Today's Veterinary Practice

JUL-AUG 2012

Today's Veterinary Practice provides comprehensive information to keep every small animal practitioner up to date on companion animal medicine and surgery as well as practice building and management.

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PEER REVIEWED PRACTICE BUILDING (SPXJOH :PVS 1SBDUJDF 4FSJFT Keeping Up with Today's Technology and Social Media Karen E. Felsted, CPA, MS, DVM, CVPM T his is the fourth article in Dr. Karen Felsted's Growing Your Practice series, which is based on results from the 2011 Bayer Veterinary Care Usage Study (bayer-ah.com/nr/45.pdf). This study investigated veterinary practice performance from both the veterinary professional and pet owner viewpoints. The goal of this series is to identify what sets growing, successful veterinary practices apart from their competitors and how to implement their business models in your own practice. The previous articles in this series are available at todaysveterinarypractice.com: t 1SBDUJDFT 5IBU $POUJOVF UP Grow: What Are They Doing Right? (January/February 2012) t #VJMEJOH 4USPOH 3FMBUJPOTIJQT Among the Veterinary Team, $MJFOUT 1BUJFOUT (March/April 2012) t 7FUFSJOBSZ 5FBNT $MJFOUT Facing Financial Facts (May/June 2012) W ith the dizzying changes in digital communication and practice information management systems (PIMS), it's easy to conclude that technology is not our friend. And if a practice tries to implement many new technological advances at one time, it won't be—everyone will be frustrated. While every new idea isn't right for every practice, client expectations are changing and practice teams need to determine what technology benefits the team, patients, and clients. CURRENT STATE OF AFFAIRS Pet Owners Compared with Veterinarians Pet owners can find all the information they want about pet health and veterinary care via websites, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and many other sources. In fact, one study documented that pet owners are more likely to use social media and texting than the average consumer.1 Veterinarians, on the other hand, use these tools less. According to the same study, 76% of veterinarians are not at all or only slightly familiar with social media sites and only 50% see social media as a marketing opportunity. Use of digital communication has become more prevalent in the three years since that study was published, but more recent information from the Bayer Veterinary Care Usage Study indi- cates most practices continue to steer clear of these forms of communication. Most veterinary practices (77%) have a website; however, only 43% use Facebook and a very small percentage (4%) "tweet" or blog.2 Why Do Veterinarians Shy Away? One of the reasons veterinarians have been reluctant to jump on the social media bandwagon has been lack of evidence that it works—that it brings in more clients. Anecdotally, practices say that it does but there is no hard evidence. July/August 2012 Today's Veterinary Practice 59

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