Social media can feel like a vast field, difficult to achieve success in. But it has become essential for medical care providers, even veterinarians, to attract new clients and stand out in the competitive digital era. Social media for veterinarians comes with a long list of benefits for their practice including an enhanced social media presence and a consistent flow of clients in the clinic. An average social media presence is not enough as you need to put cohesive social media marketing efforts to ensure your desired results.
Are you among those who use social media with a ‘just for fun’ approach? If yes, this may not work for your veterinary practice. The social media presence of your veterinary clinic is more than just a trend. It offers you a business opportunity that you can strategically use to grow your veterinary business on social media. You can thrive on popular social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to attract pet owners to your practice.
According to a study, 91% of users visit a brand’s website or app if they follow their social media page. This study’s result also claimed that 89% of those users tend to purchase the brand as well. Nowadays, with the increasing popularity of social media platforms, pet owners prefer to scroll through social media to find a reliable veterinarian. Thus, you can use these platforms to attract these pet owners and make them believe that your veterinary services are most suitable for their pets.
If you want to influence the purchase decisions of pet owners and acquire them as your veterinary clients, explore our complete social media marketing guide and implement our strategies. Let’s dive into the details to learn more about veterinary social media marketing (SMM).
What Is Social Media Marketing for Veterinarians?
It is a digital marketing process where veterinarians effectively utilize social media platforms to promote their services and attract new clients to their practice. Social media marketing for veterinarians requires the service providers to create and manage social media profiles and share interesting posts to generate interest among their target audience.
The key to social media success for veterinary service providers? It’s the engaging and educational posts that help the veterinary specialists engage with more clients.
SMM for veterinarians can be helpful for qualified lead acquisition and ensure better conversions. It allows you to connect with pet owners who are genuinely interested in your treatment services and have more chances to convert into paying clients.
Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and more don’t require you to pay a fee for using their features. Thus, social media for veterinarians offers a cost-effective method to promote your expertise and encourage potential clients to choose your treatment offerings for their pets. Want to share information related to veterinary care services and drive new appointments and to learn about pet care tips? Want to promote your practice’s unique offerings? It all can be done with effective veterinary SMM strategies.
Social media also allows you to showcase your credibility and reliability through engaging social media posts, including images and videos. Hiring a reputable healthcare social media marketing agency can maximize your veterinary clinic’s chances to thrive on every platform. Let’s now explore the other benefits of veterinary social media marketing.
4 Advantages of Social Media Marketing for Veterinary Practices
The selection of the right social media platforms can ensure the maximum impact of your SMM efforts. On the other hand, the social media marketing process requires proper utilization of these platforms. Otherwise, you may lose a significant number of social media followers who have a higher potential to become your clients.
The full list of benefits is never-ending. Let’s have a look at how social media marketing can benefit your veterinary practice.
1. Wider Audience Reach
Every social media platform has a specific amount of audience and can offer your exceptional reach. Have you implemented only the email and content marketing strategies to promote your veterinary services? It may be the reason behind your poor reach.
Social media can help you reach a global audience and make pet parents aware of your treatment services. Target different demographics through your social media posts and make your practice’s reach wider every single day.
2. Organic Traffic to Your Veterinary Website
Imagine that a pet owner wants to find reliable treatment services for his/her pet. In today’s digital scenario, it’s more likely for him/her to search online or on social media to find a good veterinarian. He/she tends to use certain keywords to conduct their online search.
When you optimize your social media content (posts, paid ads, or blog links) with those relevant keywords, your veterinary practice’s social media business page will appear in their search results. It will also drive them to your website, resulting in exceptional organic traffic and engagement.
3. Better Client Acquisition and Retention
An engaging social media profile also helps the veterinary specialists attract new clients and retain the trust of their existing ones for future business. Wondering how you can do this effectively?
You can create and share high-quality content on your practice’s social media page to ensure better client acquisition. Social media content can also keep your existing clients even when that didn’t sought any veterinary services from your clinic in a while.
4. Increased Brand Awareness and Recognition
Social media is the best way to increase your veterinary practice’s online reach and grow the online client base. The field is quite different from other healthcare industries and requires the service providers to put in extra effort to engage with a large audience. This exceptional reach and engagement will increase brand awareness and recognition of your veterinary practice.
