Google Posts - The Only Organic Social Worth Your Time

You're listening to Podiatry Marketing, conversations on building a successful podiatry practice with Tyson Franklin and Jim McDannald.

Hi. I'm Tyson Franklin, and welcome back to this week's episode of Podiatry Marketing Podcast. With me, as he is every week, big smiling face all the way from Canada, big Jim Mac. How are doing today, Jim?

Tyson, I'm doing great. Now things are good here in Montreal. Just enjoying the summertime and kind of dreading the winter that's, you know, coming up in a few months, but trying to enjoy the sunshine and nice days here.

It's been a good summer.

Yeah. It's been great. Like, not too crazy hot. Some nice nice times and some little vacations here and there. So definitely enjoying the summer here in in Montreal.

And then you once once you hit the fall, that's when all the conference season sort of starts, isn't it, in North America?

Yeah. It's kind of funny. Like there was, you know, the big podiatry conference, American Podiatry Medical Association actually does theirs in the summer, so that's already happened. But yeah, for the most part, most of them are kind of in the fall. So September through November or so until the holidays hit, it's kind of like prime conference time.

Yeah. Well, I always yeah. It's October that I know I always go to Business Black Ops, but I know, like, top practices, a few of the other ones all around that September, October. Yep. Things in the desert in November.

So it's and they say it's just you're a supplier or a service provider, it is just a really hectic time of the year.

Yeah. I can imagine to get on the circuit and spending all those weeks and and days in in conference centers then. The amount of

money they spend to do these conferences, they'd be better sponsoring a podcast. I think you're right. Yeah. Just saying. So if any of if there's a supplier listening to this episode and you're thinking, wait, how can I get a message to podiatrists?

This is a really good way of

doing it. Yeah. They can reach out.

Okay. But Jim, what are we talking about today?

So today we're gonna touch on a topic that I'll bring up every, I don't know, six months or a year and that's me bashing on organic social media and why it's not really worth most practice's time. But this one, I gotta relent a little bit because there is a form of social media that I found that I think is worth the time of the clinics that listen to this podcast and that's Google Posts. So today's really about Google Posts and why it's the only kind of organic social media worth your time. So that's what we're gonna jump into today.

Okay. So this is you're talking about when you go

into your Google business page and they say add an update. And that's what you're talking about as a Google post? Yeah. Absolutely. And there's been some, you know, kind of third party signal saying that that's a way to get more online visibility.

Like Google doesn't have any documentation about that, but I think a lot of people highly recommend that this if you're going to do any kind of organic posting, you should definitely keep it in the Google Business Profile.

And you're saying this overrides like doing a post on your own website?

Well, I don't know about your own website, but definitely it's much better than Instagram, TikTok. Oh, yeah. As far as if you if you want to get more visibility in search, for example. So Podiatry can spend hours or pay someone, you know, every month to post on Facebook and Instagram, and that reach organically at least. You know, not talking about ads, but that's usually kind of close to zero.

We've talked about how maybe it's your mother, your office manager, and maybe a spouse that'll be the three likes on that organic post. But you know meanwhile that one feed kind of the Google Business posts, it kind of sits in a place where it's a little less ignored. It's a sign of signal and trust when people are searching for your services. So we'll jump into that today.

Yeah. And it's true because I've posted something into some of my Facebook groups and it'll be brilliant. I'm thinking, if you read what I just wrote then, it's gonna change your life.

Right.

Seven seven people like it. And you go, seriously? It's the same seven people from last week. And yeah, and you just wonder something like the amount of time and effort you put into actually creating that, is it worth the effort? Which is what we're going dig into.

Absolutely. Today, we'll cover why organic social is mostly a trap. You know, why this kind of like people post about holidays kind of money pit isn't worth it. And why Google Business Profile posts are the only organic social worth doing, including maybe some SEO benefit that really Google like kind of refuses to confirm.

Okay, let's dig into it. I'm looking forward to this.

