Practice's social media page

RE: Practice's social media page

Claire Kealey — Tue, 25 Jul 2017 09:27:42 GMT

Thank you very much for the tips! Do you think it's worth asking people to review? Or am I making a rod for my own back there hah. So far everything has been improving and I have managed to increase followers and stars on the review page so I'm guessing I'm not doing too bad.

I'm worried about maintaining posts, I do post daily and schedule posts too so that helps it's just trying to involve other staff members as I can't be there to take photos of everything!

RE: Practice's social media page

Claire Kealey — Tue, 25 Jul 2017 09:23:21 GMT

Ooo this sounds interesting! How did you find out about this workshop?

RE: Practice's social media page

jojofruits — Mon, 24 Jul 2017 17:54:16 GMT

I do the facebook for our practice and I thought I was pretty good at it - and then I went to an Elanco workshop and it blew me away...

if you get a chance to attend one of these it would really be money well spent!, especially as it was free ;)

So much info on where to epsnd your time, how to increase reach and likes, where to pitch your posts, how to put together a basic social media calendar, how to post when you're away, all sorts. everyone got something different from it!

RE: Practice's social media page

Michelle Ingram J.A.K Marketing Limited — Mon, 24 Jul 2017 10:08:15 GMT

You could use a scheduler such as Hootsuite enabling you to schedule 2 weeks, a month or more worth of posts. The free version lets you post to up to 3 social media platforms.

RE: Practice's social media page

Louise Northway VNCertECC NCert(Anaesth) RVN — Sat, 22 Jul 2017 19:17:13 GMT

Hiya, i run my practices FB page and Instagram, it does take a lot of time and planning. I probably spend at least an hour a day doing it. I aim to do a post at 7am and 7pm each day (when most people are online!) and do a story about a patient / case we had in that day, then something news related from the net. The big cases I save for fridays / saturdays as that seems to be when you get the most reaCh. Facebook will try and play you and you do have to occasionally pay to boost posts to show them to people. I do this when I have something super cool or interesting.

if you're using info from another page or writing about an existing campaign tag them into the post, they will often then share your post.

Always get client consent and make sure it's clear, we have it written into our Consent forms but also get verbal confirmation if it's a big story.

In regards to reviews, I moderate them but anything super negative I delegate to our practice manager who has access to the page, she deals with that! We dont allow for people to write anything on our page (to prevent adverts!) but they can comment on our photos and posts. If anybody is really rude or writes inappropriate comments you can 'hide' their comments without them knowing. If the worst comes to worst you can block them from your page. If we do that (we've only had to do it once) then we send a direct private message to them explaining why.

We find the majority of clients love that their pet might get featured.

Have fun,

Lou

If you want any inspiration

www.instagram.com/wendover_heights_vets

www.facebook.com/whvcpets

RE: Practice's social media page

JaneRVN — Tue, 20 Jun 2017 15:03:22 GMT

Hi Claire,

As with all social media its just a facade of organisation!

Bad reviews always make us feel bad - whatever industry! thats fine and as long as you can do two things you can move on and not let it affect you

- respond saying thanks for the feedback, ask they contact you directly and in 1-2 sentences say what you have done to resolve the issue - if appropriate

- honestly review the feedback to see if you could improve on the customers experience.

You might not need to change anything, but its always worth just asking the team.

As for getting reviews there are a number of ways to get more.

I know people

- ask in reception

- give out cards

- email clients or text post appt to ask for a review with links

- put up a request on social media with links

whichever just make it user friendly and if automated try to ensure there is a system that it doesn't go to emergency cases that may still be worked on. Nothing worse than being asked for a review when a case isn't resolved!

Hope that helps! More blogs coming on staff consent and copyright and viral posts - do you really want one?

RE: Practice's social media page

Claire Kealey — Tue, 20 Jun 2017 09:25:36 GMT

[quote user="JaneRVN"]

I run social media for several companies and have learnt a lot! I was on a social media panel at BSAVA this year and am writing some blogs to compliment this. There will be one every couple of weeks on different areas of running your practice social media, and feel free to send me any questions,

https://janervn.com

Thanks

Jane

[/quote]

Very helpful, thank you! Also impressed with the level of organisation :)

What is your view on asking clients about reviewing your practice? Bad reviews are a bit daunting to me and, even though I know I shouldn't, I do take them personally however the majority already posted on our practice page are good and I want to improve our star rating!

RE: Practice's social media page

Arlo Guthrie — Fri, 19 May 2017 07:52:33 GMT

JaneRVN - I just dipped in to read: https://janervn.com/2017/05/15/social-media-for-vet-practices-getting-started/

Very good advice :)

RE: Practice's social media page

JaneRVN — Wed, 17 May 2017 18:08:56 GMT

https://janervn.com

Thanks

Jane

RE: Practice's social media page

Arlo Guthrie — Thu, 11 May 2017 15:39:41 GMT

[quote user="Michelle Ingram J.A.K Marketing Limited"]When using images again you need to be careful of copyrights etc.. there are a number of site where you can get royalty free, free pictures. I am not sure I can say them on here [/quote]

Can't think why not

RE: Practice's social media page

Michelle Ingram J.A.K Marketing Limited — Thu, 11 May 2017 14:53:29 GMT

If posting anything to do with paitent you need to have written consent from the owner, they need to be made aware of how the images will be used and where.