Consistent posting on social media can be the weapon to win over the trust of your potential clients. It can showcase your practice as a trustworthy source of pet care information. A positive brand recognition is the key to your online success.
How to Effectively Utilize Social Media for Your Veterinary Clinic: 8 Key Strategies
Do you know that 78.6% of UK pet owners prefer the internet as their most-used source of pet health information? This statistic shows how crucial it is for every veterinarian to have a robust and engaging social media presence for their practice growth.
However, it can be a challenging task to navigate through the complexities of various social media channels and resonate your posts with different audience groups. The creation and sharing of contact information, photos, and promotional spots can also seem difficult to veterinary experts. But we’ve come to your rescue with a complete list of proven strategies to impactfully use social media for veterinarians. Let’s have a look at how you can make social media work for your practice.
1. Identify Your Social Media Objectives
No online marketing strategy will offer you the desired benefits unless you have a clear idea of what you want to achieve with this. Personalization does wonders for social media marketing strategy.
For instance, you want to target the pet parents of ‘golden retrievers’ through your SMM strategies. You have personalized your social media posts based on the preferred content type of the owners of that specific dog breed. When they get the information they seek for their pet through your social posts. They will be more likely to generate an interest in your veterinary services and trust your pet care expertise.
We hope that now you have a clear understanding of why you must know about your SMM objectives. Figure out your goals and achieve your desired results with effective social media marketing strategies. Veterinary experts need to define their SMM objective before they proceed with the other social media strategies.
8 Major Types of Social Media Marketing Goals Veterinary Service Providers Can Have
Veterinarians often have social media goals as follows.
- Client acquisition
- An increase in new referrals
- Qualified lead generation
- Increased brand awareness
- A strong social presence
- A significant boost in website traffic
- A noticeable increase in social media followers
- Better reach for social media posts
2. Select the Right Platform for Veterinary Social Media Marketing
As a veterinarian, your job to handle various pet animals and provide them with high-quality treatment care is quite crucial. On the other hand, you’re required to share informative content consistently to keep your social media reach intact. If you need to manage more than one or two accounts, it may seem overwhelming to you.
We suggest you identify one social media channel that can benefit your practice the most. Select that platform and create content according to the preferences of its audience as every social media audience has its unique content requirements. However, you can skillfully manage two or more platforms and build a multi-platform presence if you seek professional veterinarian marketing services.
While you may feel pressured to post on every platform, managing more than one or two social media accounts can be overwhelming. Focusing on only one or two platforms ensures your content is polished, thoughtful, and timely, and gives you ample time to engage with your audience.
Veterinary service providers must choose the social media platform based on their target audience which means the platforms where their target audiences are mostly active. For example, millennials are one of the largest age groups of pet parents. So you can target social media platforms that are mostly used by millennials, like Facebook or Instagram.
4 Major Types of Platforms for Your Social Media Success
The following are four major platforms to establish a strong presence on social media for veterinarians.
It is one of the most-used social media platforms among all age groups. It allows you to grow your veterinary business and win over a vast global user base. Veterinary professionals can create a Facebook page to connect with more potential clients who may choose their treatment offerings for their pets.
And the magic of Facebook? It’s its facility to share educational content, important announcements, and other updates. Facebook also allows you to leverage paid advertising and promote your veterinary services most effectively.
This one focuses on visual content and can help you grow your followers through captivating photos and videos. Instagram is known for high engagement rates and is quite popular among young individuals for its attractive and generation-friendly features.
If you’re a Pro in creating eye-catching promotional content, choosing Instagram for your social media journey can be a plus point for you. It thrives on hashtags that can make your practice’s reach even wider. Veterinary service providers can connect with their prospects on a personal level through Instagram reels, stories, and other attractive visual content.
Want to build a strong professional network with renowned veterinarians? You can choose LinkedIn to connect with your peers and market leaders along the the potential clients. The professionals need to create a well-crafted LinkedIn profile to showcase their pet care expertise, proven experience, and significant professional accomplishments.
You can even attract top talent for your veterinary clinic through this platform. Any new professional in the industry and wants to grow their professional network can immensely benefit from LinkedIn. They can share great articles, industry news, and their opinions to demonstrate their authority and knowledge.
