Over the last 2 years, social media has risen to be the most popular activity on the internet (Tassava, 2011a). Morton (2012) believes that social media allows a practice to ‘maintain a dialogue with clients on a wider scale than ever before’. This can be used to the advantage of a veterinary practice, because it enables the gathering of useful information and may also serve to increase client bonding at the same time (Beesley, 2010).
The rise of social media as a communication and marketing tool
Warren (2012) states that the average number of ‘online conversations’ per month relating to pets and veterinarians is 256 000. It is vitally important that veterinary practices become a part of this conversation. According to Gavzer (2012) social media is a ‘pull’ medium, one where clients actively find and share content of interest to them. Gavzer concludes that the goal of using social media therefore, is to attract clients to read your message and encourage them to pass it on. Using this ‘conversation marketing’ (Beesley, 2010) trust can be built up with clients to increase bonding.
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Blogs are the ‘big five’ social media sites (Gavzer, 2012). The majority of published literature focuses on Facebook, Twitter and Blogs. The Ad-ology small business marketing forecast November 2009 found that Facebook was ‘the most beneficial social media network for small businesses’ (Ward, 2011). Facebook can act as a practice's social media base with a dedicated area containing practice contact details and photo albums. Facebook is a very wide reaching platform, having around 864 million daily active users (Facebook, 2014).
Twitter allows users to post no more than 140 characters. Twitter is most useful for message amplification. If used properly, one to one word of mouth can increase 100-fold (Samuel, 2012). According to Warren (2012) ’51% of twitter users follow organisations, companies, brands and products'. There is a place for veterinary practices in this mix.
Almost anything can be posted using social media, a few basic rules should be followed (Garcia, 2012). Ward (2010) suggests keeping posts ‘personal, timely and objective’. There are also legal restrictions on what can be posted. Henstridge (2012) and Baguley and Fawcett (2011) discuss the importance of client confidentiality and gaining permission before publishing photographs and case information.
Because social media is so vast (Pownall, 2010) and users so unpredictable (Searcey, 2014), a cohesive social media strategy needs to be formed. Tassava (2011b) lists the goals and objectives of a good social media strategy, including attracting new clients and building trust with current clients.
Having social media pages also increases a practice's online presence, thus increasing ‘hits’ in a search. An online footprint including social networking sites also shows clients that a practice is forward thinking and active in the online community, a draw for what Garcia (2012) calls generation Y, more recently termed ‘Millenials’ (Facebook, 2014), the new generation of communicators and therefore potential clients.
Mobile accessibility should also be considered when creating a social media strategy. According to Tassava (2011a) ‘Mobility will be king in less than 5 years’. With a rapidly increasing number of smartphone users, potential clients are using their mobiles phones to access social media sites on the move. Social media sites are available as applications meaning instant accessibility. Facebook is key here as according to Facebook (2014), more than 703 million active users access Facebook on their mobile phone each month.
Social media is now an integral part of modern culture (Henstridge, 2012) and thus must become an integral part of any marketing plan. What is not clear is exactly what content and online behaviour clients actually expect from their practice. What can a practice do to encourage their clients to interact over social media and how can a practice best serve its clients' needs through the use of online marketing tools?
Research methods
An online questionnaire was written to explore pet owners' opinions of social media use in veterinary practice (Figure 1). This was distributed to a random sample of pet owners who were active online and were clients from a number of different veterinary practices in the UK. The questionnaire was distributed by posting a short description of the research aims along with an online questionnaire link to seven canine and feline online forums.
The questionnaire contained 23 questions. All replies were anonymous. Data were collected using closed questions (tick boxes), chosen to ensure clear answers and minimise any risk of misinterpretation of the question. The first seven questions were designed to show respondents' general social media use state. The next 11 questions looked at respondents' interaction with their veterinary practice and opinions on social media content. The final four questions looked at respondents' general opinion on social media use by veterinary practices.
This questionnaire aimed to gain answers to three main questions:
A final data pool of 139 respondents was collected. These data were examined for trends using bar charts and percentage comparison. A number of questions were then selected for further statistical analysis using a chi squared test.
Results
Social media websites
Of respondents, 95% held an account for one or more social media websites; 94% of these respondents held a Facebook account, with between 30% and 40% holding accounts for Twitter or YouTube.
Of respondents, 81% listed Facebook as their most often-accessed social media site. 83% of respondents accessed Facebook daily. A minority (5%) of respondents accessed social media websites less than once per week. These data clearly show that Facebook is the most popular social media site amongst veterinary clients.
Figure 2 shows which social media sites respondents held accounts for and accessed most often. This is compared with which sites they used to follow their veterinary practice. It can be seen that a smaller percentage of respondents (67%) follows their veterinary practice using social media than hold accounts on these sites (94%). It can also be seen that although only 5% do not hold any social media accounts, 39.5% do not use any social media sites to follow their practice.
Respondents were asked their reasons for not following their veterinary practice using social media. 23% of respondents said it was because their veterinary practice did not use social media. A minority of 4% had veterinary practices that did use social media but they were uninterested in the information posted.
Of respondents, 50% held more than one social media account. The hypothesis that holding more than one social media account would encourage a higher page visitation rate was posed. To test this, a chi squared test was performed. This gave a p value of 0.013, significant when p=0.05 with one degree of freedom, meaning there is a significant correlation between number of social media accounts held and how often the respondent visits their practice's social media page. A second chi squared test was then performed on the hypothesis that directly following a veterinary practice on more than one social media site would lead to a greater page visitation rate. This test gave a p value of 0.002, again significant when p=0.05 with one degree of freedom. This shows a strong correlation between the variables suggesting that users of multiple social media sites are statistically more likely to access their veterinary practice's social media page.