Yeah, so the first is, the first kind of topic is that the organic social lie, you know, your posts basically disappear and no one really sees them. So you know, you post to your practice's Facebook page. You know, if you're been around a while, maybe you've got 800 people that follow your clinic. And guess how many people actually see it? You know, on most business pages in 2026, organic reach sits around one to 2%.

You post maybe reaches like 15 people, not patients. 15 people, mostly maybe family members, staff members, old classmates, a cousin two states away. Instagram really isn't much better when it comes to organic, you know, when trying to reach patients. So this isn't bad luck. These platforms throttle business content on purpose, so they want you to pay for ads on their platforms.

You're spending kind of, you know, people are spending, you know, having agencies or people post on their behalf, right? So people are spending money in real ways that really is going to no one. So there is better place to put that effort into.

And it's funny when you said that like the small percentage of people that look at it and I think if everybody just goes, as soon as they finish this podcast, go and have a look at their social media posts, and you'll find that Jim is absolutely spot on. And you'll profile your results even worse. Because I know when I look at some of my Facebook groups, if I got 2%, would be fantastic.

Yeah. It's pretty shocking. I mean, think I feel like social media and posting on social media feels like something that are has been fed to people over the last five or ten years is something that they have to do in order to have like a clinic that's visible. And I think you do need to have accounts there but the frequency and the kind of the types of posts that are being put on there, it doesn't have to be that frequent. It can be a younger staff member that understands your clinic and do things that are more kind of like realistic and more kind of genuine and authentic for the clinic.

You know, like so, you know, like you talked about previously with some of the stuff you were posting about, like you love burgers, you love barbecue, Like ways to like, you know, get in front of people in ways that, you know, will endear you in ways that maybe just aren't, you know, happy fourth of July in The US or, you know, happy Labor Day or just like a picture of a gnarly foot and and, you know, fungal toenails on social media. No one really wants to see those on those types of channels. So there's better ways to attract patients with social, whether it be through ads or, you know, like I talked about, we'll kind of get into reasoning behind the Google Business Pro, the Google Business Posts, but that's one that I think is worth either a monthly or weekly post, but I'll we'll talk about it in little bit.

Yeah. It's funny even you mentioned about, you know, I like hamburgers. So I spoke to someone yesterday that I haven't spoken to in years, and they sent me a text message and they said, oh, can we talk during this time? It was during lunchtime. They said, as long as it doesn't interfere with you eating a hamburger.

And I said, oh, yeah. No. I said, no. I'll just be licking my fingers by that time. Was the first thing

they asked Right?

Yeah. And I must admit, when I post photos of hamburgers, which I don't eat every day, it's probably like once a month. And but everybody just assumes I'm constantly just sitting around eating hamburgers all the time because they're the posts that for some reason people see that they're the ones that people engage with. Nothing to do with what I actually do.

I know, right? That's That's the thing. It's like those personalized ways that people connect with you. It's not make an appointment, make an appointment, I'm your business coach, come to do that kind of stuff. So it's one of those things that it's, yeah, it's just connecting with people.

Okay. So what's what's next?

So next is something that I kind of alluded to a little bit earlier, that's you should really stop paying for those happy fourth of July or those holiday posts. You know, look at your last 10 social posts. How many of them are like holiday graphic? Fourth of July, Happy Labor Day, a snowflake in December. Those posts feel productive, but they do nothing.

Nobody

books Just point out just point out there's no snowflakes in Cairns in December.

Good to know. But but nobody books a heel pain visit because they wish, you wish them kind of a happy Memorial Day in The US. If you're paying a social media manager, you know, $2.03, or $400 a month and half of it's holiday graphics, you're paying for kind of action but not really patience. So engagement on those posts is near zero, and their zero engagement is is definitely not a new patient. So the goal was never to post.

The goal is to get found. So that's an important component.

And I think the other thing you pointed to, you're paying that person $400 and so is the other 50 people paying $400 to do the one graphic and then just post some the same graphic pretty much in all these different places, and you're thinking they're doing it just for you. And I totally get it. Like, it's just cliche, isn't it? The Christmas tree at Christmas and the fireworks, fourth of July, all those sort of occasions. And I've seen other businesses do it.