- YouTube
It’s a video sharing platform where you can share visuals to easily educate pet owners regarding various pet care problems and their solutions. Veterinarians can create videos on animal health, pet care tips at home, common diseases pets can suffer from, their available treatments, and other preventive care.
Another content the YouTube audience prefers the most is behind-the-scenes. You can shoot these videos to share glimpses of your regular day at your veterinary clinic or showcase your passion for animal care. You can share real-life cases to handle complex pet care treatments to increase your YouTube engagement.
3. Share Expert-Level and Unique Content on Media Content
What type of content do you need to craft for your social media pages? There is no specific rulebook to follow for social media content creation. The only thing you need to remember is that your social media posts ‘stop the scroll’ of a user and stand out in the sea of content on any social media platform.
You can choose topics your team has proper knowledge of and try to create original content for your veterinary practice’s social media pages. Follow these social media content creation tips:
- Always choose a variety of content for posting on social media to keep the followers engaged. Experiment with different formats like videos, images, carousels, and infographics to identify the one your target audience mostly prefers.
- You can also experiment with different content styles, like links and PDF files.
- Share educational, entertaining, interactive, promotional, and behind-the-scenes content to stimulate viewer attention and influence their decisions to become your loyal clients.
- While promotional content is the most popular one, useful pet care advice and information without any sales motive is the best way to win your potential clients’ trust.
- Don’t completely rely on the reposts of infographics and wish posts.
- Every platform has its own audience who have unique content preferences. It is not a good idea to post the same content on every social media platform. Because what a Facebook user prefers may not impress a LinkedIn audience. For instance, you’ve shared the links of an educational blog on ‘tips for pet care at home’ on Facebook and LinkedIn and gained an impressive reach for this post. This same post may not be liked by an Instagram user as he/she will love to watch an engaging video or short reel on the same topic.
Create a Social Media Content Calendar
It’s a crucial step you must consider before you create and share content on social media for veterinarians. Content calendars are the essential tools that veterinary specialists can use to organize and streamline the content they want to share on social media platforms. It can help you with seamless social media management. You can plan monthly or yearly content and decide the publishing schedules or dates.
A content calendar also allows you to ensure the timely posting of holiday content on your social media business pages. For example, you want to share a post on ‘World Pet Memorial Day’, ‘International Dog Day’, or any other international day like New Year’s Eve. You can plan these posts in advance to avoid late posting and other consequences. Delayed wish posts can gain noticeably reduced social media impressions and reach.
You can map out the content topic, types, and even the themes with the help of content calendars. It will also help you achieve your veterinary social media marketing goals
Effectively Promote Your Veterinary Services through Videos
Which content can leave a lasting first impression on the audience? No content other than an engaging video with high-quality visuals. In veterinary social media marketing, video content plays a huge role in driving huge traffic. According to research results, more than 30 million users visit YouTube daily to seek health-related videos. This study also revealed that streaming video is a dominant content delivery medium for medical care information.
You can create and share informative videos on veterinary medicine and treatment to grab and hold the viewer’s attention for a longer time. Videos have the potential not to make people bored when they consume the content. And the presence of cute pets in the video and their adorable visuals can be the USP.
Type of Video Content You Must Consider
- Sneak peeks into your clinic, introduction videos of your staff members
- Useful pet care tips, especially home remedies to handle emergency pet health issues before a doctor visit
- Seasonal checklist to keep the pets healthy
- Positive client reviews, real feedback videos from happy pet parents
- Q&A sessions with renowned veterinary specialists
- A quick glimpse of the regular health checkups of a cute pet patient
- Fun posts about pets and pet owners
- A normal day at your veterinary clinic
Maintain a Consistent Schedule for Social Media Posts
We all have heard that ‘consistency is the key’. It’s true even regarding social media marketing for veterinarians. Consistent social media posting can drive 5x more likes, comments, and shares, while inconsistent posting can lead to reduced followers and engagement. Social media audience prioritizes accounts where they see regular posts. You can start by posting your social media content once or twice weekly.
A content calendar will make your job easy. You can plan, organize, and schedule your posts for every social media platform to ensure maximum engagement. For instance, you have planned several interesting posts for the upcoming Dog Week which is nationally observed from 20th to 27th September every year. You need to schedule your posts accordingly for that entire week, either on alternative days or every day. If the posts are delayed, there will be no significance to those posts and they will not make any impact on your followers.