Surgery photos aren't everyone's cup of tea, so maybe one to avoid. Use national days to raise awareness, don't use too much wording and try include photos, run competitions like send a picture of your pet to be our cover photo for a week, share things that your customers may find interesting, happy Monday, humpday, friday, weekend etc pictures..

When using images again you need to be careful of copyrights etc.. there are a number of site where you can get royalty free, free pictures. I am not sure I can say them on here but if you want to contact me I am happy to tell you, also google has an advanced search option where you can put in what you want a picture of and change the licence right to enable you to be able to use them.

Stalk a few practice Facebook pages look at what they post and go from there, it really isn't that scary or difficult. If in doubt always ask. Oh and I always try get my post read by someone else before posting :) Good Luck and have fun!

RE: Practice's social media page

Arlo Guthrie — Thu, 11 May 2017 07:33:51 GMT

[quote user="melanie "]You have to be so careful.[/quote]

I think if you follow a few golden rules (in no particular order), it is pretty safe really:

Think about what you post / share on the practice page, and don't post stuff which could obviously alienate your clients! For example, Emma Milne (veterinary author and erstwhile TV vet) posted some critical stuff about brachycephalic breeds the other day, which earned her death threats, I gather.
Sharing other people's posts is less likely to come back and bite you than sharing your own opinion about something (because it is 'them' saying it, not you).
If you have a personal FB profile, keep it away from the practice page (ie don't post on the practice page as you, for example commenting on someone else's post).
Have a process in place for dealing with negative posts / reviews on your practice FB page. The most important principles are:
- To respond promptly
- Always to give the impression that you are listening to and thinking about the points raised by the complainer, and not just dismissing them (even when you are actually sitting there thinking: 'what a fruitcake').
- Nevertheless, it is OK to disagree with a complaint and say so, provided that it is obvious from your response that you have taken the complaint seriously and are not just dismissing it out of hand.
Make sure you have permission to post anything which identifies a client (or more likely, their pet). Best to have it in writing.
Claire Kealey I would advise against pictures of surgery. Only my opinion, but I think you'll find a significant number of clients are squeamish! If I was running a practice FB page, I would probably create a theme of #goinghome, and take at least one photo a week of a pet going home / being reunited with owner after successful treatment, with a brief explanation of what had happened to them. Process would be to identify interesting cases undergoing treatment. Write a couple of sentences about them, ideally in a way that readers might learn something from them (Here's Fido, who swallowed a [name of FB] last week. We managed to remove it OK, but it's a reminder for everyone to keep dogs away from [name of FB]. Have an approval form. Add words to form. Show client and ask if they are happy with words and for you to take a photo of dog, or them with dog and share on your FB page. Explain that it might help educate other owners and help them avoid the same problem. If yes, take photo, add to form and get client to sign. Give copy to client.

The more I think about it, the more i think #going home would be a really strong editorial theme. Strongly interesting editorial. Owners would share with their friends. Two risks I can see. First is making absolutely sure that in all cases you have written permission. Second is the risk that the animal recovers, goes home, then has some post-op complication. This could be minimised by either a) allowing sufficient time to pass before posting the story, and b) making absolutely sure that if that happens, the post is removed promptly.

RE: Practice's social media page

Claire Kealey — Wed, 10 May 2017 17:22:39 GMT

Thankyou very much!

I just want to make the most of the platform as it reaches such a wide audience. I suppose its like plagiarism so putting website info into my own words is safest option. It's difficult as some people enjoy looking at pictures of surgery whereas others are a bit squeamish so would something along the lines of putting ***pictures of surgery*** before a post be wise to do?

RE: Practice's social media page

melanie lavender — Wed, 10 May 2017 16:17:12 GMT

I keep well clear of anything to do with Face-ache, Twitter or any other social media things to do with work.

You have to be so careful.

Good luck.

RE: Practice's social media page

Arlo Guthrie — Thu, 04 May 2017 07:01:28 GMT

Hi Claire,

I'll start you off!

As regards your first question about using information from other websites, such as Royal Canin / ISFM etc.

In most cases, it is better to write your own short post about their content and then link to it, than to copy their information into your post on FB. Firstly, because they might update the info on their website (and if you'd copied it, you'd still have the old info), and secondly because it is their copyright and unless they grant permission, you shouldn't.

Sharing stuff they themselves have posted on facebook is a completely different thing. Of course you can share that to your heart's content. It's implicit in posting something on FB that people can share it. But again, the point is you share it using the FB share button, you don't copy and paste it into your own post.

As regards making the most out of content ... I don't work in practice, so you may get better advice from someone other than me! But, the main things you are trying to do are: a) engage with existing clients that use FB, and b) reach out (to use the americanism) to new clients.

Central to that is posting content that makes people react in some way: interested, laugh, cry, angry etc. - which will make them more likely to share your posts with their friends, many of whom will likely be potential clients.

What to post. Well, perhaps the easiest thing is to start by sharing funny / happy / sad / interesting stuff that other people have already shared on FB. There's no shortage of material, and a lot relating to companion animals.

Other stuff that can be effective would be practice announcements of news that should be of interest to local pet owners. Outbreak of disease. Local newspaper stories about companion animals.

You have to be very selective about what you post or share. Imagine you're the editor of a newspaper. What are you going to put in it that is really going to make people react?

I would also stress that it is as important to promote your FB page elsewhere as it is to post interesting stuff. For example, make sure outgoing emails to clients have a 'like us on FB' option (though easy to remove if you are emailing a difficult client)

Just a few thoughts. Hope they're helpful! Perhaps others who are running their practice FB will share some of the things that have worked for them ...