Developing Clients and Students for Your Reiki Business Part II: Social Media and YouTube

By Colleen Benelli and Karen Harrison

First Published in Reiki News Magazine Winter 2016

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IN PART I OF THIS ARTICLE, which appeared in the Fall 2016 issue of the Reiki News Magazine, Colleen and Karen offered readers a look at some of the tools that they use to develop an ongoing business relationship with their clients and students by making skillful use of the internet. In Part I, they addressed the benefits of email marketing and live programming with a lot of “how-to’s.” In Part II, Karen and Colleen offer their experiences with the use of social media and YouTube.

Social Media
While you may be on Facebook or some other social media application regularly to catch up with friends and family, if you are not yet using it for your business, it’s time to add social media to your Reiki marketing toolkit. For starters, here are five reasons why social media is important for small businesses and thus for your client/student relations:¹

1. Social media can be a top producer of referrals to your website; people spend more time on social media than on websites.
2. Search engine optimization (SEO) is a way of increasing search engine results for your website. Search engines favor social media sites.
3. Social media helps you to engage with your clients and students by listening to them and responding, thereby developing a reputation as an expert in the field of Reiki along with demonstrating your loyalty to them.
4. Through social media, businesses can develop a “personality” to go along with their brand and thus make their brand more appealing.
5. Most social media are accessed on mobile devices and can easily be shared.

Facebook reigns over social media. With 1.49 billion users, Facebook has more monthly active users than WhatsApp (500 million), Twitter (284 million) and Instagram (200 million) combined.²  Therefore, Facebook should be your primary social media webpage.

To be effective in social media, it is important to be a resource to your customers. You can do this by sharing information with them that will help them solve problems by using the tools that you have to offer. Inspire your Reiki clients and students with beautiful pictures and quotes about Reiki—if you can also entertain them, it’s a bonus.

Creating Your Brand
Your personal brand is your identity in the minds of your clients and students. To be successful, you need to create a positive image of yourself that your clients and students can also identify with. This involves sharing how you feel and think about your product and how you are using it.

Lindsay Teague Moreno used social media to help her generate 131,000 people in her Young Living Essential Oil downline in 15 months. According to Lindsay, the key to social media is defining your personal brand, and your choice is to either step up and create your brand yourself or neglect that step and instead find that your brand has created you. Lindsay explains that your brand is everything that is associated with you. She suggests creating posts that represent you, rather than your product, which in Reiki would be your classes and sessions. For example, share thoughts and ideas about how you use Reiki in your life and be a resource for Reiki information rather than simply posting about your classes and sessions.

Your brand helps you build trust as people get to know who you are and what you stand for. As an exercise, come up with 10 words that describe the best version of you and make them magical.  Then create a clear message that is on point with those words, keeping in mind that everything you post should reflect your brand. Lindsay also suggests taking your own pictures and writing your own words for your posts. She adds that if you can make a little fun of yourself on social media from time to time, people will like it because it reminds them that you are much like they are, and that feeling of equality leads to trust.

As far as knowing how to decide on a breakdown for the right number of personal to business related posts, Lindsay advises composing five personal posts to one post about your product. This is a little different than the four to one ratio that we have found elsewhere. Please keep in mind, though, that Lindsay is selling a product—essential oils—whereas we are providing services, which could account for a difference in posting recommendations. I believe that the ratio of four personal posts to one business-centered post would work better for Reiki posts.

Get to know your target market. Lindsay advises all social media business users to constantly be aware of their target market and address that market’s needs. Ask questions about the people in it in order to stay in touch. In Karen’s observation, most people interested in Reiki are women aged 30 to 60. As we are writing our social media content, it behooves us to think about the needs of women in this age range, which would involve issues around raising a family, finding time for oneself, caring for aging parents, making time for your partner, succeeding at work and getting enough sleep. Reiki can help in all these areas, so share how you have used Reiki for each of these issues.

Another resource on posting recommendations suggests that “a best practice to follow is the 80/20 rule. Only 20 percent of posts should be promotional or sales-oriented. The other 80 percent should be entertaining, yet industry-related.”³ According to Kelly Catalano,⁴ a social media manager, video posts get more views than any other type of post on Facebook, get liked more and are shared more. With the current Facebook algorithm, interaction on your page (i.e. clicking on that video) is more important than likes. You can gain more sales from 400 highly targeted people who like your page and are likely to watch your videos than four million who simply like your page. Posts are no longer being pushed out to other devices of your fans (i.e. tablets, phones) because there is so much content on Facebook. The more people there are who engage with your posts through commenting and sharing them, the more Facebook will share them. You can create engagement on your page by responding to messages and posts and by thanking people for liking your page.