I don't respond either.

Well, it's not really marketing. Right? You're not really showing the value you provide or making a connection with someone. Like, I think it's just so rampant, you know, that it doesn't feel authentic or genuine, right? It almost has the opposite impact when people see that.

If they just want to go look at your Instagram, you know, Reels or they want to go look at your Facebook and they just see a bunch of that there, You know, it feel like they get to know who the clinic is. Maybe, we talked about previously, I think social media is a great place to show your involvement with the community. You know, maybe the diabetes walk, maybe you're sponsoring a local baseball team or a soccer team. Like those are things that endear people to your clinic and to your brand and to your business. But if you just have kind of generic branded fourth of July or holiday related posts, it just doesn't bring that level either of engagement or just, you know, people feeling like they they're getting to know you and trust you.

It feels like you think that those things would be helpful, but they really aren't these days because they're just so cliche.

Yeah. And what's funny too, if you went to a a local running event, say recently at the Cairns Marathon, if you took a poll of photos while you were there, might know patients that are running. You might have family or friends that running. My daughter is running. But you can take those photos, and you can release those photos if you wanted.

It'd be better to release those photos over a week period than just dumping on one day anyway. And it's probably going to be better, but you're still not going to get the impact.

No. You're totally right. Like we talked about, posting sometimes feels like progress, so people keep funding it and paying for it. But you really have to look in to see what it's producing. Right?

Like like what are you what are you what are you providing that and and is it beneficial for other people? Are are the people that reading that getting benefit from it? Or even yourself, like, you know, is it is it getting more visibility for the practice?

And the time it takes to do it, and the thought that goes into it, are you better to be spending your time doing something else?

No, I think that's a perfect example. Right? Like like I said, I think that we we know now that things like Google Business Posts are are more beneficial. So instead of spending time on those channels where you're not getting the benefit, you know switch it over to something that definitely seems like there's Google is incentivizing.

And when you're talking your Google Posts, what what type of content are you saying should be going in there?

Yeah. So these kind of Google Business Profile posts like I talked about, it it sits at the very bottom of kind of that Google Business Profile. And there's, you know, one kind of post, and this is the kind of post that people should be focusing on. You know, when someone searches podiatrist near me or heel pain in your town, your profile is, like I said, they're in the results. So when you want to post things in there, you're not kind of fighting against a feed and other people's attention.

It's a chance for you to show the different types of services you provide. It's a chance to show your expertise. There's a chance to show news that's coming out. Maybe you have a new piece of equipment, new doctors join the practice. It's a way to utilize those types of posts in a place that people are looking for your services and you can build trust.

Fewer than one in five businesses right now or clinics are actually posted to their profile. Most local competitors, there are other clinics nearby you probably are leaving that empty. So that's a real opening to really have that chance to get more visibility with these posts.

Yeah. And I have noticed that I've gone to a lot of podiatrist websites. Oh, not websites, just searching in certain towns. And I've noticed that where you'd go to the business profile, and there's nothing there. That that like you said, it's an opportunity where they can be posting it, and then you have a look at their competitors.

No one's got anything there. So it's a great opportunity. And especially if you were a patient and you're tossing up between two or three different providers and everybody knows about the business profiles, you click on those. If one's got content and some information, the patient's going to be more are going to lean towards that.

Absolutely. It's like we talked about these days people don't want to keep clicking and clicking all the way to your website and Google's incentivizing people to stay on that Google Business Profile. So when there's a map of, you know, like five or 10 different clinics there and people are just quickly clicking just to kind of they're on Google to try to determine what they think is the best provider or the best place for them. Like you said, they're using those Google Business Profiles as comparison. So if you're feeding into their algorithm, you know, like and giving Google content about who you are with keywords and images and sometimes even video there, you know, it's it's gonna set you apart from the other people that are trying to kind of that that haven't spent the time to customize their Google Business Profile to make these types of posts.

