Breaking Through the Noise: Boosting Your Online Presence in the Care Industry featuring Nick Bonitatibus

Danny Rosenthal:
Nick Bonitatibus, founder of Digital Champions, is on a mission to transform the home care industry. With over a decade of experience, he empowers agencies through social media and video marketing, helping them boost sales, attract referrals, and streamline caregiver hiring. Nick has educated thousands nationwide, and today Nick stopped by the podcast to share how you can jump in and start using marketing tools to step up and excel in the competitive home care agency market.

Today, if you aren’t sure where to start or have tried social media marketing before and didn’t see results, well Nick has great ideas right in this podcast to help you today. Let his insights guide you, and please enjoy my conversation with Nick Bonitatibus. Nick, thanks so much for joining us on the podcast today.

How are you doing? I am great. So grateful to be here.

Thanks for having me. How did you even get started in home care?

Nick Bonitatibus:
Yeah, so I have been in the home care industry for over 10 years, which when I say that, people always look at me funny like, how old? When did you start? Were you 18?

No, but for the record, I did start right out of my college career. I worked for a home care consulting agency. And so through that process, I was able to learn a lot about the home care industry.

And so through that process, I started meeting so many people and experiencing this amazing industry that is home care, these incredible people that truly want to make a difference and make an impact. And through that process, while I was working for this company, I was running their marketing department. I was doing a number of different things from social media to video marketing, email marketing, managing their website, and basically anything digital marketing.

That was me. I was the whole department. And through that process, I got my first opportunity at one of their events in 2016 to speak about what was Facebook marketing.

It was 20 things or something along those lines, which at the time I was horrified. I was speaking in front of 150 people. It was my first time.

I was like 24 years old. But through that process, I found that there was a one. I found that I loved speaking.

I love teaching. As soon as I came off that stage, it was a moment for me of realizing, oh, this is what I’m here to do. I’m meant to speak.

I’m meant to teach. And so through that process, the more that I started speaking at events, I saw that there was a huge need for what I was not just teaching, but actually helping people to be able to implement social media and video marketing strategies. And so I ended up going out on my own.

I still have a great relationship with the company I used to work for. I still go and speak at their events, and now I’ve been in my business for over five years, which is pretty awesome and I love it.

Danny Rosenthal:
Why is the social media presence important for a home care agency or how is it helping people?

Nick Bonitatibus:
Yeah, I think this is a missed opportunity in a lot of cases because there’s different dynamics and aspects of social media and how it relates to home care and how it’s being used and how it’s being leveraged. And one of the first pieces is understanding that this is a massive trust business. And so people need to know that you have their best interests, that you can be trusted to care for their loved one or in many cases care for their patient, right?

Referral sources that we’re talking about. And so what we’re doing online and how we’re showcasing ourselves and how we’re showcasing our brand helps us to build know, like, and trust. When we can build know, like, trust, it drives more sales, it drives more referrals, drives more business.

And obviously that’s the goal. That’s what you’re trying to do. And so it’s also important to understand that when someone’s looking at different companies, looking for a home care agency that they want to work with, they’re going to be doing their research.

They’re going to look at different companies and they’re going to look at your social media, not just prospective clients, but also caregivers. Are every caregiver going to look at your agency? No, but the good ones are.

The best caregivers are going to do their research, they’re going to look at your company, they’re going to see what you’re about. And the thing to think about is, is your social media, or is it something that when someone looks at it, you’re like, yes, and they’re proud. You are proud of what you’re sharing online.

You’re like, yes, this is an accurate representation of who we are and who are and what our brand represents. And so if you want to, you know, be able to drive greater results in your business, you have to have a strong online presence. I think, you know, COVID was a huge aspect of this where so many companies were like, oh, no, now we can’t do traditional marketing.

What do we do now? The ones that continue to do well were the ones that already had an online presence that were already doing things, whereas those that didn’t were all of a sudden, oh, no. And so we need to be prepared.

