Stop Creating Marketing Content. Start Creating PSAs.

We’ve all done it. Crafted the post. Hit publish. Watched it get seen by the same handful of people who already love what we do… and then watched it disappear.

Then every now and then, something hits different. It travels. Strangers share it. People you’ve never met start tagging their friends. The phone rings with invitations to come and speak.

What’s the difference?

In our practice, the moment we worked it out was when our content on concussion in kids started spreading on its own. Not because we boosted it. Not because we posted more. But because it stopped being marketing… and became a public service announcement.

That shift is what this episode is about — and why most chiropractic marketing never travels beyond the people already following you.

Key Takeaways From This Episode On Chiropractic Marketing

• The difference between marketing content and a public service announcement (your community can feel it, even if they can’t name it).
• Why a chiropractor with 200 followers can build content that spreads further than someone with 20,000.
• The four ingredients that turn a regular post into a PSA your community feels a duty to share.
• A five-step roadmap to build your next PSA on purpose, not by accident.
• The one question to ask before you publish that tells you whether your content has any chance of travelling.

The Concussion Story — How One Piece Of Content Pulled Us Into Football Clubs And School Groups

A real-world example of what happens when content stops being marketing and starts being a public service announcement. We didn’t boost it. We didn’t pay for ads. The community carried it for us — and started pulling us into rooms we’d never have walked into on our own.

Marketing Content vs A Public Service Announcement (And Why Your Community Can Feel The Difference)

Most chiropractic content is marketing material dressed up as education. Inside the episode, I unpack why your community can feel that — even when they can’t name it — and why it’s the single biggest reason your posts only ever reach the people already following you.

The Four Ingredients Of A PSA That Spreads

There are four specific ingredients that turn a regular post into a piece of content the community feels a duty to share. Get all four, and you have a PSA. Miss one, and you’re back to marketing content. Inside, I break each one down with the concussion content as the working example.

The Five-Step Roadmap For Building Your Next PSA On Purpose

A simple, repeatable roadmap so you can stop hoping a piece of content will travel and start engineering it on purpose. From finding the worry, to the test that tells you whether you have a PSA, to the right signals to watch when you publish — this is the practical heart of the episode.

Why This Is The Real Engine Of Chiropractic Practice Growth

Practice growth doesn’t come from posting more often or shouting louder. It comes from content that gets pulled through your community by the people who already trust you. PSAs are how that pull starts — and why this is one of the most important shifts you can make to your chiropractic marketing this year.

This Week’s Listening Challenge

I don’t want you to create anything this week. I want you to listen. I’ll tell you exactly what to listen for, and how to use what you hear to build your next PSA.

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s the difference between marketing content and a public service announcement?

Marketing content informs the people already following you. A PSA gets shared with people who’ve never heard of you, because it meets a real worry, carries new information, has no sell, and feels like a duty to pass on.

Do I need a big following to create a PSA that spreads?

No. A chiropractor with 200 followers can absolutely create a PSA that spreads. What you need is a message worth spreading and the commitment to carry it across every touchpoint you have — socials, email, in-practice conversations.

How do I know if my idea is a PSA or just regular content?

Run it through the one question — would someone feel like they were doing a disservice to a friend by not sharing this? If the answer is a clear yes, it’s a PSA. If not, it’s regular content. Both have a place in your library.

How often should I be creating PSAs?

Not every post needs to be a PSA. Expecting that creates so much pressure that most chiropractors stop posting altogether. Aim to build one genuine PSA every now and then, alongside your regular educational content.

Episode Transcript

Introduction

Good morning, good afternoon and good evening, folks. Welcome to another episode of the Marketing Your Practice Podcast — the podcast where I have the pleasure of simplifying the marketing and the mindset, so you the chiropractor can increase your income, your impact and your enjoyment in practice too.

Today I want to start with something that’s been happening in our own practice, because I think it perfectly illustrates what this episode is all about.

The Concussion Content That Started Spreading

We create content regularly. Occasionally some of it goes viral. A lot of it — like a lot of yours — gets missed. It gets seen by the people already following us. Maybe they like it. Maybe they comment. But it doesn’t go anywhere new.

A little while back, we started creating content about concussion in kids. The signs to look for. The misinformation that’s out there. What parents need to know that most of them don’t.

