Teeth Baring Veterinary Social Media

 

 

Your passion is pet medicine but with the ever increasing pressure to have a social media presence to attract new clients and keep current clients loyal, veterinary clinics often find themselves posting, tweeting, and instagram’ing without purpose.  I implore you to not make the blunders below that are “teeth baring worthy” in the veterinary marketing industry.

Take the time needed to post with purpose and create your own personalized brand, not grow someone else’s.

 

 

 

 

 

Generic Blog Shares

There are some great blogs out there that have veterinary topics with tips and tricks, pet educational pieces and cute pet pictures; goodpetparent.com, dvm360.com, petguide.com and the list goes on and on. Pick a topic, Google search, a plethora of options populates, pick a blog and give the content a scan, share to your social media.  Easy peasy social media …. but wait!!!

Yes, this might serve to educate your clients, but it’s not custom content and it lacks effort that your clients will soon recognize.
Tell your own clinic story through blogging.  It will help build client relationships, position you as an industry leader, you can attract better employees because you’ll be seen as a forward thinking clinic, and people worldwide will thank you for caring, teaching, and engaging.  Your followers and audience want to see that there’s actually real people behind the clinic name.

What The What What?

Angiopathy, hemangiosarcoma, pneumocystogram, transplacentally …. huh?
There truly needs to be a fine balance between medical jargon and layman terms.  You want to keep people engaged in what you have to say, and you want them to understand the message you’re delivering. Not to say you can’t use medical terminology, but when you do, ensure you explain what it means and never assume people will know what you’re talking about.  You eat, sleep and breathe the veterinary world, the general public does not.

Over Education

Educate, educate, educate, and educate some more, but where’s the fun!?  You can have teachable moments by sharing the stories of the pet kids that come through your clinic by posting their pictures with an explanation of why they’re in clinic and the treatment course.  Most Pet parents love seeing their pet kids in the spotlight, and who doesn’t love adorable pet pictures?  Don’t forget to also share pictures of a day in the life of your clinic; staff, pets, pet parents, visitors and of course the stars of the show; your veterinarians in candid moments.

Post It and Forget It

Social media also means social care and requires a high level of customer service.  Simply having a social media presence is no longer enough; you need to be social and interactive.  If your clients send a social media thank you, be sure you respond in a timely manner.  If an audience comments on your post with a question, it’s imperative you answer their question as soon as possible.  Nobody wants to be ignored or not acknowledged.  It’s SOCIAL media after all.  My rule of thumb in clinic is no phone rings more than twice, and for social media, no comment, private message or post goes beyond 2 hours without a response.

 

 

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