Advertise the content that is most important to your business by creating an ad or “boosting” a post or event. Creating an ad and boosting a post are similar but not exactly the same.⁵ 

You can create a Facebook ad for people to like your page and then send them to your website. Ads are also good for getting the word out on a class or a product. Set a money cap on it. Run the ad for between seven to 30 days and be prepared to spend a minimum of $5 to $10 a day. It is important to set a limit ahead of time on the amount of money you are willing to pay so that you don’t end up with a big bill that you hadn’t planned on.

Next, select the demographics you want to advertise to including age, region, gender and interests. Keep these demographics in mind when you are writing the ad copy as you are trying to grab the attention of the people who fit into these demographics. In the beginning, set up an “event” for your classes because Facebook events get pushed out to other devices (tablets, phones, etc.) more than simple posts.  Make the picture intriguing and give the link. Then if you want, you can boost the event or create an ad for the class, both of which are explained in detail by following the link given in this footnote.⁶

Facebook ads for a class
The following are eight tips offered by Facebook in its tutorials for business pages.⁷
• Keep it short.
• Use big, beautiful images.
• Offer special deals to customers to keep them interested and to drive sales.
• Run ads that get more people to engage with your posts or even bring them directly to your website.
• Reply to posts and comments quickly.
• Choose the location and language you want the post to run in.
• Link your posts and videos directly to your website.
• Post more of what customers want.

To create posts for Facebook, start by writing content and selecting pictures. You can write some short phrases like the following:

• Got stress? Get Reiki!
• Send Reiki to your Mom to help her with her health issues.
• Clear and bless your space with Reiki.
• Want more friends? Teaching Reiki helps create community.
• When I give myself Reiki daily, I am calm and centered.
• Animals love Reiki.
• Giving my daughter Reiki puts her to sleep in 10 minutes.
• Feeling scattered? Give Reiki to your knees and feet to ground.

Use a photo editor like PicMonkey⁸ or Canva⁹ to place the words on the photos. A benefit is that they have many photos you can use for free or for a small fee. Make sure any photos you use are copyright free and in the public domain; otherwise you can end up with a substantial fine. You can also place words on photos in PowerPoint and save the slide as a jpeg.

Schedule a post
You can create a post and schedule it to publish on your Facebook page at a future date. Keep in mind that all times correspond to the current time zone you’re in.

To schedule a post:
1. Start creating your post at the top of your page’s Timeline
2. Click the drop-down arrow next to Publish and select Schedule
3. Below Publication, select the date and time when you want the post to publish
4. Click Schedule

Note: You can’t schedule a post from your personal Timeline.

An app called Buffer App¹⁰ also allows you to schedule your Facebook posts on the app, and then it sends them on the day you schedule them to go out. They will also post on Twitter.

Facebook Groups for your Students
Karen has created closed (Facebook’s term) Facebook groups for each level of Reiki training. If you teach a smaller number of students, it may work better to create one group for all your students. Karen posts a picture of each class and welcomes them to the group. Students can ask questions of each other and Karen as well as request Reiki for anyone or their pets. You can also engage students by asking them to share an experience of giving Reiki to a pet or a parent, for example.

Toni Dafeldecker, an International Center for Reiki Training teacher, created the idea of a 21-day self-Reiki Facebook challenge. Karen also offered it to all her students on Facebook and the response was overwhelmingly positive. Students stated their commitment for how long they would give themselves Reiki every day and their intention for the challenge. They were paired with a Reiki buddy who would look out for their posts and encourage them. Each day they posted how long they gave themselves Reiki and any comments about what they were noticing as a result.

Making Videos for Facebook or YouTube

YouTube is a search platform owned by Google. People go there looking for information and solutions to their problems through the videos that it offers. “Searches related to ‘how-to’ on YouTube are growing 70% year after year, and more than 100 million hours of how-to content have been watched in North America…[in 2015].”¹¹

Think about how your services or products will help people with a need or something they want to learn, such as how to feel energy in their hands, how to clear their energy field or how to heal a bruise. You can break up longer topics into smaller chunks. For example, instead of one video demonstrating how to give Reiki to animals, consider separate topics of how to give Reiki to your dog, how to give Reiki to your cat, how to give Reiki to wild animals, etc.

It can be hard for some people to imagine making a video. Colleen says that she is more awkward when she is working with this medium. She is great at public speaking but as soon as there is a camera present, she freezes and has a hard time getting her words to flow. She is aware that many people have this same issue; in fact, she feels that it is fairly common for people to have challenges with 21st century business practices such as social media in general. She resisted using Facebook at first. So, to help overcome these issues, she decided to use Reiki to heal her resistance and camera shyness, and as a result, she now loves using many forms of social media and has been able to produce videos with much more ease. Since she believes in the power of communication and community that social media offers, she knows how beneficial it is to overcome any fears or concerns.

