Ask clients, 'How unique is your pet's name?'

Here's a fun social media engagement idea for your veterinary practice to use. We posted this: "How unique is your pet's name? Post it and we'll search it against our database to let you know."

Here's what we posted. Then the deluge of comments began ...

When someone comments with their pet's name and species, myself or a team member look it up in our client database and serve up its popularity-or uniqueness. We got a HUGE response (click here to see the Facebook post). Sixty-seven comments at last count.

The best part? Half of these people aren't even our veterinary clients-yet. YET.

My only caveat: If you post this, make sure somebody on your staff has a day (or two) to respond to all the comments with numbers.

Brent Dickinson is practice manager at Dickinson-McNeill Veterinary Clinic in Chesterfield, New Jersey.