Displaying items by tag: vet tech week
Fantastic Fall Ideas for Your Veterinary Clinic's October Social Media!
Here comes spooky season! What could be better than beautiful fall foliage, pumpkin spice everything, and crisp autumn air? Break out that chunky sweater, cuddle up, and let’s dig into some great ideas to educate, entertain, and engage with your clients on social media this month!
Your October 1st Preventative Reminder gets a bonus this month because it’s also National Black Dog Day! Take this opportunity to encourage engagement by asking followers to share photos of their black dogs or educate the masses with info about BDS (black dog syndrome) and encourage black dog adoption!
World Animal Day on October 4th is a fun opportunity to engage with clients. Ask them to share what their favorite animal is and why, or ask them what other animal their pet reminds them of! If you want to take a more serious approach, ask some team members what they love most about caring for animals and share their responses with your followers.
SPREAD SMILES! October 7th is World Smile Day and a perfect chance to show off your team’s sweet smiles with happy pets. Don’t forget to ask your clients also to show off their favorite smiley photos with their pets as well!
World Mental Health Day is on October 10th. Before we get started on what that means for social media, please know that if you are struggling, you are not alone. The Veterinary Mental Health Initiative (VMHI) is an amazing resource that offers free, professionally facilitated peer support groups. You can learn more by visiting: https://www.shanti.org/programs-services/veterinary-mental-health-initiative/ If your need is immediate, visit https://988lifeline.org/chat/or call 1-800-273-8255 to speak with someone now. You matter, and your health is important.
Pets are such miraculous little souls, and amongst everything else they provide us, they also manage to ease loneliness, relieve depression, lower anxiety, and help us better manage stress (is there literally anything they CAN’T do?!). Take an opportunity to talk about how our fluffy miracle workers positively impact mental health!
It’s National Pet Obesity Awareness Day on October 12th. While it’s commonplace for people to giggle at fatty felines and portly pooches on the internet, we all know the battle of the bulge is no laughing matter. Help owners paws and consider their pet’s waistline with some cold hard facts about the rate of obesity in pets and the negative impact it can have on their quality of life. Do you have a recent weight loss success story? It could also be a great time to share them with the world!
Fetch is a favorite game for many dogs and even some cats! Celebrate National Fetch Day on October 15th by asking clients to share a photo of their pet playing fetch, by educating them on why pets love to fetch, or by reminding them to play a little longer today!
Give your clients some insight into your clinic and the folks that work there on Boss’s Day, October 16th! Highlight your leadership team with photos and fun facts about them, especially if they aren’t always client-facing!
Is your leadership team harder to wrangle than a feral cat? October 16th is also Feral Cat Day and a chance to talk about the differences between strays and ferals and how to help ferals! If you are a rural clinic, remind farm owners that feral cats make for WONDERFUL pest control!
National Cat Day is October 29th and the purrfect time to encourage clients to share their favorite photos of their feline family!
Halloween is here! October 31st is probably my favorite day of the year 😊 Encourage your team to dress up and share some photos on social media! You are bound to have at least a handful of followers who dress up their pet, so encourage them to share their photos too. Don’t forget some MEOWloween and HOWLoween safety tips (Friday the 28th is a good day to do so!) I like to include:
• Costume Safety
• Candy Dangers
• Ding-Dong Fright
• And reminders to secure pets to avoid escape attempts!
Walk Your Dog Week is celebrated October 1st – 7th! Highlight some great walking spots in your area and give your clients some information about why walkies are SO important to their pooch!
Buckle up, it’s Vet Tech Week October 16-21! This year’s theme passed down from the National Association of Veterinary Technicians in America is (drum roll!) Veterinary Technicians’ Resilience is the Heart of Veterinary Medicine! Feature your VT team this week on social media by highlighting stories of resiliency, emphasizing the fact that your tech team is the beating heart of your clinic, and celebrating the essential role that Technicians fill on your team. You can learn more, find resources, and celebrate with NAVTA here.
October is Adopt A Dog Month and a great time to help your local shelter or rescue get more eyes on their available dogs! Share photos of adoptable dogs in your stories or page – you never know who might fall in love with a dog in need!
National Pet Wellness Month is a perfect time to explain the pillars of health that your clinic believes in! You can address topics such as preventative medicine, nutrition, mental well-being, dental health, emotional health, and regular wellness visits!
