Just like running a profitable pharmacy, we didn’t learn how to schedule a Facebook post in pharmacy school- right? If you’re like me, you had to bootstrap and learn how to run a business while providing quality patient care. Digital health is the new frontier, and these social media tips for pharmacies will create a solid foundation to start building your community.

1. 7 PROVEN
SOCIAL MEDIA
TIPS FOR
PHARMACIES
YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD PHARMACIST
PREPARED BY CARLOS IRULA

2. Just like running a profitable pharmacy, we didn’t learn how to
schedule a Facebook post in pharmacy school- right? If you’re
like me, you had to bootstrap and learn how to run a business
while providing quality patient care. Digital health is the new
frontier, and these social media tips for pharmacies will create
a solid foundation to start building your community.
DIGITAL HEALTH

3. Set Attainable
Goals
01

4. All of your hard work and planning around social media needs to
be measured to track progress and brand awareness. Using
SMART goals as a guideline can provide a starting point.
Specific: Increase brand awareness on Facebook within a 10-
mile radius of the pharmacy.
Measurable: Improve follower count by 10%.
Achievable: Yes
Realistic: Boost the most engaging post with $20, targeting
competitors audience.
Time-sensitive: Achieve goals in 6 months.
If you are new to social media, choosing which platforms to set-
up can get overwhelming. Creating simple goals and sticking to
one or two channels is a solid start. In our next social media tip
for pharmacies, we’ll discuss which channel you should focus on
based on your target audience demographics.

5. Research Your
Target Customers
02

6. We might be in denial, but everyone is on social media!
Understanding your audience gives you a better idea of what they
find valuable and through which channel they consume content.
Furthermore, the more important question to ask is WHY do you
want to reach this audience. Once I answer that question, I begin
mapping out my strategy to deliver the best value to my
customers in the form of a post.

7. Define Your Key
Metrics
03

8. While the ROI of social media campaigns aren’t as clear as other
types of marketing efforts, defining the correct metrics to track
based on your overall goals can keep you away from focusing on
“vanity” metrics. Vanity metrics can include, follower count or
page likes. While these metrics are helpful to measure, they
shouldn’t be the key metric to track in a campaign.
Engagement metrics can provide a better idea of the real
success of a campaign. Remeber, at the end of the day, your goal
for using social media is to build a loyal and lasting community
that values your expertise. The reason I like to use engagement is
that it makes you dive deeper, looking into who is engaging and
allows you to determine your audiences willingness to interact.

9. Create Unique
and Engaging
Content
04

10. This is your “special sauce,” many pharmacy owners fall into the
trap of using social media channels to promote their front-end
products solely. While I’m not against showcasing front-end
products, 46% of users say they’ll unfollow a brand if there are
too many promotional messages. It will take some time to figure
out what type of content your audience finds valuable or worthy
of their attention.
Here are a few content types you can test:
Education: General health topics
Testimonial: Customer testimonials are always a great way to
validate great service.
Behind the Scenes: Introduce your staff to your audience.
Community: Display your engagement in the community (vendor
fairs, marketing events).

11. Engage Your
Community
05

12. Independent pharmacies have an opportunity to create and
connect with their local community. Creating engaging content is
the gateway to starting that conversation with your customers.
You also gain loyalty from your followers when you respond to
comments or messages to your page. One of the most important
social media tips for pharmacies is engaging your community
ranks at the top of the list!

13. Consistency
06

14. Social media algorithms are constantly changing, so keeping up
with the new trends is a must to receive the full benefit of all of
your efforts. One fundamental social media tip for pharmacies is
to create a weekly and monthly content calendar. This will ensure
you are consistently posting content that your followers will begin
to expect.

15. Patience and
Track Your Efforts
07

16. What I fear for newbies starting is that there is tons of room for
burnout by publishing too much content too quickly. When you first
start creating your content, you’ll be tempted to post everything
you create. I fell into the trap also; however, the new Facebook
algorithm prioritizes engaging and valuable content. Facebook
penalizes posts’ that don’t receive engagements by sending the
post to the bottom of users newsfeed. Just like starting a
pharmacy, it will take time to create your following and
community. Using our social media tips for pharmacies will help
you avoid rushing into your strategy.
Now that you have your goals in place, there are several tools on
the platforms and online to help track your key metrics.
Depending on the platform you choose, I would use the tools on
the platform to begin the process. You can seriously spend hours
online looking through all of the tools available to track social
media metrics.

17. CONTACT INFO
yourneighborhoodpharmacist.com
Website
yourneighborhoodrph@gmail.com
Email address