7 tips for success on social media: Dr. Andy Roark shares his rulebook

If posting on social media and trying to increase your practice’s reach and engagement feels rife with minefields, that’s understandable.

Sometimes, it’s easy to see a trending topic and know how you want to respond, like in the case of correcting misinformation that’s trending. (Because, no, you don’t want your clients thinking that it’s fine to dose their dogs with ibuprofen or let their cats survive on saltwater. Sigh.)

But other times, it’s hard to know whether jumping in on a fun social media trend is right for your practice and your team—and choosing to partake in a trend that doesn’t fit with your practice’s image can actually do more harm than good, especially if your post gains a lot of traction.

To get a handle on how to best know when you should—or should not—attach your practice’s Insta handle to an Internet trend, we caught up with Andy Roark, DVM, MSc. As a practicing veterinarian with a popular internet presence, he knows better than most how to post in a way that makes an impact. He’s collected likes and followers on various social media and online platforms for years, and his experience has given him a clear understanding of what to look for (or avoid) when it comes to using social media as a veterinary practice.

Going viral is a mixed bag

Roark recalled a practice in Hawaii that reached out to him years ago for social media advice. They had 40,000 Facebook followers, and they got thousands of likes every time they posted—unless they shared something educational, in which case they lost a couple dozen followers.

“So, I looked at their practice. They’re in Hawaii, and it must’ve been that the owner or someone there was a photographer, because their social media was full of these beautiful pictures of pets on the beach,” Roark said. But those gorgeous photos made up the majority of their content—and that’s why those 40,000 people were following them. They weren’t there for anything related to vet med.

“That was sort of an epiphany for me around going viral. You can do things that are hugely popular that do not benefit you as a veterinarian,” he said. “That practice in Hawaii didn’t have 40,000 pet owners surrounding their practice, coming into their building. They were entertaining people across the world—which is fine! But it’s not their mission or their purpose as a veterinary clinic.”

That’s one reason why, Roark says, when we talk about going viral, it’s usually not nearly as great as people think it is.

“Whenever you want to engage with social media, one of the big points that I like to make to people is that it’s a mixed motive game,” he said. “You have motives as a veterinary clinic, with things you’re trying to do, whether that’s raise awareness of the fact that you’re in the community or educate pet owners, or communicate about what your values are as a clinic.”

The social media platforms, on the other hand, solely look for things that will get attention and engagement.

“Sometimes those goals can overlap, and sometimes they don’t. So, if you’re able to go viral in a way that supports your brand and makes your pet owners who come to see you go, ‘Wow, that’s really cool!’ that can be valuable,” he said. “However, going viral tends to cause a ripple effect for about 72 hours, or three days. And then it’s over, and most people don’t see a big change in their business.”

Additionally, there can be some serious cons when you suddenly reach a lot of new people.

“The cons are that you have the potential to go viral and attract a lot of criticism from people who are not your clients, who don’t have anything to do with you,” Roark said. “There have been plenty of vet clinics that have tried to do fun things online on social media, and their message or the video they created is perceived in in the worst possible light.” For example, even if your message is spot on, viewers might have an issue with a brand of dog food that’s visible in the corner of the video and take to emailing, calling, or leaving bad reviews—even if they would never have been a client to start with.

While this might not impact your clients, it could be rough on your team. “It’s really much harder than you think to be unaffected when people are sending you hateful communications and things, and the team often has a hard time shaking things like that off,” Roark said. “That’s kind of the mixed bag of going viral. It can be beneficial, especially if you if you’re able to consistently make things online that make people smile and that portray your vet clinic in the light that you want it portrayed in.” But, he added, the time and energy and effort to make content is not insubstantial, and it can be hard to track the return on that investment.

7 tips for getting social media right

If you’re looking to increase your practice’s social media presence, or even just make sure you’re on the right track with your social media plan, Roark has several straightforward rules of thumb he finds helpful.

Align the message with your mission and brand.

There are some practices where, if you could get the entire practice to come together and do a dance, it would make people laugh. It would make some of the clients say, ‘Oh, these people always look like they’re having so much fun,” he said. “Now, if you did that at a high-end specialty hospital, that might be undermining to the message that we take medicine very seriously and we’re attentive at all times.”

Focus on celebrating pets and people.

