, not just their test results.

When you do this well, you connect as they feel seen and heard, that leads to trust. And trust leads to conversions.

Shift #4: Build a Plan That Aligns With Your Business Goals

Imagine sitting down to plan your content and saying:

“My goal is to fill my clinic spots next month, so this month I need to grow my audience. Therefore next week I’ll post:

• 3 posts specifically for visibility
  
• 1 post to nurture my existing audience
  
• 1 conversion post to encourage people to download my freebie”
  
  

Done. Strategic. Aligned with your goals.

That’s how you use social media as a business growth tool, not just a creative outlet.

You Don’t Need to Be an Influencer

You don’t need a huge audience.
You don’t even need to post every day.
You definitely don’t need to dance on Reels, hack the algorithm or go viral.

What you do need is a clear, consistent, client-focused strategy.

And that’s exactly what I’ll be teaching inside my brand new programme:
👉 Social Media Made Simple

If you’re ready to learn the strategy to use social media to get more clients — this is for you.

📥 Join the VIP Waitlist Now

Be first in line when doors open at 9.30am on 20th October 2025 and grab the exclusive VIP waitlist only bonuses (and the chance to get the programme for FREE and win £200!!).

👉 Join the VIP Waitlist Here

The Master Plan:

Helping you build the business of your dreams. Get your 22 point step-by step workbook here: https://www.sarahalmondbushell.com/master-plan

Connect with me:

Website: https://www.sarahalmondbushell.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dietitiansinbusiness/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dietitiansinbusiness

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/beyondtheclinicbusiness

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BeyondTheClinicPodcast

Episode transcription:

Welcome along to episode number 75 called how to stop wasting time on social media and start attracting clients instead. Now, let me guess, you perhaps have just sat down to create next week's social media content and suddenly you're staring at a blank Canva template and you're wondering if anyone actually wants another five ways to eat more fibre type of post for the third time, maybe even this month.

You've shared tips, you've given interesting facts, you've busted a few myths, and you've posted a couple of recipe videos and told people that your diary is open for discovery calls. And what happens? Nothing. Now, social media is meant to be a way to grow your business, right? But instead, it feels like a chaotic guessing game.

If that's where you're at, then today's episode is for you because I want to show you a simpler and more strategic way to use social media and one that works really well for healthcare professionals like us who want to use it to get more clients. And don't worry, it's not about chasing the latest trend or hacking the algorithm. There'll be no weird dances and no viral hacks, just a strategic system that helps you attract and connect with paying clients. So if that sounds good, let's go.

Now here's what I see all the time. Brilliant, qualified professionals, dietitians, nutritionists, HCPC registered clinicians showing up on social media with the best of intentions. They're giving advice, they're answering FAQs, they're sharing their professional opinions, and they're doing it because they genuinely care. They want the public to get the right information about their health.

But they also run a business and they're hoping to get clients and their social media, well, it doesn't really have any strategy. They're hoping that if they just given enough valuable, helpful content, if they just bust a few more myths, people will see them as the expert that they are and they'll start inquiring about how to work with them. Except that doesn't happen.

And if this is you, you might begin to doubt yourself. You might start thinking, is it me? Do I come across a bit boring? Maybe I'm just not very good at this. But you know what? It is not you. It's the lack of strategy, a structure that finds new people and makes them want to follow you and encourages them to consume more of your stuff and then DM you with an inquiry about working together.

What you want, well, what we all want is to show up on social media with a purpose, to know what to say, to know when to say it and to know who we're saying it to. And most of all, to trust that when we do post, it's actually doing something for our businesses.

Let's be honest, I think many of us put social media at the bottom of our to-do lists, especially when you're busy, when you're trying to juggle client work and keep up to date and the admin and all of this stuff that happens in your day-to-day, like maybe school runs or nursery drop-offs or housework or you know, just getting dinner on the table.

Your social media can feel like the least important thing to do in your business. And yet it nags at you a little bit because you know that being visible really does matter, that people need to be aware of your brand. You know people need to see you in order to trust you. So you post something often it's on the fly and you hope that it lands.

