Last week, we discussed core goals for social media within a veterinary practice. This time, I want to look at target audience – how to define them, how to reach them and how to keep them engaged.
Getting the audience right is essential. Otherwise, you are just wasting your time and money – and who wants that?
You need to put yourself in their mindset – sometimes, we want to share something from the practice; however, is it really of interest to the pet-loving public?
“Keep it simple” is the best advice I was given. Social media posts tend to have a short shelf life – blink and you miss them, so make your point quickly and make sure the intended audience knows to pay attention.
What? When? How?
You always have to think about what your audience wants to know, how it wants to know it and when it will be online to see it. By profiling your main audiences, you can then create images, video, wording and tone that is going to engage them.
As with most things, having a strategy in place for each audience group is important. When you start, you want to experiment with timings of posts, style, and content and creative, but after a while, you will see a clear outline of who, what and when works for you.
It is important to use the insights on your chosen platform – from that, you can learn which posts are the most liked, most shared, the demographics of your audience and the times that seem to get the most engagement.
Reaching the right people
Make sure you have researched hashtags, locations, interest groups, ages and keywords. Also, when you add an image, video or blog, make sure your tagging and keywords are accurate and up to date.
Many social platforms and networks reward a page for relevance and authentic content. This is even more important for paid content – it may be tempting to get likes and follows from the cheapest targeting; however, it is better to build an audience of those who may need your service and are relevant.
Also, regularly profiling your audience may show a potential audience group you are missing – such as, perhaps, a younger demographic, a location that doesn’t engage or an industry angle.
Striking the right balance
My book The MiniVet Guide is aimed at helping students through their studies and in clinical practice – so a key audience for me is veterinary students. I love sharing tips, tutorials and surgical videos to help them in their journey as they become a vet – and their response has been incredible.
I quickly discovered what engaged them and what didn’t – even if I sometimes want to post something different, you have to find the right balance between what you enjoy sharing and what the audience wants to see.
- Next week, I will look at what platforms to use and how to get the most out of them.
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