Okay. So what what do they need to do next? What what's okay. So they know they need to do this. Right.

What's next?

Yeah. So like another reason to do the post just to jump onto that is that, you know Yeah. You really want to, you know, ask Google if posting helps your ranking. Right? People are like, oh, does it help?

Does it not help? They're never gonna tell you. Right? Google is a bit of a black box. You know, officially posts are kind of an engagement signal, but not necessarily a ranking signal for them.

But, you know, read that again as that, you know, that's kind of lawyer language. What's actually happening is simpler. A profile that posts every week, you know, looks active. A dormant one that's abandoned. You know, active profiles tend to hold their position in Google rankings.

And your posts feed Google's kind of new AI summaries, and they're gonna feel more naturally inclined to to show the clinics that are engaging with their properties. So whether you're treating bunions or diabetic care, the name of your city, the more you have these kind of keywords in your posts, Google's never gonna gonna confirm this. But the general thought is that the people that are posting more consistently, you know, like I said weekly or monthly here is probably the the right cadence for most people. The more likely Google's gonna wanna show you because you're engaging with them and giving them more information about who you are and who you treat as opposed to another clinic down the road that has two reviews, you know, the picture of the the Google mobile driving by with the outside of their business and no Google business post. So like, it only makes sense that they would engage in, you know, potentially uprank, you know, clinics that are kind of playing ball with them, if that makes sense.

I love when you see the clinic picture when Google is driving past and they just happen to some guy moving a bin out the front of your clinic. Or there's a there's a there's a garbage truck in front of it, and it covers half the business, and people go people don't notice. So with these posts, are you encouraging people to do it themselves? Or if they're gonna use an agency, they're encouraging the agency. These are the sort of posts we want you actually spending your money on, not just doing social media posts.

Yeah. Would say that people don't really need like a to have something. You can have someone do it for you, but if you have time once a week or once a month, to kind of like like we talked about in the past, understand what the types of care you want to provide are. What are those five, ten different diagnoses and kind of spreading that out? Really people can do it once a week for ten minutes.

Maybe like I said, pick one thing, a condition you're seeing a lot of in the season. Maybe it's a new orthotic service. Maybe you have a three d printer that you're utilizing. Maybe there's a new staff member. Maybe there's a real patient question that came up during your clinic that you think would be worthy of kind of a public response.

Obviously, you're not going use the patient's name or anything, but just a general educational post that could be helpful. Put it in the first couple lines, add a clear photo. You know, pick they allow you to pick buttons as well, whether it's, you know, book an appointment or make a make a phone call on those Google business posts. I would skip hashtags. Don't worry about doing that.

I'm not really doing anything in Google. So but just, you know, batch a time maybe once a month where you do four at a time and forget about it. Because you can schedule these in advance. It doesn't have to be like, you know, you have to like publish it live once you get it done. You know, this is rare that, you know, marketing tasks that you can do safely yourself, it takes, you know, less time than a than a Facebook post that nobody's gonna see.

So I definitely recommend that people, you know, jump in on Google Business Posts. So maybe it's yourself, maybe it's a staff member. If you are working with someone like a marketing specialist, an agency, this is something that they should be helping you out with.

Yeah. I do like the work because I only did some the other day. And I love the way you can schedule them in. So I might do mine for the next four weeks, and I just schedule everything in over a period of time. It's set and forget, and it always works.

There's never a problem with that. What you're thinking if somebody if there's a particular service that podiatrist wants to do more of, say, ingrown toenails, and they've got a fantastic article on their website already that they've written and and it's a good engagement, is it okay for them to take a picture from that website, put it into the the Google profile as opposed, a little bit of text from that website page, and then put the link, learn more, so then people go to that website to read more about it?

Yeah. Absolutely. I think that's a great thing to do. Yeah. It just it gets more visibility, it's a it's a way to potentially you know, people are searching for keywords.