That’s like a perfect example of what can happen. We need to make sure that we’re leveraging all the tools that we have at our disposal, um, because you’re running a business, and this is essential. And obviously, there’s a lot of different platforms and how you’re leveraging and, you know, we can get into a number of different areas.

I’ll let you decide where we want to go from here.

Danny Rosenthal:
What I’m most thinking about right now is how are you helping people pull out the voice of their business? Because it’s not a person that you’re working with. It’s a company.

Nick Bonitatibus:
Yeah, the best place and kind of where we start is through video marketing and helping agency owners to tell their story about why they got into this business. And, you know, being in the industry for over 10 years, I’ve met so many home care agency owners from all over the country, some internationally. And I’ve had the privilege of really being able to hear their stories.

And you have incredible, amazing, heartfelt, emotional stories about why you got into this business. And so what we do is we help them to really tell that story, to get it out. I know video can be overwhelming.

We walk you through every step of the way. So we’re doing it with you. You don’t have to do anything on your own.

And we break down, we plan it, and then we edit it. So it looks nice, professional, and it has personalized photos in it. And so it becomes this very emotional and engaging video that you can now use and leverage again and again.

And obviously, social media is something that you want to do consistently on a regular basis. But this is a way for you to put you and your reason and your why as an owner behind the brand upfront, so that’s being seen again and again. A lot of times we’ll actually, we’ll pin your why video to the top of, let’s say, for example, Facebook, you can pin a post.

So we pin the why video so that anytime somebody comes to your social media, boom, that’s the first thing that they see. And this becomes something that you put on your website. We’re putting on YouTube.

YouTube is a big focus for us, obviously, with video. And so we’re really leveraging your own unique story and your voice to really put yourself out there in that way. Now, to elaborate a little bit more, because I could go down a total rabbit hole and do a whole hour.

Actually, I already did one with some of my clients about AI and how to create your own brand voice using AI. So again, that’s like a whole other rabbit hole, but that is a potential option. But that comes from actually just like recording videos or submitting emails or just talk to text to get that.

How do you speak? What’s your message? What’s your brand?

What’s your mission? All of these things is what makes your brand voice what you’re about. And so when you have all of these things, when you have all these pieces, then it becomes that much easier to create content around these things because you understand what your goal is and what your mission is and what your representation is, which is why many people in the home care industry, they outsource their social media.

And I think this is a big mistake. They’re just like, I don’t have time for this. Can someone else do this?

And it’s like, great. Now you’re spending hundreds of dollars, if not thousands of dollars a month to a social media strategy that will actually get you no results. You’re just putting it out there to do it.

It’s not going to help you. It’s a big waste of time and money. Whereas if you just took the time to create a plan, create a strategy, and then delegate this plan and strategy to someone else that can manage the social media, there’s a difference between outsourcing and then having someone that’s actually managing your social media because as an owner, you’re busy, you have things going on.

So that’s kind of like a key difference so that the manager really understands your voice and what you’re about and what your brand is and really know who you are so that they can properly represent you online. But it’s a top-down thing. Again, I can get into more details, but a lot of it is one quick thing that you can do just for takeaways here, all right?

Document everything. Everything that you are doing, take photos of it. Every time I speak at an event, I always share this.

I talk about taking photos, and we go, I’m doing all these things that you’re saying. I just never take photos of it. Take photos.

Hey, you’re having caregivers come in for training. Great. Take photos of it.

It’s a birthday at one of your office staff. Take photos of it. You’re out marketing at different referral sources.

Take photos of it. You’re at a networking event. Take photos of it.

Post those photos. That’s what we’re doing. We’re documenting.

We’re showcasing, hey, here’s what we’re doing out in the community. These are real live photos, no stock photos, no stock content, real people, real photos. You will see such a greater results in everything that you share and everything you post, the more real and authentic you are in your online presence.