Your social media posts can get different engagement on different days and times. Yes, you heard that right! Veterinarians must plan and schedule their posts in advance to achieve maximum impressions and reach. Which factors should be prioritized for scheduling your posts? Let’s have a look.
- Set a target related to the number of weekly or monthly posts. Create a content calendar to manage everything seamlessly and decide which posts you will post on which platform at what time.
- Social media platforms allow you to schedule your posts for specific times of the day when
engagement is higher than at other times. Key tips to remember: Fridays and Thursdays are the two best days when your posts can get maximum engagement on Facebook. - Research the social media usage habits of your target audience. You can schedule your posts based on the time when your target audience is mostly active on social media.
- How disappointed you will be if your one of the best content doesn’t get the desired impressions or reach? Thus, you must avoid posting such high-quality content on low-engagement days or times. Save your posts and share them later for the best engagement.
Post Personality Content and Highlight Your Team
People want to connect with you on social media, not your faceless veterinary business. They want to know more about your journey as a veterinarian, your experiences, unique cases you have handled, and more. Personality content posting on social media for veterinarians can enhance the presence of a service provider and his/her team members.
We suggest you provide some glimpses behind the curtain at your veterinary clinic, such as how you spend a regular day at your clinic, how you handle unique pet care cases, and communicate with the pet owners. You can shoot a video where you introduce your staff members to post on social media with a creative caption. This type of content will help your potential clients feel a more personal relationship with your veterinary practice. They will be more likely to trust your expertise and never hesitate to seek pet care services from your clinic.
Host Live Q&A Sessions to Encourage Patient Communication
Live streaming has gained immense popularity in recent years, as social media users love to interact with the person they follow. Schedule a time to go live with your Q&A session on Facebook, YouTube, or Instagram. Your followers must have various queries regarding your veterinary services. Live Q&A sessions are the best way to answer frequently asked queries of your potential clients.
If you plan something like this, you can share a form on your social media page in advance and ask your followers to submit their pet health-related queries through the form. You can answer these questions during the live session.
Always Share Updated Content Relevant to Your Niche
Every day, there is something new at your veterinary clinic. It can be a new patient who has come to your clinic, any new achievement or award your clinic has won, or any new event of a pet care workshop at your clinic. You can share the updates of these current happenings at your veterinary clinic to stay relevant. Relevant content can significantly attract more social media users and encourage them to follow your clinic on social media.
For example, you’ve observed and handled a few heartworm-related cases in the past few days. Then you can create content on heartworm prevention for pets or your deworming services to post them on social media.
Promote Your Blog Posts on Social Media
Have you considered healthcare content marketing for your website content? If not, it’s time to prioritize it and take your social media win to another level. You can bring some of your content marketing into your social media campaign. Share regular blog posts on various veterinary treatment-related topics on your website and share those links to your social media page to increase the engagement of your blogs.
Social media promotions of your blog posts can attract more people to your website. For instance, you have shared a blog on ‘pet dental care’ and posted its link to your social media. Pet parents who are looking for reliable online information regarding the same topic tend to open the link.
They will be more likely to visit your website if they feel interested in your veterinary expertise and consider it a knowledgeable and great resource for pet care. You can even earn backlink opportunities from prominent professionals who come across your blogs on social media and find them valuable.
Incorporate Creative Images and Infographics
People mostly have short attention spans and are more likely to get bored reading content that involves no visual elements. Textual content with relevant images and infographics in between can grab the attention of a reader for a longer period. Ask your graphic designer team to craft creative images and eye-catching infographics for social media.
If you post content about tick prevention or best grooming practices for your pet, you can create images of a step-by-step guide on how to one can remove the ticks. You can add the steps to prevent the condition for the pets and situations when a pet owner must consult with a veterinary specialist. This image will make the social media post informative yet visually appealing.
Veterinarians can share the photos of the animals they work with, their team members, vet clinic infrastructure, and more. However, you must get permission from the pet owners before posting their pets’ photos on your social media.
4. Tell Your Success Stories in the Veterinary Field and Share Testimonials
Do you check social media reviews and comments of a brand before you decide to purchase their products and services? If you do, it’s quite common as we all do that especially when it comes to our healthcare choices. A study has claimed that 94% of healthcare patients rely on online reviews to consider service providers. Now the question comes, how will you get those positive reviews to promote the USPs of your veterinary services on social media?
