We will continue to promote the ‘choose physio’ message through ongoing public awareness campaigns and day-to-day activities in addition to keeping our members informed, connected and represented.

In the first half of 2022, we achieved unprecedented media coverage, with 986 media pieces compared to 929 pieces for the whole of 2021 and 570 in 2020.

Our potential reach through these pieces has also increased substantially, from 214 million in 2020 to 233 million in 2021 and 372 million in the first half of 2022.

We have developed ongoing relationships with key media outlets such as Croakey, Australian Ageing Agenda, Aged Care Insite and, in a first for the APA, the Indigenous-owned Bumma Bippera Media, which has featured multiple interviews with our national president and shared the podcast show The Deadly Physios through its website.

This work is vital in highlighting the value of physiotherapy, not only to consumers, but to funders and key stakeholders.

In collaboration with a small digital agency, we have focused on optimising our presence on search engines and executing rolling digital advertising across Google, Facebook and LinkedIn. 

This has led to a significant jump in visitors to our Find a Physio directory—ultimately connecting more consumers directly to one of our member physiotherapists and shortening their journey from identifying a need to beginning treatment.

Combined with our consumer campaign in the aged care space, this increased traffic to the choose.physio website by 46 per cent between February and May 2022. 

Stay tuned for an updated version of this website in 2023.

We have also been expanding our approach to member acquisition through digital remarketing, which continues to deliver a steady supply of new members for a relatively small investment. 

Our social media following across the primary channels of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter has grown significantly over the past couple of years—LinkedIn leads the charge, with an increase of 102 per cent. 

As always, be sure to keep an eye on InMotion online here for the latest new content.

We are looking ahead to 2023 and imagining new campaigns and new opportunities for reaching our audiences. 

This includes increasing accessibility—for example, for culturally and linguistically diverse audiences and for those living with disability. 

An always-on digital campaign to move consumers from the point of need to booking an appointment will be underpinned by a focused brand strategy.

Meanwhile, the language in our messages is evolving to reflect the connection between physiotherapists and patients—‘your physio’ instead of ‘a physio’ implies a longer term, more personal interaction, which goes to the heart of what physiotherapy is all about.

We will be launching our final major consumer campaign for the year on World Physiotherapy Day, with a focus on pain—both chronic and acute.

I encourage you to get involved, download the resources and share them through your networks and with your patients.

Pain affects everyone at some point and physiotherapy has solutions.

Many thanks to our engaged members, who so generously share their time, effort and expertise to bring the depth and breadth of physiotherapy to front of mind as we continue our education and awareness efforts.