5 Great Veterinary Social Media Posts You Should Try At Your Practice
How often is your veterinary practice communicating with clients outside of your office? Social media is an essential marketing tool that can help you nurture your relationship with pet owners even when they are not physically present at your practice.
Additionally, engaging with your current clients online also helps to encourage business from potential clients. When potential clients go to your social pages and see how well you interact with current clients, it will encourage them to want to know more about what services your offer and may lead to them booking their first appointment at your vet practice. This allows them to see how well you use social media platforms to share your veterinary knowledge and provide supplementary customer service in an online space.
Social media networks like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter give you access to pet owners to answer any questions they may have while also building a relationship that was not readily available in the past.
If you want to take advantage of the opportunity to reach as many online users as possible for educational and entertainment purposes, follow along as we share what makes a good post and learn about the 5 veterinary social media posts you should try at your veterinary practice.
What Characteristics Make a Good Veterinary Social Post?
When you create a post and prepare to publish it on your social pages, before you hit publish, do you consider how well the post will engage your audience? Will it encourage them to respond to it?
There are a few types of posts that can do this. They are social posts that:
- Invite conversation
- Share timely industry news
- Educate your targeted audience
- Boost your credibility
- Have a clear call to action
Let’s dive into each of these categories.
1. Social Posts That Invite Conversation With Users Online
At its core, social media is about communicating with other users on the platform. Talking to your clients online should feel the same as it does when you talk to them in person. Partaking in dialogue with your followers is one of the easiest methods to get them to share their opinions or ideas with you. Sharing posts that open dialogue is also one of the most effective ways to increase engagement on your pages.
These types of posts open up a line of communication to show followers how you can be professional, but also friendly and open to discussing veterinary-related topics outside the office.
Try publishing one of these types of posts on your pages in order to spark a conversation with your followers:
Polls
Polls are a great way to get users’ opinions and see how they feel about a certain topic, given specific options. Users have the chance to display their likes, dislikes, and shared interests they have with other voters. Many times they will even comment to further explain why they voted the way they did, which is great. More comments equal more engagement on your veterinary page. Use polls to get your clients’ opinions on things like their favorite pet accessory that you sell at your practice, animal trivia, the next offer that you should run, and more!
Veterinary-Related Questions
This may seem obvious, but you can get your audience to engage with you by simply asking a question! Don’t be afraid of asking general questions related to pet topics. An important aspect of social media is about encouraging community. Ask a question and your followers will answer. They may even reply back to other responses that you receive that they agree or disagree with. You can ask trivia questions, questions about their pet’s health, or any topics that you believe will solicit great responses from your following. If you want to gain as much insight as you can, it’s best to avoid yes or no questions.
Surveys
Surveys are another way to gather responses from your following. People who partake in surveys generally want businesses to know how they feel about their products and services. A survey can also be a tool to help you come to a solution or brainstorm ideas to improve something at your practice that your clients may not have been satisfied with.
2. Social Posts That Share Timely Industry News
The veterinary industry is forever changing and every year new technologies and techniques are being developed. Share these industry updates from organizations, associations, and other veterinary professionals on your social pages. Explain how these scientific breakthroughs are important and what they could mean for pet health.
How are they relevant to your practice and how will they change or improve the care or services you can provide for your clients? Post updates that you know will interest the pet owners that follow your pages.
These types of posts reflect current events, so find a way to integrate them into what is going on at your practice to show that you and your staff are knowledgeable about the latest veterinary news.
Vet Social Pages To Reshare Timely Posts
When you share current news, it should be from a trusted, credible source in your industry. Here are a few authoritative vet social pages that publish important and timely information for you to reshare:
Follow these pages so you can stay up to date when they post new content!
3. Social Posts That Educate Your Target Audience on Pet Care
Pet owners are constantly learning new things about pet health, behavior, diet, and so much more. They want to learn as much as possible so they can be responsible owners and social media offers the opportunity to educate them on many different topics.
Many owners would rather just look up information about pet health online because it is convenient, but that can lead to misleading or inaccurate information. If you are actively engaging with followers on your social media pages, they should also have access to your expertise so they won’t have to go looking online and potentially come across flawed information.
