How to build a thriving Facebook community around your veterinary practice

Facebook has more than 2.7 billion monthly active users, which makes it an attractive prospect for businesses operating across a wide range of industries and sectors. As a local business that thrives on community, Facebook provides your vet practice with an opportunity to connect with potential clients, stay engaged with current clients, and keenly communicate the core values and ethos of your practice.

Too often, however, businesses spend time and resources devising a complex Facebook strategy, only for their live content to receive very little engagement. To help you get started, here are a few things to keep in mind when building a thriving community with your practice at its heart.

Creating content that works

As with every facet of your digital strategy, it is important to create content for your Facebook page that is tailored to meet the wants and needs of your ideal audience. From sharing valuable information about your practice to providing pet owners with important information that will benefit the health and wellbeing of a key part of their family, there are myriad opportunities for you to create engaging content that your community will respond well to.

It is also important to delve into your analytics information to uncover the best times of the day to post your content. This will ensure that the maximum number of people see it, which will lead to additional engagement and shares.

Maximising the value of your content

Creating content requires both time and resources, so you will naturally want to ensure that you are getting the most value from your investment. In addition to ensuring you are sharing valuable content to your Facebook page consistently and frequently, it is also important to engage directly with your community. There are a variety of ways to approach this, including hosting live question and answer sessions to simply asking a question and ensuring you reply to every person who takes the time to leave a response.

The importance of comprehensive community management

Maintaining an up-to-date presence on Facebook can have many benefits for your practice, providing you take the time to ensure that you also implement a comprehensive program of community management. Even something as simple as answering questions in a timely manner will communicate that your practice is run by a reliable, helpful and caring team who will go above and beyond to make your clients feel welcome and appreciated. Your goal here is to show your audience that you care about them and their pets.

How to increase your reach and engagement organically

From giving your audience a reason to join your group, which could include sharing exclusive content or hosting a weekly chat to managing your community effectively, there are a variety of ways to organically grow the reach and engagement of your page.

Remember, to form and nurture those all-important connections, you need to commit to showing up regularly and consistently. You and your audience can decide what this means for you but even something as simple as liking and responding to comments will let your community know that you’re always there to help and support.

Need support or advice with your Facebook community? Please do get in touch and our team of social media experts will be happy to help!