It's Pit Bull Awareness Month! Take a little time to bust up some myths surrounding bully breeds and rally around your love-a-bull owners to shed some light on these misunderstood snuggle bugs! If you have a passionate and responsible pitty owner or a pibble-obsessed team member, ask them for an interview!
There is A LOT going on this month! Why not take a little break by using our premade social media content this October? Included in the package are 16 posts, including templates to feature technicians for Vet Tech Week, an infographic-sized post about pet obesity, a seven graphic feature on pets and mental health, and so much more! Make October as simple as adding a logo, copying and pasting captions, and scheduling everything out in advance to free up your time for what really matters to you – helping pets!
We use Microsoft OneDrive for large file transfers, and a link will be emailed to you within 24 hours. If you are experiencing any issues with purchasing or receiving your content, send us an email!
Veterinary Technician Appreciation Week!
Where would we be without our beloved Veterinary Technicians as we do our best to keep our heads above water during these insanely busy times? Probably drowning, that’s where!
Though it’s wise to praise and appreciate our Vet Techs all year round, this year’s National Veterinary Technician Week from October 17-23 is an especially important time to dig deep, take some time, and truly make an effort to show our Vet Techs how much we value the work they do, day in and day out. Bringing in lunch is a nice gesture but it’s just the tip of the iceberg if you want to truly recognize and retain key staff – which is not only the right thing to do, it’s good for business. When your staff members feel like a valued part of a team, your practice will see less burnout, less turnover, and more revenue. Plus, it will be a better place to come to work every day – and who wouldn’t want that?
Click the button for your free download containing a thank you card, social media graphic, and Facebook banner for you to use to help you recognize those amazing technicians!
So, you want to plan something meaningful but what exactly does that look like and where should you begin? Try these steps:
- Consider your budget. We’d all love to have an Oprah moment and shout “You get a car! You get a car!” to each of our staff. However, realistically assessing what the practice can afford is a necessary step. Be honest with your budget but remember: this is an important investment in your staff and, like all good investments, should pay valuable dividends over and over again.
- Determine who and how many people you are going to be celebrating? Write their names down and take a minute to think about each employee and what their commitment means to you.
- Decide whether it’s best to plan something for the whole group, or if you can focus on each member individually. There are certainly advantages and disadvantages to either option, so if your budget allows, consider both!
- Sponsoring a group dinner, a night at the movies, or a backyard BBQ at your house can be a wonderful time to enjoy each other’s company away from the office and strengthen those human bonds. However, it does focus more appreciation on the group as whole and leaves a little to be desired in the individual attention department.
- If you can make time to individualize your efforts, you may reap dividends from staff that feel recognized. You probably know your vet techs really well, but do you know how they like to be appreciated? Most of us default toward one of the five different love languages: quality time, gifts of appreciation, words of affirmation, physical touch, or acts of service. For someone who truly values quality time, consider one-on-one time with that person either at the office or outside of it. Perhaps they’d really appreciate some career mentoring or some on-the-clock CE. Or is their life really hectic and their preferred quality time would be an extra couple hours one day to spend with their kids? For those who appreciate gifts, who doesn’t love a gift certificate to their favorite restaurant or spa? Could they use a new set of scrubs? Or tickets to their favorite sporting event? To the vet tech who spends their weekends doing charity work, consider supporting their charity, or even paying them their wage for a Saturday spent volunteering. If you’re not sure which love language your staff default to, have a conversation to find out!
- Consider buying something for the office that will make your vet techs feel pampered. Does the break room have space for a vibrating massage chair? How about a really nice coffee maker? Or a bean bag chair they can collapse upon during a break? How about creating a place for personal space? Even the smallest of private spaces can be helpful to people who need to recharge their batteries. We’ve heard of one clinic that turned an unused closet space into a private space that was used as a prayer room, a scream room, and private space for a nursing mother. For introverts and others who need privacy to recharge, this kind of gesture goes a long way.
- Consider using this year’s National Veterinary Technician Week as a way to set the table for praising your staff all year long. Do you or one of your staff check your clinic’s online reviews on Google, Yelp, Facebook, or Nextdoor? Next time a client takes the time to leave a positive review and mentions a staff member by name, don’t just let it sit there on the internet! Print that up, highlight their name, and pin it to the bulletin board!
- Use your voice and tell them how much you appreciate them!
Finding fun, unique, and personal ways to show your veterinary technicians how much you appreciate them can take a little time, but it will be worth every minute. Start planning now for how you will show your beloved sidekicks how much you care about them, how much you are invested in them, and how you wouldn’t want to do this all without them!