There are two key metrics I report on for my veterinary clients each month—Reach and Engagement. Whereas a post’s reach tells me how many people saw it, engagement stats show me how many followers interacted with it. 

Facebook rewards posts that achieve the highest levels of engagement, so the more engagement a post receives, the more it will appear in followers’ news feeds. Facebook changes its algorithms regularly based on user feedback, so just because a particular type of post performed well in 2021, doesn’t mean that it will be successful in 2022. 

Here are my Top 3 tips for increasing engagement on your social media posts:

TIP #1

In the veterinary industry, patient and team photos are still the #1 go-to post. They are much more personal than any other type of post and clients can get to know your team better. This is what bonds them to your practice and makes them feel like they are part of the family. Patient and team photos don’t generally get many comments, but they WILL attract plenty of Like and Love reactions. 👍💗

TIP #2

Detailed images and infographics with text used to be the optimum format for increasing engagement, however more recently Facebook is rewarding businesses who publish simple plain text posts without links and promotional messages. You may have noticed that there are now a number of different background options available for Facebook posts.

If you want to link to your website on a promotional post, it now works better if you add it in the comments section, rather than in the main body of the post.

TIP #3

Ask your followers about their pets. Pet owners LOVE to talk about their own pets!

For example:

“Show us the last picture of your pet on your camera roll 👇”

I’ve noticed that when I pose a question with a simple text image overlaid on a pet image, engagement also increases significantly.

Take this post for example.

Another type of engagement post that is becoming popular is the ‘vote’ post. I’ve seen quite a few of these popping up in my feed recently and because the action required is so simple, followers are responding in droves.

Here’s my take on it:

It’s difficult to maintain a high degree of engagement constantly. You wouldn’t be servicing your clients or your practice effectively if all of your posts were too simple or all the same. However, if you aim to include a few high engagement posts in your social media schedule each month you will find that your overall stats will improve significantly, reaching more potential clients and cementing the bond with your existing client base.