You try to be consistent and not have huge gaps where you don't post at all. You try to be helpful so that your audience sees your expertise. You try to add value. But you're wondering if any of this is actually working. You might start to think, well, actually, you know what? Is it the algorithm? Have I been shadow banned? Or if you've ever felt like you're posting and nothing happens or worse, your posts are just attracting the wrong type of people entirely.

You're not alone because everyone's feeling it. And you know what? I've been there as well. Let me tell you a little truth that might surprise you. In my nutrition business, I grew a large following on social media without any strategy at all. At one point I had over 45,000 followers across the various platforms. My posts got plenty of engagement. The likes, the saves, the shares, they were all there. have these lovely conversations with parents in my Facebook group. I felt a real connection with them and I was absolutely delighted to be helping.

And yet most of that didn't turn into paying clients. I was attracting the wrong type of people. They were lovely, curious people who really truly did need my help, but they weren't the ones who were ready or able to invest in professional support.

Now, why was that? Well, it was because I wasn't marketing. I was educating. I'd fallen into what all of the online marketing gurus were teaching back then, trap, this idea of generosity marketing, but I just didn't know how to use this properly. Just give value, they'd say, just post tips and answer questions and help people for free and then the clients will come, except they didn't. And generosity marketing can work. In fact, I still use it now, but back then I just didn't know how to use it strategically. I was giving, and giving and giving, but without a clear plan to move people along the journey towards becoming a client.

And so, whilst I built an engaged audience, they weren't converting into cash. And meanwhile, I felt exhausted. Creating content started to feel like a chore, not because I didn't want to help people, I certainly did, I wasn't getting anything in return, except for a bunch of lovely people to chat to. Now, I'm not someone who sits down and scrolls Instagram in my spare time. I don't really use social media to be social. I don't even have personal profiles, just the business ones. I use it to find resources, to research, to run my business, not to connect or chat. So here I was using a tool that I didn't really love to do something that actually wasn't really working.

So the turning point came for me in 2018 when I did my first formal business and marketing certification. And it suddenly all made sense. I finally understood the difference between giving value and building a client base, between helpful posts and strategic content, between having a really busy feed and a business that actually brought in income. And from that point on, I started creating content differently. It had a structure. It had purpose with the right people in mind.

And you know what, that's when social media finally started working for me, not just as a creative outlet or a place to be generous with my knowledge, but as a business tool that brought in the right fit clients. And that's the transformation that I share with my clients now. And I will be soon sharing inside my brand new program called Social Media Made Simple, more on that later.

Okay, let's get into the practical bit now. What you can do with your own social media accounts. There's three key shifts that you can do right now to stop wasting time and start attracting paying clients.

Number one is to create the right kind of valuable content. So let's start here with one of the most common mistakes I see, trying to teach too much in a single post. So we've all heard the advice to give value and so we do. We share educational content. We try to explain concepts. We answer common questions. But value doesn't necessarily mean volume. Educational content absolutely builds credibility, but if it's too long or too detailed or too general, actually, it disconnects from your audience. They are scrolling often whilst thinking of something else. They're distracted. They're often multitasking. And so you're only going to capture their attention if your content is easy to absorb. And now this is especially important for what we call top of the funnel content, the kind that's designed to attract new followers.

So at that stage, what works best is teeny tiny morsels of education. Your teaching points need to be minute. So bite-sized insights, simple tips, myth-busting, validation of a struggle that they already feel. So not a deep dive, but just enough to stop the scroll and spark a little bit of curiosity. So most of us try and explain something within our area of expertise, but even that sub-topic is still too big.

So I've got some examples here for you. Instead of posting how to balance your blood sugar throughout the day, that's huge. That's a massive topic. It's much better to break that down into, you know, five low GI breakfast ideas or what a blood glucose friendly lunchbox might look like, or how caffeine impacts blood sugar. And instead of maybe eating well for perimenopause, you could focus on five food sources of a particular nutrient that supports hormone balance or a simple recipe for a dish that's great for people who struggle with sleep at night. Or it could be just easy ways to increase protein at breakfast. And then instead of how to manage your IBS symptoms,

You can break it into one surprising trigger that most people miss, how stress impacts digestion and what you can do today, or a small change in your meal timings to minimise bloating. So these smaller pieces of education are still really helpful. And because they capture the attention and they get seen, they're far more powerful.