Maybe they're looking for ingrown toenail doctor, name of, you know, the name of a town. Like, and that, you know, there's, like I said, Google is a bit of a black box. They're not going to say whether that really helps or not, but I think it is beneficial to get more links you know, to those articles you've already written in. So like if you already have, you know, 20 or 30 or 50 blog posts already, you've already got some content you can use there. Know, you can throw it in Returfs it.

Claude or Chad GPT and say, hey, I'd like to have three or four different headlines. And maybe you just put out, maybe either you can block it, you'd have one month where it's really ingrown toenail specific. Maybe it's like the diagnosis or what it looks like clinically or different forms of treatment. What is recovery from an ingrown toenail surgery like? There's lots of ways that you can kind of like take that one article and like you said, repurpose it.

And then even these days now, I don't know if you can do it quite yet, but I think Google's Gemini is getting pretty good when it comes to, you know, the AI tie in with Google Business profile. I don't think you can quite do it and have Gemini schedule those posts for you. We definitely can have

Yeah.

You know, I think it can be beneficial sometimes to use Google's if you have a a Google Workspace account where you get free Google Gemini, I think there is some benefit of since like, let let Google write it with you because, like, it can be, you know, asked for their advice about here's this article I've written. What do you think makes some good Google Business posts? As opposed to like, I think Claude and Chet GPT can do a good job as well. But if you've got Google there already, why not use their AI to kind of help inform the types of Google business posts you want to write? So I think that's a good point, Tyson.

Yeah. And that makes sense, doesn't it? Yeah. Ask ask Gemini, which is a Google AI, what would what would work well with Google. Yeah.

It sort of sort of makes sense, doesn't it?

There's different types of post types. That's something I didn't, I guess, didn't touch on yet. But, you know, there's kind of like an update, which I think the update is kind of the default, you know, like things like an article like you talked about. You can choose the button, you know, read If you have like a new staff member or a new piece of equipment or just maybe you're sponsoring something, just want to update, almost like a little news piece, you know, for your clinic, that's the kind of the standard default type of post. There's also offers, you know, maybe you're I don't know, depending on what country you're in and state and what you're allowed to say and not say in health care, depending on where you're at.

You know, you can, you know, buy buy an orthotic at the next one for 50% or something, or you can kind of let let people know what some of your offers. Also they have events posts as well. Maybe you're gonna be at a diabetic walk or sponsoring a run and you wanna make that an event on your Google Business profile, can do that. Or you can also put products as well on there. So these are something that a good way to like have something relevant but kind of making these different types of post types with the Google Business posts.

And it's all too. It all adds to your overall online footprint. Stuff that you're putting out there, this is how you get found is by you've got to put stuff out there.

Ties in exactly what you're saying there is that like not only is it your footprint but there's there can be seasonality to these things as well. Right? I mean, if you really wanted to with the schedule they have, you know you have these articles about getting ready for the fall or the winter or toenails and sandals in the summer, you can put these things out and get them scheduled sooner than later if you want to. So you're not just like, doesn't have to be monthly. It could be quarterly as as far as getting those things up.

And, you know, the posts that usually work the best are, you know, you wanna be somewhere between 150 to 300 characters long. You don't have to be super long, but it definitely helps to have a nice clean image, a good, you know, call to action. Like I said, skip hashtags. You don't wanna put the phone number in the body. Google only wants you to put that if you're using like the call link there.

But there's all these little rules that you can learn and ask, Google Jim and I about when you're making these posts, and they'll probably steer you in the right direction.

And the more you do it, the easier it's gonna become, faster you'll get at it, and it won't take as much time. No. Absolutely. Absolutely. So what's next?

I would just say that like, you know, to kind of recap what we talked about today, you know, Organic Social is pretty throttled by the different platforms. You know, there's really near zero reach for organic social media these days. These kind of holiday filler posts cost you not only time but money for really no benefit. Google Posts sit where patients actually decide. Like we talked about they see the top three or they click onto the maps and there's you know, five or 10 on that first page.

They want to see who the right podiatrist is for their specific issue. And having a built out, you know, clear professional looking Google Business Profile with these posts on them is a huge differentiator. And like I said, there's some debate whether they carry this SEO benefit. Google's not gonna confirm that, but it only makes sense that they would show people that are engaging with their platform. And like I said, this doesn't have to take forever.