Danny Rosenthal:
Is this something that people can learn or are you naturally good at this? Because I feel that is one of those hurdles where they’re just like, I’m not that type of person, Nick. I don’t know how I could ever do that.

Or is this something that you can learn and be taught?

Nick Bonitatibus:
Absolutely. Great question. I love this question for so many reasons that I’ll try not to go down in a rabbit hole here, but the first aspect of this is understanding that what we say is really important and how you identify yourself is extremely important.

And so a personal story of mine, just to give you some background, is that when I was first getting into entrepreneurship or just personal development, not even entrepreneurship, I never was like, I’m going to start a business. It happened, but it progressively got there. I was going down this rabbit hole and learning from experts and everyone kept saying, read, a good CEO reads 60 books a year, all this stuff, just talking about reading.

And my whole life I identified as someone who wasn’t a good reader. I had my parents and teachers and I’ve had so many people throughout my life saying, you’re not a good reader. I had to go to summer school, from middle school or from elementary school to middle school.

When I even went to college, I had to take an extra class to be able to get into the university that was focused on reading and writing. And so my whole life I’ve been told I’m not a good reader. And so I started just, all right, well, I’m going to do audiobooks because I’m not a good reader.

And I decided that this identity that I kept telling myself was no longer serving me. And so I decided to change that, shift that and rethink this identity that was no longer serving me. And so I decided to tell myself I am a reader.

So we’re getting a little woo here, but it’s all right. One of the things that I started doing is I started writing every single day, I am a reader, I am a reader, every single day. And through that process, I started to reshift my identity because now I’m writing it every single day.

And then through that process, well, what does a reader do? He reads. And so then I started reading 10 minutes a day.

That was it. Before I knew it, sometimes I would read 20 minutes, sometimes I’d read an hour. Now I’ve read more books than my former self could ever have imagined that I’ve read.

And that comes, I got a whole bookshelf of books. I recently got a Kindle, which I’ve been debating. I don’t know, it’s tough because I want to build my library and I want all these books.

But the Kindle is really nice to have for transport.

Danny Rosenthal:
They say you buy the hardcovers as trophies. That’s what I’ve heard.

Nick Bonitatibus:
Oh, I like that. I might do that. I like that.

And then you just read the Kindles and you buy it on both. That’s a good. So I share that in that so often people do that.

I’m not good at marketing. I’m not a good leader. I’m not good on video.

Whatever it is, I’m not good at public speaking. These identities are not serving you. If you’re not good at something, it’s only because you haven’t done it.

If you want to get better at it, then you have to do it. And so it’s just like anything else. When you learned how to ride a bike, did you just jump on that bike and you just took off and you’re flying and you’re going off ramps and you’re grinding and all this stuff?

No. You had training wheels, then the training wheels off. You probably fell off.

You got a bunch of scrapes. You got bruises. You got bumps.

It’s no different than anything else in your life and business. It takes time. You have to be willing to put in the reps to put in the work.

To kind of go circle back into taking photos, it’s just a matter of creating a habit. I love habit creation. If you want to get better at habits, I highly recommend the book Atomic Habits.

It’s one of the most phenomenal books on creating habits. And so when you’re thinking about and you’re at these events, you just want to create a habit. An example of this is one of my cousins came in to visit me.

This was probably like two years ago to San Diego. And so we wanted to make sure that we were taking photos of each of the places that we go. So we went, we did like a little bar crawl.

And during that process, the cue that we created to make sure that we documented was the first drink we had at each bar, we would cheers and we’d take a photo. So we literally created a habit of the routines that we were doing so that every time we didn’t forget, so that we were always documenting. And so we’re creating this cue.

And so if you struggle with like taking a photo and then you have to create a time during this event, a lot of times the beginning is a great place to start and just setting the intention. I think this is just an aspect of how you show up to anything is what are the intention that you show up? So whether you’re walking into someone’s home about to a consultation, when they’re walking into a networking event, you’re sitting in your car, what intention are you setting before you walk in there?