So when you break bigger ideas into small, emotionally relevant posts, they're easier to read, they're easier to remember, and far more likely to connect with your dream clients.

Okay, so the second point I've got for you here is that every post needs to have a clear job. that that So one of the biggest mindset shifts changes everything about how you approach content is this. Stop asking, what should I post today? And start asking, what is this post's purpose?

Because when you're running your business, your content needs to do more than just fill your feed. And that means that every single post should have a job to do. So there are three jobs that your content can perform and they line up with your client journey, also known as your marketing funnel. The first job is to build visibility. So this is your hello.

The job here is to help new people find you. At this stage, people don't know who you are yet. They're not ready to buy. They're barely ready to follow. So the goal of a visibility post isn't to educate deeply or to pitch an offer. It's to spark curiosity or give a tiny insight that makes them think, this feels relevant for me.

So this is where your teeny tiny pieces of education, your myth busting and your relatable that's me type of content. That's where this lives. So what you're doing is you're interrupting passive scrolling and simultaneously building brand awareness. Now, the second job a post can have is for connection or to nurture trust. So these posts are for the people who already follow you, like they already like your stuff.

They may comment or they may DM you occasionally. So these guys, they already know what your business is and what it is that you do and how you can help them. So now they're trying to decide if you're the right fit for them. So this is where if you share your insights or behind the scenes of your business or your personal opinions and your thoughts on something that matters to them, maybe something that's been in the news, or where you tell stories and stories are really great for connection because they literally paint a picture in the audience's mind as they consume them.

Now these can either be your stories or they can be anonymous client stories. So both work really well. But this is the relationship building layer where your expertise and your personality, they come together. So you're essentially trying to get across that you understand their world but you can also help them navigate it.

And then the third job a piece of content could have is to get people to take action. So this is where a lot of professionals don't really want to sound salesy. So they either avoid it entirely or they go the other way and announce that they've got spaces open for new clients. But selling doesn't have to be pushy or cringy, especially when you're selling to a warm audience who already know, like, and trust you.

Your content here is about giving people the information that they need so that they can make a fully informed decision about their next steps. So what works really well here are inspirational posts like case studies and testimonials, before and after stories, but also educational content where your offer is needed for that person to take the next step.

So for example, you might share a post that shows three signs you're struggling with bloating. But the call to action on that post is them to download your free beat the bloat guide. here's a good one. How to stop wasting time on social media and start attracting clients instead. And the call to action is to join the waitlist for my brand new program called Social Media Made Simple, launching on the 20th of October and more on that soon.

And remember, not everyone sees every post, so it's not salesy to talk about your offer more than once. It's actually really quite strategic.

Now imagine this, you sit down to plan your content for the week ahead. And instead of scrambling for ideas, you simply say, okay, my goal for this month in my business is to build brand awareness before I try and fill my clinic spots next month. So that means next week, I'm going to need three posts to build visibility. I'm going to one post to nurture trust and one post to prompt action. You're done. It's strategic. It's aligned to your goals. And that's when your content starts to work. That's when it starts to bring in new followers, engagement. It qualifies your leads. It brings clients. And without you having to actually do any extra stuff. So if you're feeling stuck or you're scattered, when it comes to posting, this is your invitation to zoom out.

Don't just think about what to post, think about why you're posting it and what job you want it to do. Now, the third point that I have for you here is it's not just what you teach, it's how you say it. So, so far we've talked about what to post, making it smaller, more strategic, funnel aligned, but the next layer on top of that, the one that moves your content from seen and scrolled past to seen and saved and shared and acted upon is this. It's all about how you say things. You can be the most knowledgeable clinician in your field, but if your content doesn't connect emotionally, it just won't convert. A lot of professionals approach content a bit like a mini CPD session. They present the research, here's the advice, here's the explanation.

And actually that's why you tend to attract other healthcare professionals. But your ideal client isn't on social media looking for that type of education. They're on social media looking for relief. They want emotional relief from stress, from shame, from confusion and the overwhelm that they carry every single day. That's what your content needs to speak to. Not just the clinical issue and the symptoms they experience, but the real life felt experience of living it.

