7 Ways Pharmacies Can Boost Their Facebook Page

A Facebook page can be a useful tool for cultivating patient loyalty, promoting pharmacy services, and educating patients.

Pharmacists who want to increase engagement on their pharmacy’s Facebook page should follow these tips:

1. Maintain a Steady Flow of Content

Fans of a pharmacy Facebook page are more likely to think about the store and potentially engage with the page if there is a steady flow of content.

This content can take the form of new OTC products, informative news stories related to pharmacy and medicine, holiday hours, photos of the store, or even historical facts about the pharmacy. Some independent pharmacies have also found success in sharing news about the community or showing support for local sports teams.

Facebook also recommends page owners to experiment with different kinds of posts to determine which type resonates with the page’s audience the most. By using the same message with slightly different text or photo, pharmacists can see what works best for their fans.

If a post is especially successful, pharmacists may want to consider reposting the content down the road at a different time and day to get even more reach.

2. Use Photos and Call to Actions

High-resolution photos can grab more attention. In addition, Facebook posts should ideally have short sentences that are either a call to action such as “Head to your pharmacy today for a flu shot,” or a question such as, “Have you received your flu shot yet?”

3. Respond to Questions or Comments

Facebook can serve as another arm of customer service. Pharmacy owners may want to consider keeping an eye on the comments of each post to see whether customers have questions about hours, products, or services.

4. Track Your Facebook Analytics

Track how your pharmacy’s page is performing through Facebook’s Page Insights, which shows the number of likes the page has garnered, plus the amount of engagement. Post reach metrics also reveal how many unique users saw your page or posts.

Facebook also offers a tool called Pages to Watch, which lets pharmacies compare their page with their competitors’.

5. Target Your Content

Facebook’s Page Insights allows the page owner to see what time fans are online, so posts can be scheduled for a specific time of day and day of the week that users are most likely to see and engage with content.

The “People” tab under Page Insights also shows page owners what kinds of fans (in terms of gender, age, location, and language) engage the most with their page. If 75% of a pharmacy page’s engagers are women, the pharmacy may want to consider promoting more products specifically for women.

To tailor a post to a specific audience, page owners can select the image that looks like a target in the bottom left-hand corner of a new page post and narrow down the audience by gender, relationship status, educational status, age, location, language, and interests.

6. Pay for More Eyeballs

For a fee, Facebook page owners can also get more views of their page or posts. Once a post has been created, the page owner will see a blue box in the bottom right-hand corner with the word “boost.”

Page owners can select a specific audience based on age, location, gender, and interests, or they can choose the option to have people who like the page and their friends see the boosted post.

Next, the page owner can choose a maximum budget, and Facebook will provide an estimate for how many users will see the post based on that budget. The duration of the boosted post can be set for 1 to 7 days.

7. Refrain from Posting Negative Content

You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

Posts should be upbeat, not negative or offensive. One pharmacist learned this the hard way by posting insulting comments about a customer on his Facebook page, and then facing an investigation by the National Health Service.

Negative posts not only appear unprofessional, but may also steer patients away from your pharmacy.