SOCIAL MEDIA
sociAl mediA offers All sorts of businesses All sorts of opportunities to build A community of fAns And loyAl customers. for community phArmAcists, sociAl mediA cAn be used for both communicAting clinicAl messAges And supporting retAil promotions. one thing is, however, Absolutely certAin... it hAs to be done properly! dAmiAn donnelly, sociAl mediA And mArketing expert At Ad-mAn creAtive mArketing insight & strAtegy, tells you how...
A time to ‘shAre’: sociAl mediA in community phArmAcy
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any of us have become used to posting on social media - whether it's on
facebook, linkedin or twitter. while it’s tempting to think of these as ‘free’, the reality is they are all commercial enterprises. to use facebook as an example, reports indicate that its organic reach has shrunk to a point where only between two and six per cent of your fans may see your posts. that means that if you have 1,000 fans, maybe only 60 will catch sight of a particular post.
social media for community pharmacy is a two-pronged thing: the clinical side and the retail side. nevertheless, the principles for both remain the same...
when it comes to clinical messages, there are clearly-defined guidelines, which are set out by a number of professional bodies with regard to what is and isn’t appropriate content to be aired or shared online. these guidelines tend to cover issues such as medicines advice for patients, patient confidentiality and the potential impact on professional standing.
in terms of the retail side, the objectives are simpler: drawing customers' attention to things like new lines, special offers and discounts. the secret is to get the mix right.
getting the mix right i always point clients towards the 70/20/10 guideline, in which the 70 relates to the percentage of value content.
58 - phArmAcy in focus 24 - SCOTTISH PHARMACIST
when it comes to clinical information, 70 per cent of the content might include tips and advice on things that people will find useful - guidance on, for example, following a healthy lifestyle, or on stopping smoking. this type of information can be curated from sites such as the nhs website, which contains enough generic information from which to draw content.
for retail, the 70 per cent might include advice on, for example, how to apply eyeliner properly.
the 20 per cent, meanwhile, relates to other people's content and this is where the importance of networking comes in. the concept of the 'community pharmacist' provides the pharmacist with an opportunity to focus on the cluster of other businesses and organisations within the local community. this enables all of the businesses to find, like and share links with each other. the wider benefit here, of course, is if you share their posts, they will be more predisposed to share yours!
the remaining ten per cent of the guideline is all about you and your business. this can be the promotional stuff.
content is king put simply, content is the stuff we create, find and share through our social media channels. content is what creates engagement, and engagement is everything in social media.
let us understand from the outset, though, that 'content' is not just 'words'.
i love words and i read as many of them as i possibly can, but i need to be able to understand, digest and remember what's being said quickly and
easily...because there'll be more stuff coming down the line tomorrow. for that reason, the content that i read has to be noteworthy enough to engage me in both reading and remembering it.
As a community pharmacist, you need to be similarly able to be able to ‘cut through the noise’ to communicate important insights and findings, or promotional messages to busy people quickly and effectively.
sources of content in simple terms, there are really two types of content: your own original material and other people's material.
As a busy community pharmacist, you may not always have the time to generate your own content. And, of course, pressure to create material can lead to too much counter- productive, self-promotional content. the great thing is there are lots of sources out there that you can draw upon to take the pressure off.
some of the most useful sources of content are:
• other businesses or other people that you follow.
• youtube. • other pharmacy social media channels: take a look round at what others are doing and cherry- pick the best ideas.
• google search: when you key in a subject, you would be surprised at the sort of content and content
ideas you will uncover.
• google Alerts: by creating google Alerts on subjects of interest, relevant content will come to you.
• google suggest: when you key in a particular subject, take a look at what google populates in the search bar. these often provide invaluable suggestions for future posts.
• google ‘searches related to’: these appear at the bottom of a google search results page. let's take the example of 'stopping smoking'. when you key this in to google, you will see at the bottom of the page a number of suggestions: very often these provide ideas for social media content.
it's all about inspiration to help you produce something much more engaging than '50 per cent off today' promotional messages!
the primary thing when it comes to content is to ask yourself: 'will my fans find this useful? helpful? valuable? interesting?'
formAt of content there's a lot of research out there that talks about how our memory retains information. for example, how after only three days we only remember something like ten per cent of what we've read or hear, but can recall as much as two thirds of the same information when supported with a relevant image.
for us to retain something, we first need to notice it: it needs to cut through all the other noise to grab - then keep - our attention. no matter
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