Facebook & Twitter for the Equine Vet Practice

Mike Pownall, DVMwww.mpequine.com

www.slideshare.net/mpownall

• Why?• How to use it?• How to measure it?

Facebook & Twitter

Social MediaWhy is it Different?

• Conversational• Collaborative• Selective• Immediate• Transparent

Social MediaWhy is it the Same?

Strategy

Strategy

• What is our goal?

• How are we going to do this?

• How do we know we are successful?

Strategy

• Facebook is not strategy• Facebook is a tool.

• Herd health is a strategy to minimize the spread of a virus

• A vaccine is a tool

Challenges in equine practice• Economy• Competition• Internet

Why Do I Need Social Media?

Social Media Failure

• Boring• Inconsistent• Preach• Don’t engage• Don’t measure

4Es of Social Media

• Educate• Entertain• Engage• Evangelists

Ease of Use

• iPhones• Droids• Apps

Facebook PagesDon’t want personal page

• Fan pages are indexed by search engines while profiles are not.

• Fan pages provide “Insights” or analytics while profiles do not.

• Fan Pages offer the ability to use Facebook ad

Vanity Urls

www.facebook.comMcKeePownallEquineServices

www.facebook.com/pages/Wisconsin-Equine-Clinic-Hospital/220128931006

Twitter• 140 characters

• Unique language

• Immediate updates

• Share links, photos, videos

• Twitter now has >200,000,000 users

• 8% of Americans

• Fastest growing platform

• # = Hashtag Searching• Ogrdy.ca/vjVduB = short URL• http://mobihealthnews.com/

14703/half-of-doctors-to-use-medical-apps-by-2012/

Twitter Success• The more we tweet the more followers

we get• The more interesting we are the more

followers we get• The more we follow others the more

followers we get

Twitter

• Retweets• New Users• Mentions

• Interactions• Searches

Thank You

Keep in Touch

• mike@mpequine.com• www.equinevetbusiness.com• www.slideshare.net/mpownall