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How to optimise your practice’s social media profiles
In addition to caring for pets and animals of all shapes and sizes, veterinary practices like yours also look after the people who view those pets as part of their family. The good news is that with a solid strategy, social media platforms can be valuable tools for helping your veterinary practice connect with pet owners in your local community.
But how exactly should you approach ensuring that your social media profiles are working hard for your veterinary practice?
Well, optimising your social media profiles is a simple and effective place to start. So, here are our top tips to set you onto the right path being discovered by more pet owners.
Update your contact information
As social media usage has become commonplace, the chances are that a significant percentage of your potential audience will find you by searching on a social media platform. Facilitating easy communication between your practice and pet owners in your local area is key to boosting engagement and connecting with new clients, which means that ensuring your contact information is visible and easy to find is essential.
Your social media profiles should clearly display the location of your practice as well as at least a couple of ways to contact you directly. This might include direct messaging via the social media platform itself, email or phone. as well because this is where potential customers can learn more about your practice and the specific services you provide. On Instagram, you can now add up to five ‘Links in Bio’. So why not add in links to register, your health plan or even your prices?
Just as your social media accounts need to drive clients to your website, you should also be adding links from your website to your social media accounts so that clients and other pet owners can get to know your practice more.
Don’t forget that almost 90% [1] of consumers state that they use their smartphone to search for local businesses every week, so ensuring that every facet of your online presence contains your contact information can help you to maximise enquiries and connect with pet owners in your local community.
Keep your branding consistent
In order to maintain a sense of trust between your practice and audience of pet owners, it is important to keep your branding consistent across every social media platform you choose to use. This will allow your audience to feel confident that they can trust that the posts they are engaging with contain accurate information directly from your team.
Creating a strong visual identity is one of the best ways to set yourself apart from your competitors and ensure that you are memorable for all the right reasons. Taking time to create engaging imagery to accompany your social media captions and updates will capture people’s attention as they scroll through their feeds, making them stop to actually read your content.
Consistently share relevant content
Maintaining a consistent posting schedule and sharing content that feels authentic to your practice will allow you to earn the trust of your audience and ensure they continue to return to your social media profiles for accurate information relevant to their needs.
Social media channels are excellent places to promote your educational blog content and send traffic to your website. They help you increase your reach and demonstrate that you are dedicated to sharing the high-quality, up-to-date information which pet owners are looking for. Again, don’t forget to use engaging, branded imagery to promote your posts and incorporate clickable links wherever possible.
In addition to creating posts that feature a variety of different pets (with their owner’s permission, of course!), we also recommend featuring your team frequently across your social media content as this will help to humanise your practice and allow pet owners in your local area to get to know the people taking care of their beloved pets.
Utilise calls-to-action (CTAs)
CTA buttons can be utilised within Facebook advertising and are excellent tools that can prompt local pet owners to visit your website, book an appointment, or call your reception team at the tap of a button.
Selecting the relevant CTA button for every post and social media platform will allow you to maximise ad campaign conversions, delivering a positive return on investment (ROI) and helping you to achieve your wider social media goals and objectives.
CTAs are also ways of letting your audience know what action you want them to take, whether that’s posting an image of their pet on a Facebook post or calling your practice.
Respond to messages and comments
Collectively as consumers, we have become accustomed to being able to contact businesses with questions on social media and receive a response promptly. So, as part of your social media strategy, you should aim to respond to messages and comments in a timely manner, which will provide value to your audience and demonstrate that you are willing to engage with your community.
Not all comments require a direct response. However, in these situations, hitting the ‘like’ button, which will only take a couple of seconds, will acknowledge that you have read the comment and appreciate the time the pet owner took to engage with your business.
Did you know that 90% [2] of consumers seek out online reviews before they visit a business? So, we also recommend responding to every online review your practice receives, too. Simply thank those who leave positive reviews and take the time to meaningfully address any less favourable reviews, as this will demonstrate that you genuinely care about providing a high level of service and are willing to go above and beyond to satisfy the varied needs of your clients.
Utilise Instagram Stories to the fullest
Did you know that the way users interact with social media platforms is always changing? One of the recent insights has shown that users will now more likely flick through stories than scroll through the feed. [3]
Instagram Stories typically disappear after 24 hours; however, sharing Stories to your Highlights will essentially pin them to your profile and provide you with an ideal opportunity to share valuable information that is always easily
To maximise the value of Instagram Stories, we recommend organising the content you want to make available to everyone browsing your Instagram profile into separate highlights. You can cover a variety of different topics here, including frequently asked questions, meet the team posts, contact information, opening hours, services, and more.
A Nod to Google Posts & Social Media Integrations
Google Posts have become a crucial tool for veterinary practices, functioning much like social media within the Google ecosystem. Google automatically showcases these posts on your Google Business Profile and allows practices to share updates, promotions, news, and events just as they would on traditional social media platforms. By effectively using Google Posts, veterinary practices can enhance their visibility on one of the world’s most widely used search platforms.
With very recent updates, it’s now possible to integrate one of your social media accounts within your Google Business Profile, seamlessly integrating your social media content with your business’s online listing. This feature allows veterinary practices to manage and display chosen social media profiles directly through their Google Business Profile, enhancing visibility and engagement. Each practice can connect one account per social media platform, ensuring a unified presence across the web.
These two functions ensure that when potential clients search for veterinary services on Google, they not only find your practice’s basic details but also engaging, timely content that might sway their decision to choose your services.
