Pharmacy Social Media Marketing 101

Successful community pharmacies already have a strong presence in their local communities.

But as they continue to take on more national services, and seek additional revenue sources to remove the pressures from medication dispensing, they need to create a bigger profile with a broader range of potential customers.

Social media marketing can be an effective tactic for pharmacies trying to promote products and services, or provide general health advice to more people, and is a proven way of attracting more customers.

We get that as a community pharmacist, you’re probably not a social media marketing expert, even if you use many of the platforms we’re about to discuss in your own life.

After reading this you’ll be able to take on pharmacy social media marketing with more confidence and have a much better idea what channels and content types best suit your goals.

Be selective with your social media

One of the things we know pharmacists struggle with, is figuring out what social media platforms to focus on.

It’s easy to think that you need to be everywhere, all the time in order to make social media a successful marketing tactic for your pharmacy.

But, unless you hire an agency to run your social media for you (or hire someone to do it full-time) you likely won’t have the time to be on every platform, so you should pick a couple that you know your customers use and focus on getting the most out of those before branching out.

Remember, you can always start on one platform, build an audience, and then move into a second channel, taking your existing audience with you.

Below is a quick introduction to the different pharmacy social media marketing channels you could consider:

Dare to be different with your pharmacy’s social media

There’s no getting around the fact that social media for pharmacies is hard work.

You’re vying for attention against all kinds of different feeds and content types, so the best advice we can give is dare to be a bit different.

Start by choosing topics that will educate or entertain your audience, but then consider how to get the information across in an interesting way.

Video is one of the most effective types of social media content, especially if you’re brave enough to get in front of the camera yourself - or have someone on your team who isn’t camera shy.

It can also help your customers get to know the people behind their local pharmacy and help create stronger community relationships.

Experiment with a few different content types or formats and see what’s working.

Assign responsibility for uploading and managing the accounts

One thing we can guarantee about social media marketing for pharmacies, is that it can be easy to lose momentum and let your posting become erratic.

This is a problem because social media platforms favour active profiles that get engagement, so it’s important to be consistent with your content.

If you’re finding it hard to commit to social media posting on your own, consider rotating responsibility, or have a dedicated person to create and post your content online.

If you have the budget, you could bring in social media experts to create your content for you, ensuring you have the volume needed to be a success.

Have an official social media policy for your pharmacy

Although the mantra “persistence over perfection” is a good way to approach pharmacy social media, you’re still going to need some rules over what should and shouldn’t be allowed on your pharmacy’s accounts.

You might want to refrain from having your account involved in commenting on political discussions, or avoid topics that could be considered “controversial” or potentially alienate your customers.

A good rule is to define a few topics and values you want to promote and stick to those across all your channels.

How will you deal with negativity?

While social media is an effective way to promote your pharmacy and its services, there will be times when you find yourself dealing with negativity, or users just trying to be disruptive.

It’s important you have a process in place for dealing with negative comments, whether it’s a complaint or a user being abusive to others commenting on your content.

Some social media platforms allow you to turn comments off to avoid the problem from the start.

If you’re using social media to engage with patients and customers, you can instead delete any comments you feel are inappropriate.

If a user makes a genuine complaint, respond quickly, personally and move the conversation offline by providing the user with an email or phone number they can use to contact you.

Focus on adding value with content

What to post on social media?

This is a question most pharmacy owners ask, especially when they’re just starting out.

A good rule of thumb is to focus on adding value to customers with your content.

Offering health advice or promoting services and events can be a good place to start and you’ll naturally find yourself becoming more confident with content creation the more you do it.

Integrate your social media with your instore marketing

Whatever you do with social media, one thing you shouldn’t do is silo it from the rest of your marketing.

If you have in store promotions for products and services, match your instore promotion with social media promotions at the same time.

Combining messages both online and offline can increase the reach of your offers and improve the chances of making sales.

Learn how to make social media and marketing easier for your pharmacy

If you want more advice on marketing your pharmacy effectively, whether through social media or any other channel, download our complete guide to marketing your pharmacy.

In the guide we’ve broken down all the tactics you could use, advising which will provide the best results quickly as well as easy to follow advice on how to get the most out of your marketing efforts.