It’s no secret that building a solid veterinary social media strategy takes a lot of time and effort. Research has found that the energy spent developing your social media content is well worth it.
According to Hootsuite, Sixty-eight percent (68%) of people feel that brands don’t share interesting social content. Yet, the influence of brands and services on social media is so strong that you are losing out on the 44.8% of users who use social media to search for products or services by not actively posting.
Additionally, creating content that increases engagement and follower count can almost guarantee that you’ll generate business. A Sprout Social survey found that after following a brand on social media, 91% percent of users visit the brand’s website or app, 89% buy from the brand, and 85% recommend the brand to a family or friend.
Your social media platforms provide the ultimate opportunity to advertise your business, build your brand, and connect with clients. However, the idea of curating your feed and creating content that promotes engagement can be a daunting task. That’s why we’ve laid out seven easy ways to amp up your feed.
Post content personal to your clinic.
Social media is the ultimate way to communicate your brand voice and show off the things that are important to your veterinary practice. Show off what makes your practice unique. Our content team constantly reports that personalized content performs better than generic graphics. Share photos of your staff, patients (with their parent’s permission), and the clinic itself. Not only is this content the most relevant to your practice, but it’s also the easiest to create. Today’s smartphones capture amazing quality pictures, so start snapping and sharing away! To get even more content, encourage your clients to submit photos to your website’s photo gallery!
Interact with your social media followers constantly.
Get in the habit of responding to comments, good or bad. Keeping a conversation going online lets the social media platform know that your followers want to stay engaged with you. Social media algorithms take this type of activity into account when displaying your content on the feed. The more active your account is, the more likely your posts will be seen by your followers on a consistent basis.
Develop a strategy and set a time to manage your social media feeds.
Social media is a 24/7 operation, but that doesn’t mean you have to dedicate your entire life to its upkeep. Set aside time every day to dedicate to managing your social media. This includes content creation, developing a social media strategy, and responding to messages and comments. Managing your time wisely is the best way to stay consistent and not let your social media overwhelm you or your staff.
Create video content.
We’ve mentioned before that Instagram, one of the biggest social media platforms, is making the move to prioritize video content over still photos. Our social media team has also noticed that video tends to get better engagement than other content. As we’ve mentioned before, your veterinary hospital has great content walking into your doors every day! Film a video of your furry patients playing or being silly. After all, who doesn’t enjoy cute pet videos?
Use a social media scheduling platform.
With the rise in social media usage, there are a ton of third-party scheduling services available at varying costs. The main feature of these services is consolidating your social media schedule from across all the platforms in one place. These scheduling services also allow you to plan out your social media posts as far in advance as you would like. These platforms can save you time and prevent stressful last-minute scrambles to get content posted. We recommend Sprout Social, but other popular options include Buffer and Hootsuite.
Host a Q&A live show.
Schedule a time to go live on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok to answer your clients’ burning or most frequently asked questions. Leading up to the live show, put out a call to action asking your followers to submit their pet health-related questions. Then answer these questions live. This is a great way to show off your clinic’s personality and expertise. Additionally, archived videos can be saved on your profile and website as a resource for clients in the future.
Keep your content current.
Every day you see something new at your clinic. Use those events to inspire what you post on social media if something is going on in your area that actively affects your clients, post about it. For example, if your veterinary clinic is seeing an increase in heartworm-related cases, create content around heartworm prevention and any deworming services your clinic provides.
Another great way to keep your content current is to post about topics relevant to the time of year you’re in. For post ideas and year-round inspiration, check out our social media holidays for veterinary hospitals guide.
Bonus tip: We’ve given you seven great ways to help upgrade your social media game, but we’ve saved the best for last. What if we told you, you could put your social media marketing on autopilot but still get results that boost your business? As a WhiskerCloud content client, you’ll have a team of social media experts curating your veterinary clinic’s social media feed for you. We’ll handle everything from creating content to responding to comments and developing the ultimate social media strategy for your clinic.
Want to learn more? Book a demo today and get started on our 14-day content trial.
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