Practical Tips for Using Social Media to Promote Your Professional Practice

Creating professional social media accounts across multiple platforms can increase both business traction and community outreach and contact. By using your professional knowledge to inform the public about your mental health expertise and areas of specialty, you can help strengthen the relationship between mental health care and the communities it serves; destigmatizing various facets of mental health, promoting positive coping skills, and providing access to resources, all while growing your professional brand and business. Whether you are a social media expert in your personal life or you are brand new to social media altogether, using social media to represent your professional brand can present unique challenges for everyone. This article will review strategies to consider when using social media to promote your professional practice.

1.     Decide on a brand you love and that is relatable to your audience.

With 72.8% of internet users using social media as a primary source of information when researching brands (Nyst, 2023), it is important to know your target audience and brand in a way that is specifically appealing to them. Knowing your audience is the first step in creating your business brand. Knowing this will help you decide what type of content to create. Part of branding is creating an image people will remember; choose a color scheme or pattern that people can see and immediately associate with your brand. Is it going to be colorful and bright? Or is using neutral tones with simple and bold fonts more relevant to your brand? Whatever you decide, it’s important to keep it relatively consistent. If you are just starting out, play around when posting and see which posts receive the most engagement from viewers; this can help inform future decisions about branding and marketing toward your target audience.

2.     Utilize a social media platform that caters to and aligns with your content and audience.

Social media platforms cater to specific audiences and content. For example, TikTok and YouTube are primarily used for video content, while BlueSky and X are primarily used for sharing information and photos. Each platform uses a variety of media forms; however, each one typically prioritizes certain media forms over others. Additionally, social media platforms are often used more predominantly by individuals in certain age groups. For example, 59% of 18- to – 29-year-olds use TikTok, while only 25% of 50- to 64-year-olds adults use the platform (Pew Research Center, 2025). These types of demographic and statistical data are important to understand and consider when deciding which platform(s) to utilize and the type of content to create. Overall, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram are the most widely used social media platforms among adults, with 84% reporting YouTube use, 71% using Facebook, and 50% using Instagram (Pew Research Center, 2025).

3.     Use engaging captions.

Creating engaging captions and content allows for more opportunities for your audience to

Interact with your content initially and regularly in the future, building an engaged following

over time. Using specialized characters in your caption can help capture the eye of the audience and can create enough attention for someone to stop scrolling and engage their full attention in your post. Below is an example of the visual differences between a caption that does not use emojis to engage the audience and the same caption that utilizes emojis.

Without emojis

Unlock the power of dreams in therapy. Join us for Working with Dreams in Psychotherapy. Friday, Oct. 24, Free registration, 3 free CE credits.

With emojis

 ✨ Unlock the power of dreams in therapy! ✨ Join us for Working with Dreams in Psychotherapy ?

? Friday, Oct 24 | 12–3 PM EST

✅ Free registration for all

✅ 3 FREE CE credits for APA Div. 29 members

While both captions contain the same information, the second caption catches the eye, is easier to read, and provides quick information for the audience to swiftly decide if they are interested enough to take action. Another way to build a following is by creating polls to engage the audience by asking interactive questions and allowing followers the opportunity to provide feedback on what they are seeking information on. This can also be included in your captions by asking the audience a question about the content.

4.     Don’t be afraid to use templates.

If you are just starting your professional social media accounts, creating posts can be daunting. Luckily, many apps and sites, such as Canva, Adobe, and Fotor provide free templates to help you get started. Templates allow creators to focus more on the information being shared since the formatting and overall aesthetic of the template are already created. Once you become more comfortable with designing the content in templates, it’s encouraged to play around with the plethora of fonts, colors, and presentation styles and adapt them to your personal, professional style. 

5.     #UsetheHashtag.

Hashtags boost your reach and visibility by making your profile more searchable. It connects similar content and provides a quick way to see posts relevant to your interests. Each social media platform has its own hashtag strategy. For example, you want to use more hashtags on Instagram, whereas you want to keep the tags minimal on X for maximum engagement (Heaslip, 2025). Focus on the relevance of the hashtag to your topic, be specific, and avoid overly competitive or broad hashtags (i.e., #therapy).

Overly broad and competitive

Psychotherapy plays a vital role in supporting mental health, personal growth, and well-being.

#therapy #mentalhealth #health #wellness #selfcare #business #psychology #healing

Why this doesn’t work well:
These hashtags are broad making it difficult for the post to surface to a targeted audience interested specifically in psychotherapy.

Relevant and targeted hashtag

Psychotherapy plays a vital role in supporting mental health, personal growth, and well-being.

 #Psychotherapy #PsychotherapyResearch #EvidenceBasedTherapy #TherapeuticAlliance #ClinicalPsychology #MentalHealthEquity #APADiv29

Why this works better:
These hashtags are directly tied to psychotherapy, research, and professional practice, helping the content reach a more specific and engaged audience.

When creating a hashtag, ensure there are no spaces between words- and focus on utilizing letters and numbers only and not special characters/symbols. Users can follow specific hashtags to discover new content related to topics they care about. Hashtags function as discovery tools, helping posts reach an audience beyond your account’s followers. When relevant hashtags are not used—or are too broad—content may be less visible to intended audiences, limiting reach, engagement, and overall outreach potential. Strategic hashtag use allows posts to connect with users actively seeking information on that topic. If you’re wondering which hashtags to use, go check out some of your own favorite accounts to gain some inspiration. Be thoughtful and be strategic.