Are you just getting out of your car and going in? Because you should be taking a moment, taking a breath, taking it in. All right, what intention?

How do I want to show up? How do I want to be perceived? How do I want to show up in this group?

What are my goals when I walk in here? And when we can shift that and have a plan every time we walk into somewhere, you’re going to start getting better results. So it’s just a matter of creating a plan, creating a strategy, and then executing the strategy.

Danny Rosenthal:
You’ve won me over with all the Woo stuff as well. So now I’m convinced and I go, okay, I can learn this. I can create some habits, but I don’t, I’ve tried social media before, Nick, and I don’t know where to even start.

Where do you go now?

Nick Bonitatibus:
Yeah. So the best thing that you can do from getting started in kind of navigating a lot of the different platforms that exist, if you’re maybe you’re not ready to quite jump into video, which is fine, but if you are, or when you’re ready, I’m here. Let’s start with LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is by far the most underrated, underutilized social platform in the home care industry, because I see it all the time. I go to events and people don’t even have a LinkedIn, which is crazy to me. This is the one and only, the number one social media platform for business that exists.

And so this is a huge opportunity for you to use and leverage. And so the first thing, one, if you don’t have a LinkedIn, make one. All right.

Two, start connecting with people that you already know. So it doesn’t matter, like people will accept your request if they know you. So just, and I’m talking to everyone.

I mean, people you went to high school with, people you went to college with, friends, family, relatives, anyone that you know, connect with them on LinkedIn. That is the first place to start. Then, okay, you’re going to go to the digitalchamps.com slash intro. Okay. You don’t have to give me any information. It’s totally free.

This isn’t a pitch. Okay. It’s just free information.

And it will walk you through how to create your first post. It’s called an introduction post. I do this all the time with my clients.

It’s the most successful post. It works every time. It gets so much engagements.

It gets so many views. All you got to do is go create this post. It’s like four sentences with a photo of yourself and it will crush it.

And I’ll walk you through every step.

Danny Rosenthal:
If you go to that link, I’m going to, I will have to do that. Well, we will put that link in the show notes too. So people can go right there, make that super easy.

What makes it, I suppose, even before what makes this post so good?

Nick Bonitatibus:
Yes. You know what makes this post so good? All right.

Number one is that is a photo of you and you’re smiling pretty face. That is the number one thing, right? So when we do that, what this does, social media has so many things going on, right?

There’s so many people posting and memes and graphics and quotes and all this stuff. But social media, it was inherently created for building relationships and showing people, real people. So the example of this, and I always love this as like at an event or on social media, you will see a photo with a bunch of people in it.

What do you do? You look at it and you get real close and you’re like, do I know anyone in this photo? And then you’re like, oh, there’s that person I know.

And so inherently social media is built on looking for people that we know. And so when your face, boom, headshot of just you, no graphics, no nothing, just a photo of you. If you want to do the selfie, even better.

That will then draw people in to then take the next step, which is then to read the post. So the first thing is the photo of you. The second thing that makes this so effective is that it’s personal to you.

And so I follow these steps in one, there’s an engaging hook. I’d like to reintroduce myself, dot, dot, dot. The next part is who you are.

Just a quick introduction in who you are and what problem it is that you solve. You should be able to tell people what you do in one sentence. If you can’t do that, then you need to rethink how you’re marketing and how you’re marketing your business.

One sentence, you should be able to tell people exactly what you do. And that should say who you serve and what you do in that and what problem you solve for them. That’s what that sentence.

Then we get into what your mission is. What’s your goal? What do you want to achieve?

What is your mission within your business? And then four, we are talking about something personalized to you. What do you like to do in your free time when you’re not serving seniors?

And so now it takes that personal touch of really separating of something that’s super authentic. I like going for hikes. I like going to the beach with my family.

I like watching Marvel movies, whatever it may be. That’s all mapped out in this post so that it hits all of these different pieces that are designed to get people to know you, like you, trust you, but to also get people to want to work with you. That’s the biggest thing with this post.

