Effective communication and networking are the pillars of social media; it essentially is an extension of what man has been doing for ages. Although the technology platforms and mediums have changed, the purpose continues to be the driving need to connect, share, and interact with each other. True, social media is no longer the new kid on the block; however, a majority of veterinary practices have still been slow in recognizing the potential social media holds and thus have been hesitant in adopting it. Regardless of the reason behind the slow adoption of social media by veterinary practices, the fact remains that it helps in building an audience and has an immense potential for reaching out to potential clients.

The benefits of social media for Veterinary Practices

• Enhanced social signals (loved by search ranking algorithms)
• Ability to build improved customer loyalty and trust
• Social media is one of the three pillars of SEO
• Extensive brand building opportunities
• Enhanced level of target audience reach and influence
• Enhanced brand awareness and online exposure
• Extensive potential for word-of-mouth advertising

Top 3 Social Media Predictions for 2014

Taking into account the social media trends this year, the rise of visual social platforms, and the emergence of new social platforms in 2013, here are our top 3 predictions for social media in 2014.

Social Media Will Become Integral to Online Marketing

2013 has been a major year for social media with a number of veterinary practices putting in the necessary time and resources in developing a robust social media strategy. However, 2014 will be the tipping point as social media will become a “must have” aspect of any successful marketing strategy for veterinary practices. The integration of social media with content strategy is already a recognized aspect of online marketing and the benefits in terms of lead generation, and revenue, as well as referral traffic, among others are manifold. Ignore social media and you will be left out in the cold.

Visual Content is here to stay

Visual social platforms such as YouTube, Vine, Instagram, and Vimeo have pushed visual content to the forefront. Instagram has grown from 18% in 2012 to 33% in 2013; 100 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute and viewers watch more than 6 billion hours of video on YouTube each month; each second 5 tweets containing a Vine link go out; while Vimeo receives 100 million unique visitors per month. In addition to being interesting video content is easier to consume. Visual content thus will become critical to the success of any content marketing strategy. Social networking site Pinterest will move beyond being just a ‘women’s only’ network; this social visual platform will become an integral part of all marketing strategies.

Watch out for Google+

Facebook still is the number one social media platform with active monthly users (over 1.19 billion active users); however, Google+ is gaining momentum with (over 540 million active users) and is no longer just another social platform. With Google aggressively pursuing its goal over complete and absolute search engine dominance, Google+ has a number of things working for it, namely – SEO, customized search experience, growing importance of Google Authorship, and social signals. Although social giants Facebook and Twitter have already established their social dominance, they will need to innovate if they want to keep up with the quickly expanding Google+ and other image and video-based social platforms.