And something happened that we hadn’t seen in a while. It spread. Not because we boosted it. Not because we posted more frequently. But because parents started sharing it. Tagging friends. Sending it to their sports clubs. Reaching out and asking — can you come and speak to our group?

We’ve now got parents actively pulling us into football clubs, netball groups and school communities. Running workshops we didn’t have to sell. Because the community is selling them for us.

It Wasn’t One Post — It Was An Ecosystem

I want to be clear about something here. If you looked at our social media alone, you wouldn’t get the full picture of how this actually spread. This didn’t happen just because of a post that performed well. It happened because we carried the message everywhere.

We created content on socials. We emailed our patient database. We had one-on-one conversations with patients in the practice. And those patients carried it out into their communities from there.

Each touchpoint amplified the others. The social content gave people something to share. The email reached people who’d missed the social posts. The in-practice conversations created personal advocates who then started pulling us into their clubs and groups. It became an ecosystem.

You Don’t Need A Big Following For This

I mention this because a chiropractor with 200 followers on Instagram can absolutely create a PSA that spreads. You don’t need a huge following. You need a message worth spreading, and the commitment to carry it across every touchpoint you have.

What Actually Made This Different

Compare that to the content we’ve created about raising healthy kids, or the benefits of nervous system care, or why chiropractic matters for your family. Good content. Important content. But it doesn’t spread the same way.

I’ve been sitting with this question for a while now — what was different about the concussion content? And the answer I keep coming back to is this. It wasn’t marketing content. It was a public service announcement. And that is what today’s episode is about.

Most Chiropractic Content Is Marketing Material Dressed As Education

Most chiropractic content is marketing material dressed up as education. And people can feel the difference, even when they can’t articulate it.

Marketing material gets consumed by the people already following you. The people who already believe in what you do. The people who are already interested in chiropractic.

But a public service announcement — a genuine PSA — gets shared to people who’ve never heard of you.

The Energy Of A Real PSA

Think about the PSAs you’ve seen in your lifetime. Road safety campaigns. Skin cancer awareness. Mental health messages. Nobody shares those because they’re promoting something. They share them because the information matters. Because someone in their life needs to see it. Because passing it on feels like an act of service, not an act of marketing.

That is the energy you’re looking for in your content.

The Question That Changes Everything

Here’s the shift that changes everything. Stop asking — how do I market my practice? Start asking — what does my community need to know right now that they don’t yet have good information on?

Those are two very different questions. And they produce two very different types of content.

An Honest Caveat — Not Every Post Is A PSA

Before we go any further, I want to be honest with you about something. Not every piece of content you create needs to be a PSA. And expecting that is not only unrealistic, it’s going to put so much pressure on you that you stop creating altogether.

Your content library needs regular content too. The educational posts. The tips. The explainers. The content that serves the people already following you. That content has real value.

But every now and then, you create something that travels. Something that gets shared beyond your existing audience. Something that finds new people through the people who already trust you. That’s the PSA. And this episode is about how to create one on purpose.

Ingredient One — It Meets A Worry That Already Exists

A PSA doesn’t create a concern. It meets one that already exists. There’s a big difference between telling people they should care about something, and showing up in the middle of something they’re already carrying.

The concussion content worked because parents were already worried about this. Already confused. Already searching for answers. Already having this conversation at school pickup and in the group chat. We didn’t create that worry. We just showed up with something useful right in the middle of it.

Compare that to content about how chiropractic supports immune function. That might be true. It might be important. But if your community isn’t already lying awake at night thinking about immune function, you’re creating the concern rather than meeting it. And that’s marketing. Not a PSA.

Ingredient Two — The Information Feels New

Let me say this plainly. We cannot keep sharing content about how to choose a pillow, or three stretches for lower back pain, or the importance of staying hydrated. That information is not new. Your community has seen it a hundred times. And when something isn’t new, it doesn’t get shared.

A PSA brings something to the surface that people haven’t heard framed this way before. A connection they hadn’t made. A risk they didn’t know existed. A question they hadn’t thought to ask.

The concussion content felt new because most parents had never been told that the nervous system impact of a knock to the head in a child can go undetected and unaddressed for months. That was genuinely new information for most of the parents who saw it. And new information that matters gets shared.