When I mentioned that it gets a lot of reach and it gets a lot of engagement, yes, that’s one piece of the puzzle. But I have a ton of testimonials of people saying how this got them multiple booked calls, how it got them meetings, how it got them clients from this post. And so just from this one post, you can get clients, booked calls, appointments, all kinds of stuff just from this one post, simply reminding people who you are and what you do.

Danny Rosenthal:
That’s fantastic. That sounds like a magical post. I mean, it sounds too good to be true, but I get it though.

It really is helpful. I have a secret sauce message that I do when I’m connecting with people on LinkedIn. I will also put that in the show.

It’s not a secret, but it’s a Danny thing that I’m just like, oh, this crushes it every time.

Nick Bonitatibus:
I guarantee you, Danny, if you do this post, it will be one of your highest posts on LinkedIn. I can guarantee that right now. I’m going to do it like right after we do this.

Danny Rosenthal:
I think everybody listening, do you have to try it? Because there’s no negative of trying it too, right? There’s no negative to putting yourself out there like that.

That’s only a benefit. I know I’m not the expert here, but I did want to mention, I looked at the Beatles for help with things because you mentioned you put yourself out there with a picture. I thought one of their best marketing things was all their albums are pictures of themselves, which is a really savvy way to build a relationship with people that are going to just listen to you and they’re never seeing you.

I always feel like every artist should just be putting up pictures of themselves. I know that they’re not expert here, but someone in the Beatles marketing team knew what they were doing.

Nick Bonitatibus:
Yeah. I mean, Abbey Road, that’s a staple. It’s such a classic of the four of them just walking across the street.

Danny Rosenthal:
Yeah. So back on the real things, when people are reaching out to you and they’re saying that this isn’t for me or this is really hard, is there anything next steps wise that is a helpful tip for people? Is there things that people should be staying away from or is it all a good try and it just doesn’t hit?

Where are these differences?

Nick Bonitatibus:
Yeah. So I mean, there’s a lot of aspects of what can work and what cannot work and what you should absolutely avoid doing. One of the biggest things, I’ll talk about some big mistakes that I see.

Number one is posting links on social media. That is one of the worst things that you can do. People do it all the time.

It’s this super outdated strategy. I see people sharing blog posts and all types of content that worked 20 years ago. Like Facebook’s been around a long time.

This does not work anymore. Why does this not work? Think about this.

Logically, these social platforms make money by keeping you on the platform. So anytime that you post a link, you are now taking people off the platform. So what is the algorithm do?

It doesn’t show that link to anyone. Specifically, when people post YouTube links to Facebook. Oh, that’s the ultimate.

Don’t do that because that’s literally a competitor. So when they get a YouTube link, they immediately are flagging that. No, no, no.

Number two, which I already touched on a little bit, is stock content. Nobody wants to see this. What ends up happening is when you post this stock content, it looks like an ad.

People see the ad and what do they do? They scroll right on past. They’re not going to look at, they’re not even engaged.

People are getting so good at recognizing ads. And so when you post that stock content, people just scroll right on past it. And so we got to remove all those stock content.

So if you do those two things and start avoiding those two things, you’ll start doing better. Then again, a reminder and what I already touched on is just being more personalized. People are starting to leverage and utilize the amazing things that are AI.

And so what’s ended up happening is they’re creating this super lame, inauthentic AI generated content and wondering why it’s not working or they’re just posting it because someone says, you need to have online presence. So then they’re just posting randomly. And so what I recommend, focus on quality of content instead of quantity of content.

Often people come to me and they’re, hey Nick, do I need to post like five times a day? And I say, I don’t recommend that at all. Make sure that you are focusing on creating really good content that people are going to engage with, that is personalized and well thought out, that you can be proud of.

If you post something, let’s say on your business Facebook page, for example, or business LinkedIn page, and you don’t want to share that to your personal page or share that to your personal Facebook page in front of your friends and family, then it’s not a good post. It’s not good content if you’re not willing to want to share it. And so it’s a great way to think about, is this good?

