Today marked an historic day, the publication of my third generation vet website. A site that I hope will allow vets to benefit from the astonishing and rapid development of social media, arguably the most important communications advance in history.
Readers may not be aware, but this blogger has been researching and managing websites for over a decade. In fact if you have a website built by one of the largest mainstream vet website providers then you’ve probably been benefiting indirectly from my consulting input for years.
In the early days (1998-2002) the web was seen as something weird and techy for most vets. As a conservative profession, we failed to see the potential business benefits of being online. But a brave few did venture into cyberspace, which was largely a trip into indulgent ego land. But at least they were playing with a new idea.
Vetsite One – Promotional
Version one then was about turning the clinical and sales language around and learning to give useful, understandable information that clients found engaging and useful. It was about ‘stickiness’ and ‘eyeballs’ or, put another way, getting clients to come back for more.
We took things a step further and introduced email collection forms and an email newsletter. And it worked! New clients began to register with the practice and seemed happy to give out an email address. Though it was hard to measure an impact on the business the general feeling was that the site was a worthwhile investment.
Vetsite Two – Supporting
Three years down the line, version two was slicker but simpler. Better structured, this site was all about supporting the crucial roles of the business. From generating new clients, to handling feedback it complimented the core objectives. We even added ecommerce. This time we hired a designer to bring the plans to life. The advent of new technology allowed better monitoring of performance, so we could measure the impact and demonstrate a return on the investment. X new clients per month. Y additional product sales through the ecommerce site.
Vetsite Three – Being Connected
So what’s new? Two words – Social Media. (Yes they do deserve to be capitalised.) There are some out there who still doubt that the Internet is even useful to vets. They will either change that opinion or stop work soon (either through retirement or lack of business).
Most accept that the Internet is a normal part of life. Few, however, have yet noticed that the rules have changed again. But if you choose to investigate you’ll find that they’ve changed for the good.
How Social Media is Changing the Rules
Think about this. When could a practice ever have afforded to make its own videos? (Let alone broadcast them to the world for free.) When would it have taken ten minutes to send out a traceable newsletter to your clients without involving the mass printing and stuffing of envelopes? When was it possible at the click of one button to potentially engage millions of pet owners with images, sounds, videos – all for free?
The answer is never. The ability to connect with millions of people at zero cost has always been the promise of the Internet. Social media is simply the set of tools that has finally unlocked this power. It may be a source of irritation to find nurses and vets (even on occasions yourself) distracted by sites like Facebook. But what these huge networks of people are doing is talking with friends and colleagues about things that affect them.
They’re talking about holidays and eating out. They’re talking about pubs, clubs and sports events. They’re sharing clinical info. They’re collaborating, planning, building, even destroying…..all with the minimum effort taken to log on. And your vet business isn’t immune. Treat staff badly, it’ll be on Facebook. Treat your clients and pets well and they might just Tweet about it.
Like it or not, people are talking and if you want to have your say then you need to learn about social media.
Dave’s Tuppence-worth
Having a Facebook page or twitter account won’t make your practice cool or hip or better any at fixing pets. But it will help you engage with and deepen relationships with new and existing clients. In other words it will help bond your clients – more effectively in my opinion than any promotional or cost based gimmicks you attempt. Humans are programmed to seek out and interact with each other. Social media allows this without travel or expense.
The Double Bay Vet Clinic website is more than just our e-brochure, it’s our cyber handshake. It’s our Google pumping, client-engaging relationship machine. I’ll keep you posted. But in the meantime why not sign up as a friend either of Double Bay Vet Clinic (to get tips) or follow me (@dave_nicol) on twitter.
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