Ingredient Three — It Serves The Community, Not The Business

This is the one that most chiropractors find hardest to do. Because we’re trained to always bring it back to chiropractic. To always close with — and this is why you should come and see us. But a genuine PSA has no sell in it. And people can feel that absence immediately.

When someone reads a piece of content and thinks — this person is genuinely trying to help my community, not trying to get patients — the trust that creates is enormous.

And paradoxically, content that doesn’t sell converts better than content that does. Because people share it. And when someone receives it from a friend they trust, that is the warmest possible introduction to your practice.

Ingredient Four — It Creates A Natural Duty To Share

This is the test. When someone reads a genuine PSA, they feel like they would be doing a disservice to someone they care about by not passing it on.

Not — oh that’s interesting. But — I need to send this to my sister. I need to share this in the school Facebook group. I need to show this to my training partner.

That feeling of duty — that’s what separates a PSA from everything else you create. Read back over your last ten pieces of content and ask, would someone feel like they were doing a disservice by not sharing this? Be honest with yourself about how many of them pass that test.

Step One — Find The Worry

Now let me make this practical. Before you create anything, you need to find something your community is already anxious about, that they don’t yet have clear or reliable answers on.

For us, that was concussion in kids. Parents were worried about it. Confused about it. Getting conflicting information about it. And feeling like nobody was giving them a straight answer. That’s the worry. And we found it because we were paying attention.

Step Two — Apply The PSA Test

Before you build anything, ask yourself one question. If someone in my community read or watched this, would they feel like they were doing a disservice to a friend by not sharing it?

For the concussion content, the answer was clearly yes. Every parent who watched it thought of another parent immediately. If the answer to that question isn’t a clear yes, it’s regular content. And that’s fine. But keep looking for the topic where the answer is yes.

Step Three — Frame It As Information, Not Promotion

Start with the community’s experience. Start with the worry they’re already carrying. Not with chiropractic. Not with what you do.

The concussion content didn’t open with — hi, I’m a chiropractor and today I want to talk about how we can help with concussion. It opened with the parent’s experience. The confusion. The fear. The lack of good information. And it put something genuinely useful in their hands. The practice and what we do came later, if at all.

Step Four — Let The Urgency Be Real

A genuine PSA has natural urgency, because the information actually matters. You don’t need to manufacture it.

If you find yourself writing things like — this is so important, or — you need to share this, that’s a signal that the urgency isn’t coming from the content itself. Real urgency sounds like — most parents aren’t told this, and by the time they find out, months have passed. The urgency is in the information. Not in the language around it.

Step Five — Share It And Watch The Right Signals

When you put it out there, don’t measure success by likes. Watch for shares. Watch for tags. Watch for comments that say — sending this to my friend, or — this is exactly what we needed to know.

Those are the signals that tell you the content is travelling. Those are the signals that tell you you’ve built a real PSA.

This Week’s Challenge — Just Listen

Here’s what I want you to do this week. I don’t want you to create anything. I just want you to listen.

PSA topics are all around us, every single day. They’re in the conversations you’re having at school pickup. They’re in the news. They’re in the Facebook groups your patients belong to. They’re in what your patients are saying in the consult room before the clinical part of the visit even starts. They’re in what your team is talking about between patients.

These conversations are happening all around you. But unless you’re actively looking for them, you’re completely blind to them.

So this week, everywhere you go, listen for the recurring worry. The thing people keep coming back to. The question nobody seems to be answering well. Write it down. In their words. Not your clinical interpretation of it. Their actual words.

And at the end of the week, take that list and run each one through the roadmap. Ask the one question. Would someone feel like they were doing a disservice to a friend by not sharing content on this topic? If the answer is yes, you’ve found your PSA.

Closing Thoughts

Let me bring this back to where we started. The concussion content spread because it was a genuine public service announcement. It addressed something parents were already worried about, and gave them information they genuinely needed. It carried something new — something most parents hadn’t heard framed that way before. It served the community, with no sell attached. And it created that natural duty to share, because every parent who watched it thought of another parent immediately.

We didn’t create that conversation. We found it. We joined it. And we showed up with something genuinely useful right in the middle of it.

That’s the shift. From marketing content that informs the people already following you, to public service announcements that travel through the people who already trust you. When you make that shift, your content stops being something you push out into the world. And it starts being something your community pulls through it.

That’s it for today, folks. Thanks for all that you do. Keep saving lives, and I’ll see you back here next week.