You work with an agency that does it to make sure they're doing good posts for you or you or your staff member just, you know, take a few minutes each month or each quarter to kind of get these things scheduled out because the schedule works really, really well.

Yeah. And lot of you mentioned too, if you've been said, if there's if you've already got a lot of blog articles already written, what can you repurpose? What can you put in the chat called Gemini? Get them to just rewrite it slightly different, couple of new headings so you're not having to reinvent the wheel. You've got the content there.

Just put it out in

a different format. Absolutely. And I think, you know, just to kind of wrap things up here, think if, you know, everyone probably has a colleague or a friend in podiatry who's still paying for these like one off holiday posts. So go check out some of your friends' Facebook or Instagram and see if they have these kind of like copy paste stock image happy you know, we're getting I guess this is gonna come out maybe a little bit before a Labor Day weekend or maybe it's in the past Labor Day weekend, but like, just take a look and see who has a generic Labor Day weekend post. Talk to them.

Share this podcast with them, this episode. Good idea. You're gonna do them a world of good to get them on top of what's currently happening. Not five or ten years ago when the organic social was actually something, but Google Business Post is the way to efficiently get more visibility for your services, the care you provide. So if you're going to do one form of organic social media, Let it be Google Business posts here in the the year of 2026.

We should do that. It's every time we're on a podiatrist Facebook page and they do a holiday post and it doesn't have 50 people engaging with it, we should post a link to this episode. And they say, noticed your post. Jim said that I should put this link there. You should have a listen to this episode.

You will never do this post again.

Yeah. I don't know if I want

to put Thank a completely shame on you in advance. No need to thank me.

There you go. Well, if some of our diehard listeners wanna do that, we're not gonna argue, but you could DM this episode as well. That works as well.

Yeah. And just remember, just say Jim said.

There you go.

So have you got a call to action or an action step that you want everyone to follow? What they should do if they listen to this episode, everyone needs to go and do something.

Yeah. Would say like, you know, if you want to see how, you know, how your profile stacks up against other practices and, you know, how you're ranking, I would definitely say that, you know, take take take some time and look at your Google Business profile and see, do you have posts currently? See what the the neighboring, you know, competitor competitors or, you know, your your fellow clinics are doing in the local area. It's a real chance for you to kind of jump ahead. So take five minutes, you know, after this podcast.

Go look at it. See what you're doing and take that first step forward of getting more active on your Google Business profile.

Do you still do the online practice X-ray?

I do. So like I would say if people are curious about their overall visibility, one thing they can do is go to podiatry.marketing. We have that practice visibility scorecard that helps people really get a chance to see for free how they're ranking in their local area, maybe where some some other nearby local locations, maybe it's suburbs or nearby towns or neighborhoods where they could be more visible. And if that works and they and they enjoy that, we can dive in deeper with something called an online practice sector in the future, but definitely head over to podiatry.marketing and check out that practice visibility scorecard.

Hey, big Jim. Nothing else you wanna say before we wrap up?

No. I think we're good, Tyson.

That was a great topic. What I like about this particular topic is I've been smashing my Google profile posts. I actually have it in my Google Calendar every Tuesday. I have it there in red, in tomato is the color, to remind me to make sure I do at least one post every single week. And a lot times, then I'll go ahead and just plan a few of them in.

That's a good that's that's the only way to do it. Just plan it out and and make it happen.

Yeah. And that's what I felt. Like, if I don't put it in my schedule, it won't get done. So if you're like me, you just need to have it somewhere to remind you to do it. Absolutely.

Okay, Big Jim. I look forward to talking to you next week. Sounds great, Tyson. Okay. See you later.

Bye. Bye. Bye now.

Thanks for listening to Podiatry Marketing with Tyson Franklin and Jim McDonnell. Subscribe and learn more at Podiatry Marketing. That's the website address, podiatry.marketing.