When it comes to social media, many pharmacy owners are at a loss regarding what to post, how often to post, what channels to utilize, etc. To help clear things up, we are going to provide you with the knowledge you need to plan, write, and schedule your pharmacy’s social media posts. Keep in mind, that every community is different, and you may need to do a bit of trial and error to see what type of messaging your community responds to best.
Planning your social media
First and foremost, you need to determine which platforms are going to be the best fit for you. At a minimum, we recommend being on Facebook. The 55+ community is the fastest growing segment to use the platform, which means more of your patients are likely to be on it. Additionally, by having an established Facebook presence, your pharmacy will become more findable online as it helps improve your SEO.
Twitter and Instagram are great platforms to use as well for the slightly younger demographic. The age group that is most prevalent on both Twitter and Instagram is the 25- to 34-year-old at 38.5% of all Twitter users and 31% of Instagram users. If you are looking to target more families, these platforms will be good avenues to reach them. TikTok has a primary audience of people ages 16-24 at 60% of its users falling within that category with the 25-44 age group compromising only 26% of it’s users.
Now that we have established which platforms are right for you, next is to plan out your month/quarter. For Facebook, we recommend posting approximately 3-4 times per week. Once per day is considered “optimal” but oftentimes is difficult for pharmacies to accomplish. For Twitter optimal is considered 1-2 times per day but no more than 3-5 times per day. For Instagram optimal is recommended at least one post per day and no more than 3 times per day.
If you can set aside some time each month to schedule out your social media posts, it will go faster and easier than trying to remember to post something every day. The pharmacy world being what it is, we also don’t recommend planning out more than 3 months in advance. With how quickly things change what you plan to post today may not be relevant 3 months from now. Here is a sample month of Twitter posts to give you some ideas about how your can plan out every day.
Writing your social media
When it comes to writing posts for social media, there are some recommended best practices for you to follow. The biggest one is to keep your posts personal and authentic, whenever possible. Focus more on your brand, your team, and your community than on strictly selling products and services. Over the years of doing social media posts for pharmacies, personalized posts always to significantly better than generic posts. The second thing to focus on is using high-quality creatives. Photos that are blurry or stock photos aren’t as impactful. Every post should include a graphic or video that captures people’s attention.
Next, make sure a good number of your posts are actionable. Ask them to like or share your posts, visit your website, call the pharmacy, answer a question – or somehow interact with your brand. Not every post requires an action, but whenever it is appropriate, including a call to action will help to increase the engagement you receive on your social media pages. Additionally, you also need to really know your audience. If you're not sure who your audience is or how to connect with them, try using page insights to learn more about where they're from and the types of posts they've interacted with in the past. If you're still trying to grow your audience and don't have enough insights yet, try creating different types of posts. Pay attention to the engagement each post gets. Look for spikes in the number of likes, comments or shares and ask yourself questions. Did the post ask people to take an action? Did I use a specific type of creative? Did my post contain a compelling message? There's no one solution to capture an audience's attention, but with practice, you can find tactics that work for you.1
Finally, keep it simple. Focus on using minimal, concise, and impactful messages. On Twitter only use one or two hashtags and limit your post to focus on a single topic. Be visually consistent with your graphics and maintain your brand’s voice across all content and platforms.
Scheduling your social media
Before scheduling Facebook and Instagram posts, you will need to ensure that your Facebook and Instagram accounts are connected within Facebook’s platform. To do so, go into your Facebook business page – click on Settings in the left side menu, then click on Instagram. Follow the steps to connect the accounts.
To schedule Facebook and Instagram posts, you will need to do it via Meta’s Business Suite. Go to your Facebook business page, click on “Create Post” followed by “In Meta Business Suite”. Once you are in, under the “Post to” section, make sure both your Facebook and Instagram accounts are checked. Enter in the post details and add your photos. To schedule Twitter post, simply log in to your twitter account, click the “Tweet” button, then instead of posting, click the calendar icon to schedule the post.
Keep in mind that optimal photo size for Facebook is 1200x630 pixels, optimal photo size for Instagram is 1080x1350 pixels and optimal photo size for Twitter is 1200x675 pixels. Photos that are stretched, pixilated, or incorrectly proportioned will reflect poorly on your brand and can turn people off from following your future posts.
If you have any questions, or decide you would like some help managing your social media, we encourage you to reach out to us via our contact form or give us a call at 515-280-2914 to learn more about how you can best utilize your pharmacy’s social media presence.
Sources:
1. https://www.facebook.com/business/help/134641900522571