When creating educational vet content that is intended for social platforms, it’s best to break it up into tidbits. Users scroll through so much content each day on multiple platforms and generally want to consume information as quickly as they can. Each social network is different and has an ideal length for each post that usually receives the most engagement.
Here, Sproutsocial breaks down the optimal length for each post on major social networks like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Youtube that statistically receive the most engagement.
Therefore, you need to tailor your content to each platform and quickly get your point across so that users will retain the information you intended for them to learn.
In order to do this, you can share:
- How-to guides
- Infographics
- Educational videos
- Pictures with pet patients and explain their condition
- Blog posts that direct them to your vet website and will increase your traffic
Here is a great example of an infographic that can be shared on social media. This infographic gives information in a numerical list, so it’s easy to consume and give owners information about practicing good oral habits with their pets.
Here is a great example of an educational video that shows the behind-the-scenes of what procedures this vet team performed to save a dog that was bitten by a snake.
Learn More: Veterinary Social Media: Top 3 Platforms Your Practice Should Be Using
Educational Vet Topics You Can Share on Social Media
Although knowing how long your social content should be is important, it’s only half the battle. Knowing what to post so that you pique your audience’s interests is just as crucial. Think of what pet health topics your clients tend to ask about the most when they come to your office. This is a good starting point to help you begin creating content that they will engage with.
As we mentioned earlier, polls and surveys are also helpful in teaching you which topics are most popular among pet owners. You can do a poll asking about what subject matter they would like to learn more about and start brainstorming post ideas for that subject.
If you need help getting started, here are some popular vet topics to create content for:
- Protecting pets from fleas and ticks
- Why pets need annual wellness checks
- Tips on how to prevent heartworm disease in dogs
- The importance of pet dental care
- Pets and obesity
- Specialty services (surgical procedures at veterinary hospitals, dermatology, behavior, preventive medicine, etc.)
- Pets and medication
- Vaccines
A pet’s health is just as important as their owners and they want to be sure they have access to the most accurate and useful information by following veterinary experts like yourself online.
4. Social Posts That Boost Your Credibility as a Veterinarian
Along with your website, your social media pages are also a resource for clients to turn to when they need information. Use social platforms to your advantage and establish yourself as an authoritative figure in the vet industry. Building credibility with your clients ensures the trust they have in you and loyalty as well. They see that you are genuine in your intentions and aim to provide excellent services for their pets while equipping them with the knowledge they require to be responsible owners.
According to Hootsuite, 44.8% of global internet users used social media to search for brand information in 2020. People are using social media to find out about businesses, including what others are saying about them, the quality of the products and services they provide, and if they are trustworthy.
To boost your credibility with your followers, you can share some important milestones that your practice has accomplished by posting:
- Press releases
- Media appearances
- Awards you have been given
- New certifications you or your team members have received
- News about events you are doing in your local community
- 5-star reviews you have received from clients on listing sites like Google and Yelp
Read On: How to Design a More Appealing Veterinary Website
5. Social Posts That Have a Clear and Concise Call-to-Action
Calls-to-action, or CTAs, are an effective way to guide your audience through a journey and get them to complete an actionable item. You can persuade them to comment, read, or vote on a post, read a blog post on your website, or any other action you want. These types of posts encourage engagement while also increasing the traffic to your veterinary website if your CTAs direct them there.
A strategic CTA does the job of capturing the attention of your followers and getting them to complete the ultimate action, which is booking an appointment at your veterinary clinic.
CTAs You Can Use on Your Vet Social Pages
The CTAs (calls-to-action) you post on your social pages should be as specific as direct and concise as possible to remove any confusion. An effective CTA draws in a user’s attention, creates a sense of urgency, and inspires them to take action.
You can try a variation of CTAs like these in order to produce the best results for your practice:
- Refer a friend to our practice
- Schedule an annual pet wellness visit
- Learn about seasonal vet care now
- Get your pet’s first exam for $25 (this works for all current sales, promotions, and offers)
VetMatrix Helps Veterinary Practices Like Yours Get Social!
Taking the time to strategize, create content, and run your own social media accounts can be time-consuming when you are trying to maintain one or more veterinary clinics. When you work with our marketing experts, we can make managing your veterinary social media pages simple. We help you engage with clients online with a full library of veterinary posts at your disposal.
Give us a call at 800.792.8384 or click here to learn more about social media marketing services for your practice.
