Boost Social Media Engagement for Your Veterinary Practice
Do you have a social media profile for your business? If not… it’s 2018! It’s time to hop on this trend because social media isn’t going anywhere any time soon. About 77% of Americans have a social media profile (and we bet you also have a personal profile to keep in touch with your long lost relatives in Ohio).
Social media gives you the opportunity to boost your search engine rankings, engage with your clients, and build your business’s online presence in a cost-effective manner. Users are also likely to check their profiles at least once a day, giving you a chance to interact with your audience just as often.
Maybe you already have your social media profiles up and running, but you’re thinking, “How can I get more engagement and reach a bigger audience?” Well, my friends, that’s what we’re here to answer.
There are many ways to boost your business’s social media engagement, but one of our favorite ways is to produce good content that your audience actually wants to see on their feed. Need a couple ideas to get you started? We’ve got you covered.
Post Videos
Whether you make your own or you repost a heartwarming pet adoption story, video is a great way to accrue likes, follows, and shares. In fact, video generates 1200% more shares than text and images combined. That’s right, we’re not exaggerating. 1200%.
So, where should you start? Facebook is the perfect platform to repost videos from popular pages. With 2.14 billion active users on Facebook, this platform will likely produce the best reach for your practice.
Since your audience is primarily your clients and potential clients, you don’t need to stick to veterinary videos. They may not need the complex deep dive into rare feline skin conditions that you may enjoy. You can broaden your range to cover animal care, animal welfare, fun facts, sweet stories, funny videos, any and all things animals! Just make sure to stick to the types of animals you cater to at your practice.
Trends and Challenges
Have you heard of the “What the Fluff Challenge?” In case you haven’t scrolled through social lately, this challenge requires owners to pull a disappearing act on their dogs and record their reactions. Some dogs don’t bat an eye while others are stunned by their owner’s clever trick, but all of the internet is eating it up.
Participating in challenges or playing off viral trends is a great way to remain current on social media and encourage engagement with your audience. Using this example, you can easily make a compilation video of your staff members doing the challenge! All you need is a sheet, a smartphone, and an editing tool.
Another way to incorporate trends into your page is to pay attention to popular sayings, videos, and images so that you can use them for your posts. Take a look at trending topics on Facebook and Twitter so that you can get an idea of what is getting the most attention and leverage those topics in your posts.
Memes
Unless you’ve been living on a polar ice cap for the last few years, you’ve probably seen a meme or two. These are images with words superimposed on the image to create a caption. Memes gained incredible popularity through relatable humor, even inspiring entire pages and accounts dedicated to posting these images.
Memes are also extremely easy to make. Simply take an image and use a free editor to add words to the photo and save! You can take popular images or gifs and draft a caption that relates to veterinary care or pet ownership. Remember, you need to have legal rights to the photo. So, it’s best to use either your own, original photo or to purchase a stock image.
You can also take photos of animals at your office or your staff’s furry pals and use those images to compose a meme. For example, you could take a picture of a cat looking very grumpy and write “When your alarm goes off at 6 a.m.”.
Pet Photos
The internet can’t get enough of cute animals (#relatable). With your client’s permission, you can post photos of your favorite patients on your page. Does one have a particularly good story? Share that with your audience so that they can experience an emotional connection to your work.
Do you have a staff member that details their pet’s antics every week in the break room? Ask him or her to begin taking pictures or videos of their pet so that you can produce a series on your social pages. Or, you can ask your staff for a picture of each of their pets so that you can post a brief profile on the animal. For example:
Not only will your audience adore the cute photos, but this will also allow your clients to get to know you and your staff through your better half (your pet, of course). They’ll know you’ll take exceptional care of their pets because you are animal lovers yourselves!
Sometimes, all it takes to see more engagement on your veterinary practice’s social media pages is a little creativity, a splash of humor, and a whole lot of good content. Using one of our ideas on your social feed? Tag us so we can see the awesome posts you’re creating for your practice!
Looking for more resources to help you learn how to reach your business goals?
Check out these articles!
Why Using Social Media for Your Veterinary Business is Essential
Kittens in the Workplace
5 Ways Having a Veterinary Website Can Cut Down On Your Staff’s Workload
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