Once you feel ready to go, you will find that creating videos for Facebook or YouTube is so easy—you can create them with a smart phone! Think of the content you want to share, making sure to keep it short to engage a greater number of people and have them watch the video. According to Wistia, an internet video-hosting company, “You should strive to make your content as concise as possible to achieve the highest engagement. If your message is more complex, feel free to give it the time it deserves, but understand that a major chunk of your audience won’t make it to the end of the video and [so] consider front-loading your video with the most important information at the beginning.”¹²

Videos under one minute have the highest percentage of being watched the entire way through, with completion declining as the video length increases. YouTube considers short videos to be those under four minutes in length.

When Karen made her most recent videos, she had a friend hold her iPhone. That way she had someone to talk to and get  feedback from. They made three separate videos with one taking five attempts to get it just right; another took only one run. When she needed a teleprompter, she wrote notes and taped it to her friend’s shirt! You could also use a laptop or iPad with the font enlarged. To hold your smart phone, you can purchase a tripod. If you have a webcam and a microphone, you can create videos from your computer. Most laptop computers have the webcam and microphone already built in.

Make your videos easy to find by adding descriptive titles, details and relevant tags to each video.¹³ Create a custom thumbnail. Backlink (defined as incoming links to a webpage, i.e., when a page links to another page¹⁴) your videos.  Name your video and place that name as the first tag, which helps with Google ranking. You can create your own YouTube channel and upload all your videos to that area.¹⁵ To create your own channel, you must have a Google account. If you don’t have one, google “create a Google account.” Create it and then log onto YouTube. Click the icon for your name and then follow the instructions for how to create your channel.

How to Optimize Your Video

Log into your YouTube account and then:

1. Go to your channel.
2. Click on edit under the video.
3. Your edit page will come up.
4. Choose your title. Remember YouTube is really a search engine. People go there to learn things or to solve a problem.
5. Use things like how to: Learn this in three easy steps; In 10 minutes or less you can …; Learn the secrets of …; etc. Make it compelling. Go online and find out how to do a key word search to find out what people are searching for at the time you are making your video.
6. Back link into your description box. If you have multiple videos, you can back link to a different one.

Conclusion
We have offered suggestions in this article to create and maintain successful relationships with your Reiki students and clients. These are tried and true methods that work. We encourage you to try them and try some of your own. If you have other ideas, please share them with your Reiki community to help create success for Reiki for all! Providing communications and relationships with your clients and students is one of the most rewarding parts of having a professional Reiki business. We are happy to provide this very helpful information for you, our amazing Reiki community!

Colleen Benelli is a Holy Fire^® III Licensed Reiki Master Teacher for the ICRT in Portland, Oregon and can be contacted by email at colleen@reikilifestyle.com or through her website at www.ReikiLifestyle.com. Colleen’s ReikiChat™ podcast is found on iTunes under Reiki Lifestyle and on her website.

Karen Harrison is a Holy Fire^® III Licensed Reiki Master Teacher for the ICRT in Leawood, Kansas and can be contacted by email at Karen@karenharrison.net or through her website at www.karenharrison.net.

Karen and Colleen are Co-Directors of the Licensed Teacher Training Program for the ICRT. They have created a YouTube video demonstrating how to use many of the resources shared here. Check out their YouTube channels: “Karen Harrison Reiki” and “Colleen Benelli-Reiki Lifestyle.”

¹ Retrieved from https://www.aabacosmallbusiness.com/advisor/5-reasons-why-social-media-marketing-important-172938196.html.

² Retrieved form zephoria.com/top-15-valuable-facebook-statistics/.

³ Retrieved from www.treeviews.com/6-steps-to-improve-your-facebook-business-page/.

⁴ Kelly Catalano, personal communication February 22, 2016.

⁵ Read more on this topic by going to this link: www.reloadmedia.com.au/searchstrategy/social-media/the-difference-between-facebook-ads-boosted-posts/.

⁶ https://www/reloadmedia.com.au/searchstrategy/social-media/the-difference-between-facebook-ads-boosted-posts/.

⁷ www.facebook.com/business/learn/facebook-page-effective-posts/.

⁸ www.picmonkey.com/.

⁹ www.canva.com/.

¹⁰ buffer.com/.

¹¹ www.thinkwithgoogle.com/articles/i-want-to-do-micro-moments.html.

¹² Retrieved from wistia.com/blog/does-length-matter-it-does-for-video-2k12-edition.

¹³ www.thinkwithgoogle.com/articles/i-want-to-do-micro-moments.html.

¹⁴ www.shoutmeloud.com/backlink.html; see also en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backlink.

¹⁵ Kelly Catalano, personal communication February 22, 2016.