Social Media not Working - What's next?

You’re a hard-working vet coping with a large patient load and all the other responsibilities of practice ownership.

Your team or a marketing agency posts regularly on social media.

Their Facebook and Instagram posts look ok. There are lots of likes and comments.

But all that activity doesn’t seem to be translating into new clients in the waiting room.

You’re slowly concluding that digital marketing and social media may be a waste of time.

But there’s a nagging doubt in your mind.

How will you reach new clients if you’re not coming up on their digital screens? You need to make online marketing work for you – but how?

In this article, Deb explores what veterinary practices need to do to move away from a social media heavy strategy and reach ideal clients doing research on Google.

If you’re wondering how you got to the point where you’re investing valuable resources in marketing that doesn’t work, here’s the usual journey.

First, social media marketing is easy to do. It’s a relatively low-skill activity that doesn’t need a large team to deliver it.

Anyone who can take a photo and write something something reasonably interesting can come up with a half-decent post.

Many vet clinics find it’s something they can give to someone in their existing team, and it’s up and running really fast.

In many cases, team members put their hands up to jump onto it.

Win-win.

Tick.

Digital marketing done. You go back to solving client problems.

And second, it looks impressive.

You can see the posts, the likes, and the followers. The dopamine hits the spot. It all feels great.

You keep dealing with those client problems.

And then reality strikes.

All those likes and followers are not paying the bills.

You feel confused. Why isn’t it working?

Trust me, you’re not alone.

Business owners all over Australia have been duped by the low-friction, looks-impressive social media myth.

Let’s get on with fixing it.

How do you look for a new service like a doctor or physio?

You start with a Google search.

So, to state the obvious, if you want to reach ideal clients looking for veterinary services, your practice needs to come up in as many Google searches as possible.

Things like ‘vet near me’, ‘specialist dental vet’ etc, are no-brainers.

But also questions like ‘What age do I need to vaccinate my kitten?’ or ‘My dog has a broken tooth. What next?’ are great searches to appear for because they give you the opportunity to explain your view on these topics and introduce people to your primary care or referral practice.

You can probably now see why appearing in a social media feed isn’t nearly as useful as coming up in a Google search.

If I’m mindlessly scrolling Facebook, I’m not necessarily looking for a vet and unlikely to be needing your services in the next few days.

But if I’m researching kitten vaccination, and you pop up in a Google search list, AND I find some genuinely useful information on your website, then you’re on my shortlist.

Or to put it another way.

If you’re not high up in the Google search listings, the clinic down the road is the one who’ll get the opportunity.

Getting your veterinary website to show in free Google search is a much tougher but way more fruitful road than focusing your energy on social media.

The first step is creating a unique vet website that tells the story of your practice in an engaging way. Your website must be structured for Google from day one.

Once you have that website, you must add regular, strategised content to it to rise up the rankings for as many search terms as possible.

To deliver this you need a team with strategy, design, code, writing, photography and SEO skills to work together in the same direction to deliver a result.

Sounds hard?

It is. But if you want results, this is the road.

Sounds expensive?

There is a decent investment required, yes.

Think of it like buying digital real estate.

Everything you put on your website is owned by you and stays there for the life of the website, delivering traffic day in and day out.

It’s an investment that will bear fruit for years to come – unlike a social media post that disappears like footprints in the sand washed away with the next high tide.