Is this something that I would want to see? Is this something that I would want to share if I saw this or if I didn’t even know this person? Let’s say you’re seeing something online and you don’t even know this person, know this company.

Is this valuable content that you wouldn’t want to share, even if you didn’t even know the business? And so that’s how we want to think about content and really thinking about how can we input more of the human element into our social media, into our brand. And if you start doing that on a consistent basis, you are going to see greater results in what you’re doing online.

Danny Rosenthal:
With being authentic, where is that line of just sharing boring details about myself and showing people how helpful I can be?

Nick Bonitatibus:
Great question. There is a nuance that is easily learned, especially with ChatGBT doing this well. You can write a post about yourself and then have ChatGBT rewrite it to make it speaking to more of your audience and less about yourself.

We have a tendency to use I. We have a tendency to talk about ourselves. It’s just part of what we do and how we think.

But then you can reframe it and refocus it so that now the message that you were trying to share is now going and focused on them. And so what we’re really thinking about at the core of this is value. How are we taking something that we’re doing and how make it valuable?

This is how we shift gears in the documentation element to making it a more valuable experience for somebody that’s seeing it. For example, let’s say I want to post that I went to the gym. A lot of people may post, hey, look at me.

I’m at the gym. I’m really cool because I’m working out. Not great.

Not really great. People aren’t going to look at that and say, this is really cool. But if you shift it and you talk about how important the gym is, how incredible it can make you feel and how energized it creates and what it does for you and how if you just are consistent and showing up and making sure that you’re showing up in a consistent way, whether it’s two days a week, four days a week, whatever that means to you, you will see a greater impact in your life.

You’ll be happier. You’ll be more energized and you will feel more confident in yourself if you show up at the gym. So notice how now I just shifted this idea of, oh, look at me at the gym to, hey, here’s the value of the gym.

Here’s what it’s done for me and here’s what it can do for you. You’re right.

Danny Rosenthal:
This is a concept easily learned because I think I’m starting to grasp it. I’m thinking about how I might say a mundane thing like I’m eating breakfast type of thing. I’m eating my Wheaties.

And instead, I’d be like, Wheaties, starting with a breakfast in my day is so much better than the days that I don’t do that. And if you were doing that, too, you’d also be having a greater day. You’d be crushing all the meat, whatever, you know, like that type of thing.

I’m starting to learn this. This is this is really helpful. I feel like I should be paying you a consultation fee, but we’re doing this with everybody.

Nick Bonitatibus:
I’ll send you the bill. Thank you. No, no, no, it’s fine.

Danny Rosenthal:
Send it. Well, check is in the mail. So then where do people where should people get started even like reaching out to you?

Like what would be the first steps of like working with you?

Nick Bonitatibus:
Yeah, it’s simple. If you just go to my website, the digital champs dot com and book a call. I will not sell you something that is not for you, period.

And so I guarantee that if you get on a call with me, you’re going to leave with valuable insights whether or not you decide to move forward with me. And so I’m honestly just here to have a conversation. I have told so many people, hey, my program’s not for you.

Here’s where you should go. And I’ve gotten so many people to thank me for that. I don’t think I deserve to be thanked.

I think that everyone should do that. I don’t know why I’m special in that regard or that that’s so obscure. But to me, it’s just really important that based on your situation, wherever you’re at in business, whatever your budget is and what your goals are, is going to potentially have a different outcome or different program.

And I have a lot of amazing connections, a lot of amazing referral partners, events, conferences, other coaches and consultants that I can refer. And so whatever your situation, I am here to help find the best thing for you.

Danny Rosenthal:
Thank you so much, Nick. I really appreciate you sharing your time with us, sharing all this amazing information. Thank you so much.

Nick, have a great rest of your day.

Nick Bonitatibus:
Hey, thank you so much for having me.