5 Ways Pharmacy Owners Can Build Their Online Community

Posted by Samantha Timmermann on Thu, Sep 02, 2010

If you want people to follow you on Twitter, visit your website, become a fan on Facebook, or read your pharmacy blog, it is important to let people actually know about your initiatives. The 'build it and they will come' theory does not apply in the early stages of your social media and web journey. Once people start to comment on your posts and share the info with friends, more and more people will be linked to your page thus creating a strong network of followers. Which can then cause the community to go to your website more often or visit your independent pharmacy.

Here are five ways to increase the awareness and traffic on your website and social media profiles such as Facebook and Twitter. Pharmacy Bagstuffer

1. Hang signs, distribute bag stuffers, and include the links in your monthly newsletter - be sure to list the benefits of joining your online community and where they can find you. Download our pharmacy marketing templates.

2. Invite your Facebook friends - When you click “Suggest to Friends” on your pharmacy’s fan page, start typing in the name of your friend or click which friends you would like to send an invite to. Click send invite and an invitation to become a fan of your Facebook page will automatically be sent. As you and your staff become friends with more people on Facebook, remember to go back and send the invite to the new people you’ve added. The names of those who have already been invited will be grayed out and the invite will only be sent to your new contacts.

Make a game out of it and ask your current fans to suggest your page to their friends. The fan with the highest number of recommendations wins a pharmacy gift card.

3. Include the links in your email signature - we recently started using WiseStamp, a FREE web browser extension that takes your email signature to the next level. You can easily customize, include IM & Social profiles, automatically share your blog posts, quotes, news, bookmarks, and more. Please note this tool will only work when using Firefox or Google. If you are currently using Internet Explorer or AOL as your internet browser, you can expect a more enjoyable browsing experience with Firefox or Google. (i.e. faster loading pages and less crashes).

Here's what my signature looks like:

Pharmacy Email Signature

4. Add links and feeds to your website and blog - If you have a website or blog and you want to keep your readers coming back for more, you need to make it easy for them to link to your social media profiles and share what they enjoyed from your site. Ask your web developer to add Find us on Facebook, Twitter, etc. buttons to your website. Ideally the buttons should be placed at the top of the page.

5. Use Facebook and Twitter Widgets
As a Facebook Page owner and Twitter user, you can add the Fan Box widget on your own website to gain more fans and share your updates. Check out these live samples: http://www.itcpharmacy.com and http://ncpamarketing.com/social-media-community.html

Facebook Widgets: http://www.facebook.com/facebook-widgets/
Twitter Widgets: http://twitter.com/goodies/widgets

Tags: Pharmacy Marketing, pharmacy social media strategies, pharmacy advertising

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