As a general rule, if you want to get in on trends that celebrate our relationship to each other, or that celebrate the human-animal bond, or that celebrate responsible pet ownership, I think you’re going to generally be in the clear,” said Roark.

Understand your goals (and know that going viral is unlikely to equate to a significant boost in business).

A lot of times we get a lot of pats on the back and thumbs ups and hearts, but none of those things actually translate into people bringing you their pets,” Roark said. “You have to make sure you don’t get sucked into the vanity metrics of social media. What are you really trying to do? What’s your mission? What are your objectives?”

Keep it short and snappy, especially if education is involved.

“I think a lot of people want to get on to social media to escape, or to stay connected with friends or family, or to laugh. But I don’t know how many people are there for education,” said Roark. “The shrinking length of communications on social media makes education really hard. It’s hard to do anything that’s really educational in 20 seconds. I think you can tell a joke. I think you can inspire people. You can do some slapstick comedy. But it’s hard to do a lot of education now.”

Of course, people manage to do it, and Roark has a lot of respect for those who get it right. “It has to grab people’s attention, and then it’s also educational and it’s brief,” he said. And that grabbing of attention? We’re not talking about 30 seconds; the true average watch time for a video on social is probably closer to three seconds. Make that initial image count!

Consider the client’s reaction

Maybe it’s tempting to use a recent case as an opportunity to educate your audience, but Roark suggests finding a way to get your point across without bringing a specific client or patient into it.

“My rule is the pet owner is never the butt of the joke,” he said. “They should never even be a part of a teachable moment. There should be no criticism of the pet owner. There should be no shame towards the pet owner. And so, anything that you want to post, you should be thinking about the pet owner and the pet owner’s experience. How is the pet owner going to feel? Even if you say, oh, this is a wonderful dog, but her owner forgot to put her on heartworm prevention—I  would not do that.”

Be professional before being funny.

Along the same lines as the above, Roark urges caution when it comes to taking your (undoubtedly hilarious) private musings about veterinary medicine public.

You know, the hardest part of being funny is not being funny,” Roark—who is notoriously funny—said. “Not being funny means, as a professional, there will be thoughts that you will have that are hilarious, and also they are not appropriate for you to share because you’re a doctor, or they are not appropriate to share because they poke fun at a pet owner, at one of your employees, or at a patient.”

He recognizes it can be challenging to hold back from posting something that you know would get a lot of likes, but would not be in the best interest of the clinic. “That takes discipline, but I think that is critically important,” he said.

Practice good customer service when posting pictures

Legally, you’re probably just fine to post pretty much any picture of a patient you’d like—especially if you’ve had the client sign a photo release form when they first come to your practice, which Roark always does. “However, we’re not talking about legal, we’re talking about customer service, right? The fact that this is legal for us to do doesn’t make it a good business,” he said. “In my experience, everyone is excited for their pet to have pictures share online.”

Still, there are instances where using a picture of a client’s pet is not appropriate. “Obviously, we do not want to use any pictures of client pets for any sort of direct advertising, right? It’s one thing for you to take pictures of pets and use them in your social media. It’s another if you were going to run a promotion or put out an advertisement and you’re using their pet on your advertisement. People can feel a little bit differently about that,” said Roark.

Also, if you’re taking any action that impedes someone’s ability to make money by using their intellectual property (like their internet-famous pet). Roark’s recommendation: “Anytime that you might be perceived as making money from the use of an image or a pet, I would make sure that you’ve really communicated what you’re going to do and made sure that that the pet owner is OK with it.”

Overall, his rule of thumb is always to ask. “I always ask permission before I use an image online,” Roark said. “It’s just a verbal ask; even if pet owners signed the photo releases, they don’t remember it. I have asked thousands of people if I could use pictures of their pets. Not one person has ever told me no. It just takes a moment, and it’s also a bonding experience with the pet owners.”

In fact, that ties into his advice regarding pet owners in general: No surprises.

“Don’t let them be surprised,” he said. “Don’t let them be surprised by what the bill is. Don’t let them be surprised that their pet shows up on social media. Don’t let them be surprised by how long a procedure takes. Don’t let them be surprised by how long it takes you to call them back with results for diagnostics.”

Photo credit: Andy Roark

Disclaimer: Trends content is meant to inform, educate, and inspire by providing an array of diverse viewpoints. Any content published should not be viewed as an official stance, position, or endorsement by the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) or its Board of Directors.