Having determined which sites are being used and how often, further data relating more directly to veterinary practice social media use were analysed. Respondents were asked how often they visited their veterinary practice's main social media page. Only 8% of respondents visited their practice's page daily with 12% of respondents visiting every time the practice posted.
Facebook has a ‘news feed’ where users can read posts and block those that do not interest them. 59% of respondents allowed practice posts to appear on their news feed. These data suggest that social media feeds are more likely to be the focus of clients' attention than the practice's home page.
Interaction and content
In the literature review, the ‘two way online conversation’ and interaction with clients were discussed as key characteristics of social media use. Contrary to expectations, respondents appear to be less interested in interaction than simply reading posts. 48% of respondents said they never interact with their veterinary practice using social media, with 26% interacting less than once a month. To determine whether this is due to lack of opportunities provided by the veterinary practice or simply personal preference, these data must be compared with answers from questions 15 and 21 which relate to social media content.
Question 15 looked at what content respondents are most drawn to. ‘Polls/surveys’ and ‘practice tour’ ranked lowest with less than 1% of respondents selecting either of these answers. Contrary to the literature, a high number (91%) of respondents selected less directly interactive choices. These choices included photos, national news, staff profiles and stories.
Respondents' answers to question 21 fit this trend, with none following their vet on social media with the intention of talking to other pet owners. The most popular reason for using social media to follow a veterinary practice was to read news posts (42%).
Of respondents, 52% said they would choose social media as their first option to access practice news. The practice website and email were next most popular with 25% and 12% respectively. Paper newsletters were the least popular with less than 2% of respondents selecting this.
Frequency of posts
Respondents were then asked how often they would prefer to see posts from their veterinary practice. 30% of respondents preferred to see posts weekly, with another 30% preferring to see posts once or twice a week. 24% preferred to see posts monthly or less often and only 9% wanted to see daily posts.
Respondents reasons for using social media
When asked why they use social media to follow their practice, 37% said it was because they use the internet frequently and 14% said that social media is convenient.
Integration of marketing communications was discussed in the literature review, with regard both to hard copy media and online media. Following up on this, respondents were asked their opinion on social media ‘buttons’ placed on the practice website to advertise the use of social media. 42% of respondents found these buttons useful, with a minority (8%) considering them unprofessional.
Discussion
Why do clients use social media to interact with their veterinary practice?
The data suggest that a significant proportion of veterinary clients would use social media to follow their veterinary practice but are being prevented from doing so because their veterinary practice does not currently use this tool. These data suggests that there is a need for more veterinary practices to use social media to connect with their clients. A further line of enquiry would be to survey a number of veterinary practices who do not use social media and collect data on what proportion of their clients would use this tool if it was available. Positive results from such a study could encourage more practices to use this tool and potentially flag any characteristics that make a practice or client base unsuited to using social media.
The results of this survey clearly show that clients' primary reason for following their veterinary practice's social media site is to access practice news. This suggests that clients are engaged with and driving a gradual switch from hard copy to online media. Access to the type of stories and articles that would be found in a traditional practice newsletter should be prioritised by practices when planning social media content. This should not replace a traditional newsletter, but instead allow a subset of clients to engage with the practice on a personal level.
What do clients require from a practice in terms of social media content?
As shown, clients were less interested in interaction than first expected, thus contradicting the literature which labelled social media use as ‘conversation marketing’ (Beesley, 2010). Aside from practice news, clients showed most interest in educational information and pet or patient stories, heavily suggesting that personal, relatable content is key to engaging clients' attention. It is suggested therefore that practice news should be prioritised, for example advertisement of open days or celebration of staff achievements interspersed with patient stories, video content and educational information. Content should be short, to the point and relevant to a large number of clients as well as the practice's local community.
How can a practice best serve its clients' needs through the use of social media?
The data show Facebook to be the most commonly used social media site. With clients accessing this tool on a daily basis, the author believes practices should be using this tool to its full advantage while it remains popular. As clients holding more than one social media account were statistically more likely to access a veterinary practice's page regularly, practices should also consider holding more than one social media account, for example Facebook and Twitter.
A definite trend in how frequently clients expect posts from their veterinary practice was seen and in response to this, it is suggested that practices should ideally post to social media sites a minimum of once a week.
It was also seen that posts to Facebook are most often read on clients' news feeds. Due to the fast moving nature of social media, a news feed is constantly evolving and content is easily missed. This should be taken into account when deciding what content to post and how this will be formatted. Further research into clients' social media habits, for example the time of day social media is most commonly accessed, or which posts have highest engagement within a practice's followership, would aid practices in making decisions about when and what to post.
Any practices setting up a social media account would be advised to share their plans with clients. Integration with hard copy media and other online media would be one way of doing this. The positive response to social media ‘buttons’ shows that clients are likely to be receptive to this and indeed find such tools useful.
Further research
This was a very small survey. As an avenue for further research the author suggests repeating the survey with a more comprehensive set of questions. Collecting data from particular practices alongside data from their clients would allow joint analysis. Areas of further interest could include variation in social media use and opinions on social media in different age groups of veterinary clients. A larger pool of potential respondents should be approached and the study conducted nationwide to ensure a spread of results better representative of UK veterinary practices as a whole.
Conclusions
This study has shown that social media is a useful marketing tool with which all veterinary practices should consider engaging. Social media should be used to target a particular set of clients and not replace other marketing tools. A strategy for its use is advised as carefully planned and specific content is needed to attract and engage clients. Veterinary practices engaging with social media should also be aware of the vital structure and function of social media feeds as these are likely to be the focus of clients' attention. It is also worth considering that social media is popular amongst the younger generations and as such, future clients are likely to receive its use positively. Social media has considerable potential for veterinary use and further research would allow its use to be focussed and applied effectively.