You need to encourage your existing clients to share their experiences at your vet clinic and leave genuine reviews of the treatment services they received for their pet. The pet parents can highlight how satisfied they are with your services and further assistance or how comfortable their pets felt at your clinic. Digital marketers can effectively promote these positive reviews on social media for veterinarians.
- Tell your success stories to the social media followers. Share how you handled a crucial situation when a pet parent visited your clinic with a dog whose life was at risk.
- You can also share the number of pets to whom you provide treatment care every week.
- Don’t forget to share stories of your successful pet surgeries on social media.
- You must promote your positive online reviews and client testimonials to showcase the reliability and credibility of your veterinary practice.
5. Encourage Meaningful Interactions with Followers through Comments
Your social media comments can have more benefits if you respond to them timely manner. Want to know how? Let us give an example. For example, one of your satisfied clients has expressed his/her happiness through social media comments because he/she received the best treatment care for his/her pet. If the review goes unanswered and unappreciated, the client may feel that you don’t value your clients’ opinions.
Similarly, a pet owner who is looking for a good veterinary service has commented on one of your social media posts to ask a query about your treatment offerings. If their comments go unnoticed, they may lose interest and feel ignored which may lead to you losing a potential client.
Social media comments allow you to encourage meaningful interactions with your potential and existing clients. Timely responses to comments can significantly increase the follower engagement on your veterinary practice’s social media page. Negative comments and criticism can also happen through social media platforms. Keep your calm and try to professionally reply to these negative comments and reviews. It’s your opportunity to resolve their issues and convert them into your loyal clients.
6. Put Recalls and Alerts
Social media platforms can be used for various crucial and extraordinary purposes. As a veterinarian, you may have to treat animals without a known owner or abandoned pets. You can create relevant social media posts to notify people about those animals. You can share pictures of those unidentified animals on social media and ask people to help you identify the owners.
Social media has a worldwide reach and words spread quickly here. You never know when someone among your followers comes up with important information and you’ll find the pet owners. You can even utilize your social media posts to spread awareness regarding pet care mistakes. For instance, pet owners often give faulty medications to their pets and don’t prioritize regular treatment checkups if the pets look fit and fine. You can post on your social media to prevent such practices and spread awareness about inaccurate pet medications.
7. Run Contests and Offer Giveaways
Who doesn’t love to receive gifts and rewards? Everyone does and so as your social media followers. You can offer incentives to your potential and current clients through interesting social media contests. You can host these contests and announce exciting giveaways for their pets. This tactic can take your social media engagement to a new height.
Giveaways can achieve 34% higher conversion rates as compared to other types of social media content. Likewise, social media contests can help you acquire an average of more than 34% of new clients for your veterinary practice.
- You can announce giveaways like treatment discounts or loyalty points if someone follows your social media profiles.
- You can also offer free consultation for the new clients or free grooming service for their pets.
- Host social media contests and ask pet care-related quizzes. The winner may get discounts on monthly checkups for their pets.
- You can also offer giveaways like pet toys or food for the followers if they like, share, and comment on your social media posts.
- Provide a referral bonus to those followers or existing clients who bring in new business through social media.
8. Adhere to Social Media Platform Policies
Every social media platform has its unique policies and guidelines that you must adhere to. Social media for veterinarians will be ineffective and can create serious legal consequences if the policies are not properly followed. You need to follow the social media guidelines and protocols to ensure a lawful social media usage. Adherence to these policies also ensures that your social media posts perfectly align with your vet clinic’s values and mission.
Help your team learn how they can properly engage with the followers through social media. They must know how to professionally respond to the queries and comments of the followers, even for the negative ones. Veterinarians must know tactfully handle social media trolling and cyberbullying to maintain their online reputation and brand image.
9. Add Trending Hashtags and Creative Captions to Your Posts
Hashtags play a pivotal role in social media engagement. Utilization of relevant and trending hashtags in your social media posts can increase their reach. Hashtags make your posts appear in the feed of those who are interested in the topic your posts are about. When you add hashtags to your social media posts, it gets more attention. But you need to use the right hashtags for the right posts. It makes your posts reach wider and ensures they reach the right audience.
