How I Developed My Internet Following

I have spent years developing my internet platform and I love using my social media platforms to educate my followers. The internet is a way for us to connect with each other and I enjoy that connection we can build and the information we can share without having to travel. I’ve been asked how I built this and where I am going. So, here is my story. Enjoy the show. If you want more, sign up for my newsletter at: www.drsamberne.com.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

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Hello, everyone, it’s Dr. Sam, I’d like to welcome you to my EyeClarity podcast. This is a show that offers cutting-edge information on how to improve your vision and overall wellness through holistic methods. I so appreciate you spending part of your day with me. If you have questions, you can send them to hello@drsamberene.com. Now to the latest EyeClarity episode.

Hey, everybody, it’s Dr. Sam, I’d like to welcome you to another EyeClarity Podcast. I’m going to take a question today from a listener that’s a little different than what I usually talk about. And this is a listener who’s been following me for a long time. And she wants to know why I got into social media. And how did I start my eCommerce store? And she wants to know my story. And this is somebody who’s known me for about 25 years. And so I’ve had a long history with her. She’s probably seen a lot of different evolutions and revolutions in my development.

So my story is basically something like this. When I was eight years old, I was diagnosed with a learning problem. And my mom took me to a lot of different doctors and we ended up at an ophthalmologist’s office. And I got a pair of nearsighted glasses. And I became a memorizer in school. So I got good grades. I wasn’t a great test-taker, you know, standardized tests. At that time was difficult for me. But I was able to get through school, did well studied hard, and I went, obviously went to college, went to college at Penn State University, a great state school, in Pennsylvania. That’s where I grew up. Then I went to optometry school. And I began to question the medical model. So I was able to do some internships that explored something called vision therapy, which is a way to improve your vision and engage the brain and the body. And when I graduated from optometry school, I enrolled in a place called the gazelle Institute, because l was affiliated with Yale. And it was a place where I learned about child development. That’s what the gazelle center, Gazelle Institute was about. And spent a year there affiliated with an eye doctor, Dr. Ellis Edelman in Philadelphia, who built up my practice in his office, he was called a behavioral optometrist or developmental optometrist.

And I was a kind of an intern for him and built up a pretty successful practice. And then, in 1990, I moved to New Mexico, I wanted to be more in the West, the lifestyle of what it was like living in the West and nature and, you know, so I moved out to Santa Fe, and opened up a very successful practice had a couple of different go-rounds with it, you know, got bigger, more staff. And 2010. I closed that office and opened and home office, which you probably see now. It’s a geodesic dome. And it’s a pretty cool place to work. And so I was always, you know, how to work for myself, I was an entrepreneur, I’ve ever delivering newspapers, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, when I was a kid, you know, made money was always a hustler. And I started to see the writing on the wall when I was in private practice, because, you know, the insurance industry was such as that wasn’t covering my service anymore. And so people were paying out of pocket and was tougher for them to do that.

And I was always, you know, interested in chemistry and got involved in nutrition and started to look at different supplementation and one of the discoveries I made was this idea of using a sulfur molecule sulfur from MSM, and I began to use it in an eye drop and got great success with that. So I began collecting different nutraceutical products. And so what I ended up doing was that when I closed my office, I still wanted to see people but I saw that the internet was just beginning to grow. This was 2010. And I remember I had a, a web store and began selling some products on it and you know, I did okay, I had different vendors that I was partnered Going with, but I can never really break through it. And I met some people in 2015, who changed my life basically because they were able to teach me a way to actually brand myself. And in branding myself, I began the slow uphill journey of being able, to be known through the internet.

And when I first started, it was very, very slow. You know, we had the social media sites, Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn and Twitter didn’t know much about those. But I began a Facebook Live show weekly. And it was so funny, probably for like six months, I don’t think I got one person to watch that show, I was on every Wednesday, six to 7 pm. And I remember I used to create, like, a presentation that I would give, and then people might email me some questions or patients would say, you know, send me questions.

So I would just pretend like okay, um, you know, answering questions. Finally, I started to get some traction on Facebook, and, you know, did some advertising on Facebook around my products and developed, you know, private labels, and, you know, things like that. And it was slow going, you know, it was very slow going the first couple of years. You know, it was difficult. And I would say like in 2018 2019, I started to gain a little traction, Tik Tok came into view. And I know that a lot of my listeners are between the ages of 50 to 75. And for them to even get on Facebook was probably really difficult. And of course, we call it Metaverse right now. But, you know, I don’t have an allegiance to Facebook, if they went out of business, basically, I would find another avenue to be able to get the word out. However, I use these social media sites as a way to educate, to share information. And for some people, love the written word.

That’s why I do a lot of written blogs. Some people love the video. So when I go out in the nature, and I’m hiking, and I want to answer somebody’s question, and then, of course, there’s the audio version. So I want to reduce resistance as much as I can. And I think of myself as a media company, as much as a holistic health practitioner, optometrist, and beyond. So what does the future bring? You know, I have no idea, I feel that certainly, the internet is a way for us to connect with each other. And so far, it’s free. So we’re not really paying for it, that could change. But what I love about being able to connect, is that we can do so without traveling without going somewhere, you know, for so many years, the only way I could really reach people was through traveling. And so I know that I have a book that’s coming out next February called Vital vision, I’m getting ready to do the audible version of that. And so that’s going to be really exciting when I get to that place in terms of releasing it.

We may also have some other additional interviews and other things that will be attached to the audible version of the book. And I want to get back to doing live workshops. You know, I used to do a lot of live workshops, obviously, COVID was able to stop all of that. But I’m seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. And hopefully, I don’t know in what form it’s going to be. But one of the things that I’m doing right now is negotiating with a retreat center in Costa Rica. And I’ve always wanted to go to Costa Rica, and this would be a retreat. Probably the subject matter would be more in the area of helping human performance and growth personal growth.

So wouldn’t be having a cataract fix it It would be more in the area of neuroplasticity and how to improve brain function. And through the different methods that I’ve developed over the years, it could be a really great venue. So I appreciate the question from this patient I’ve gotten I’ve known her for many, many years. And, you know, you get to see behind the scenes what goes on around this content creation, and being able to reach more people. This is all in organic reach. So I don’t buy lists and, you know, I’m not soliciting people at all. So it’s a very slow and steady process. And stay tuned. I want to thank you for your participation and take care of everybody.

Thank you for listening. I hope you learned something from the EyeClarity podcast show today. If you enjoyed the episode, make sure to subscribe on iTunes or Spotify and leave a review. See you here next time.