So let me give you a few examples so you know what I mean. So instead of a post that might be three toddler friendly foods that support iron levels, a better option would be you've just had your child's blood test results back and they've got Low iron. You're panicking, you're Googling and wondering if it's something you did wrong. Here's one food that you can offer at dinner tonight that will help.

Can you see the emotional difference in the two there? Here's another example for you. Instead of five foods to include in a gut-friendly diet, why don't you try, you're bloated by 3 p.m., you're Googling what foods cause wind? and cancelling dinner plans because you're so uncomfortable and your Jeans won't button up. This here might be the missing piece.

Again, you can feel how that person is feeling. You can paint a picture in your mind of them rubbing their tummy, desperately trying to get their jeans done up, lying on their bed and thinking, sod it, I'm going to stay at home tonight. And here's another one for you. Instead of tips for managing fussy eating, you want to try saying something like, you're making three separate dinners every single night, your toddler's sobbing over a carrot stick, and you're wondering if it's just easier to give them toast again.

So again, you're really tapping into that real lived experience, the thing that they're doing on a daily basis and using descriptive language and emotion so that they can see themselves in that description. So these examples, they don't just explain the problem, they describe an emotional experience in the words that your clients would use themselves. And that's powerful because when someone reads a post and thinks, gosh, that's me.

You instantly shift from being a professional talking at them to someone who truly understands them. So this is what I teach my clients, how to get out of your clinician voice and step into your connection voice, how to write posts that feel like they were pulled from your client's own mind. Not by dumbing down the information, absolutely not, but by making it feel safe, making it feel personal. And when you do that, that's when you get the messages like, I've been following you for a while and I think I'm ready to get support. Or you might get that say, this is exactly what I needed to hear today. So specificity in your content builds resonance and the emotion part builds trust. trust leads to paying clients.

So as you plan your next post, ask yourself, what is the reader really struggling with today? What are they feeling? What is the sentence that's swimming around their heads that they haven't actually said out loud yet? And how can I create content that lets them know that I see them? Because when your words create that sense of you understand me, that's when people stop scrolling and they start reaching out.

Okay, let's address the elephant in the room. You might be thinking, Sarah, social media just takes so much time. Now I hear this from everyone and you know what, I've felt it as well. But when you're winging it, yeah, it's a nightmare. When you're using a proven structure, however, it becomes really simple.

So if you're nodding along to everything I've shared today, if you're ready to make social media a million times simpler and so much more effective, then I want to invite you to join the VIP waitlist for Social Media Made Simple. So this is my brand new program that shows you exactly what to post, when and why, so that you can use social media as a strategic growth tool to build your business and get more clients.

And as this is a brand new program, I've created an even more special waitlist only VIP offer to make it even more epic. So why might you want to join the VIP only waitlist? Well, it's the only way that you can get access to all of this. So the first thing is an amazing 30 % VIP only discount that you won't get anywhere else.

So social media made simple will go on sale to the public for £497, but for the waitlist gang, it's only £347 or you can make two payments of £199. But the first five clients can get a whopping 60 % discount, bringing the price down to just £200. You'll also get over £2,000 worth of amazing bonuses like my custom GPT content planner, my AI content creator, my plug and play frameworks and templates and cheat sheets, and of course, lifetime access to the program, as well as all future updates. And of course, we're doing this together. So you'll get eight weeks of hands-on coaching and accountability and support. And the cherry on top of all of this is if you're the very first person to join social media made simple,

When the doors open on the 20th of October at 9.30 a.m., you'll also win a £200 cash bonus plus get your investment in the program 100 % refunded. So you get the program for free. you have to be on our VIP waitlist before doors open on the 20th of October at 9.30 a.m. in order to be able to get any of this.

Grab the link in the show notes now and save your place straight away. Honestly, what have you got to lose? Okay, so there you have it. You do not have to become an influencer. You don't have to post every day and you definitely don't need to dance on reels. You just need a simple strategy. You need a structure that works and the confidence to know that you're doing it right. And that's what social media made simple gives you. See you next week.

Bye for now.