You can attract new followers through the extensive range of veterinary service related hashtags. Because users often search on social media by hashtags to find and engage with relevant content related to veterinary practice and treatment services. Some of the trending and useful social media hashtags you can use as a veterinarian are mentioned below.
- #veterinarymedicine
- #veterinarian
- #vetlife
- #petcare
- #vetclinic
- #veterinaryhospital
- # veterinaryfsurgery
- #veterinarycare
Top 11 Social Media Post Ideas for Your Veterinary Practice
Social media for veterinarians and vet clinics is crucial to connect with the pet owners and win their trust. The posts can be the best medium to form a genuine connection with your potential clients. You can offer expert pet care advice, share heartwarming pet stories, provide informative blogs, or share the significance of regular check-ups. The options are many, you need to choose what suits your practice the most and gain maximum engagement on social media.
Here we’ve listed the best 11 social media post ideas for your veterinary practice to attract new clients and stand out in the competitive social media world.
1. Behind-the-Scenes of Your Clinic
- A sneak peek into your regular day at the vet clinic
- How does your team prepare for a pet surgery
- How do you clean your surgery equipment
- Some leisure moments with your staff members during breaks
2. Pet of the Week
- Feature of one of your pet patients every week
- A short story about the visit of the ‘pet of the week’
- Fun fact about that pet’s personality
- Any special reward announcement for that specific pet
3. Staff Spotlights
- Introduction of your veterinary team members
- Stories about their journey, experience, and hobbies
- Fun facts about your staff members
4. Helpful Pet Care Tips
- Actionable advice to maintain a pet’s health and hygiene
- How to brush a pet’s teeth or maintain its weight
- Practical tips for a pet’s balanced diet
- Helpful tips to shelter dogs and cats, how to create a safe and comfortable shelter for them
- Advice to provide quality pet care at home
- Tips to keep your cats healthy
5. Common Pet Health Problems
- Allergies, skin infections, and parasitic infestations
- Excessive weight issues or Lyme disease
- Dental diseases like gum infections
- Ear infections or viral diseases
6. Special Offer Promotions
- Announcements of special discounts on specific treatment services
- Discounts for dental cleanings or wellness examinations
- Vouchers for the next visit or regular checkups
- Free consultation for first-time users
- Treatment deals for new pet parents
7. Emergency Tips and Seasonal Care Insights
- Preparation tips for pet-related health emergencies
- DIY first aid kits for pets
- How to handle seasonal health concerns of pets like strokes in the heat months of summer
- What to do if a pet experiences joint pain in winter
8. Holiday-themed Wish Posts
- Holiday safety tips like how to keep the pets away from toxic food items during festive seasons
- Holiday greetings for staff during Christmas, New Year, or Halloween
- Wish posts on special days for pets (Cat Day, Shelter Pet Day, World Cancer Day, and Vet Day)
9. Pet Trivia and Fun Posts
- Interesting facts about pets (e.g., ‘Do you know that dogs have a sense of time?’)
- Did you know that dogs have about 100 different facial expressions?
- Do you know that a cat can jump as much as seven times its height?
- Did you know that cats have over one hundred vocal sounds?
10. Wellness Days
- Wellness Wednesday, dedicated to proper diet for pets
- Friday Wellness Trivia for the preventative care of common pet diseases
- Wellnessful Monday Mornings, dedicated to tips for maintaining good dental health and hygiene
11. Pet-friendly Event Promotions
- Local event updates like pet adoption drives
- Updates and quick glimpses of charity walks or the January month walk
- Promotions of pet-friendly festivals at your vet clinic’s location
- Events at local shelters for abandoned pet animals
Conclusion
Many veterinary clinics may think that they don’t need a social media presence because they provide top-notch services. The reality is something else! In today’s competitive digital scenario, pet parents tend to rely on social media when they look for a reliable veterinarian. They may come to know about your practice from their close ones but are more likely to search your vet clinic’s name on social media to gain more insights.
If your social media presence is not strong enough to influence the pet parents’ decisions to choose your veterinary services, it’s of no use. Just like veterinarian SEO enhances a vet clinic’s search engine presence, effective social media marketing strategies can strengthen the presence on social media for veterinarians. We hope that our comprehensive social media guide will help you achieve your SMM goals and skyrocket your veterinary practice’s online growth.
