Your practice's guide to VetPost

Setting up VetPost for the first time

About 20 minutes, once, on a computer.

Whoever sets VetPost up for the practice does it once, at vetpost.app/start. Do it on a computer, because you'll be pasting text. Your answers save in your browser, so you can step away and come back.

Watch: Setting Up VetPost for the First Time (8 min)

1. Tell us about your practice and your people. Your services and what you're known for locally. Be specific: "we remember the dog's name before the owner's" beats "compassionate care."
2. Tell us how your practice talks. How you sound, words you always use, words you'd never use, and two or three of your own posts and client emails, pasted in as plain text. This is the page that matters most.
3. Set your boundaries and community. Whether anonymized patient stories are OK, topics you never want posted about, the local events and causes you're part of, and the clients you want more of.
4. Pick where posts go. Facebook is required. You can add Instagram, TikTok or Google Business Profile now or later (section 5).
5. Add your logo if you like. It goes in the corner of your photo posts. You can skip it and add it later in the app's Settings.
6. Connect Buffer. Create a free Buffer account at buffer.com, connect your practice's Facebook Page, then come back and click Connect my Buffer. Buffer is where every draft waits for your approval.
7. Get your practice code. Every phone at the practice uses this one code to connect the app. It's emailed to you too.
8. Set your Facebook posting schedule, below. It's the one Buffer setting that matters.

Set your Facebook posting schedule

About 5 minutes. You only do this once.

Watch: Setting your Facebook posting schedule (1 min, starts at 6:39 in the setup video)

Heads up: Buffer sets up every new channel to post twice a day, all seven days. That's 14 posts a week.

1. In Buffer's left-hand menu, under Channels, click your practice's Facebook Page, then click Publish.
2. Click the settings gear next to your practice's name at the top of the page.
3. You'll land on the Posting Schedule tab. The days are under Posting Slots, and each day has its own On / Off switch. Turn off the days you don't want to post.
4. On the days you keep, remove any posting times you don't want by clicking the x next to the time.

How to use VetPost

For everyone at the practice: install the app, then take two minutes a day to press record and talk about something that happened. VetPost turns it into a finished post in your practice's voice. Nothing posts until someone at your practice approves it.

Watch: How to Set Up and Use VetPost on Your Phone (3 min)

Get the app on your phone

Search for VetPost in the App Store (iPhone) or Google Play (Android), open it, and enter your practice code. Get the code from your VetPost administrator. Every phone at the practice uses the same one.

Record a memo

1. Tap the record button and talk. In the exam room, in the barn, between appointments. Two minutes is plenty, and rambling is fine. Not sure what to talk about? Look at Case of the week or Ideas this week on the record screen.
2. When you stop, add a photo if you like: Take one now, From my photos, or From the clinic library. A memo can carry up to four photos. Your first photo leads the post everywhere; tap any photo to move it to first, or tap its × to remove just that one.
3. Send it. You're done. Within about 15 minutes, a finished draft lands in your practice's review queue in Buffer, and your VetPost administrator reviews and approves it (section 3).

Photo posts go out to all four channels (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and your Google Business Profile), whichever you have connected. Google Business Profile shows only your first photo; the other channels get all of them, in the order you chose.

Record a video

Watch: Recording a video (starts at 2:51 in the phone video)

Film whatever you want to show: the animals, the people, the clinic itself. Point the camera and narrate while you film. Up to two minutes.

• Add an optional one-line description if there's context the camera can't see, then send it.
• Clips come back short, captioned, and ready to post as Reels. The captions come from what you said while filming, so keep talking.
• Videos go out to Facebook and Instagram as Reels, and to TikTok. Google doesn't take video on Business Profiles, so video posts skip your Google listing. Mix in photo memos now and then to keep it fresh.

Record often, and talk long

Every memo does two jobs. The main idea becomes your next draft, and everything else you mention (the side stories, the tangents, the opinions) is saved to your idea bank for future weeks. The more you talk, the better VetPost learns your practice's voice, and the more ideas it banks. You don't need to be polished. Just hit record and share what's on your mind.

Ideas and your idea bank

• Ideas this week. Open the app with nothing in mind and tap Ideas this week. There's always something there, matched to your kind of practice and the season. Tap one and it becomes your memo prompt: thirty seconds of your own take turns it into a post that sounds like you. In a hurry, an idea can go straight to a draft without you saying a word.
• Case of the week arrives every Tuesday on the record screen: a prompt worth talking about between appointments.
• Your idea bank is your practice's own reserve of post ideas, filled only by your memos. Every Monday morning, a couple of extra drafts are written from it, and each idea is used once, so your page stays active even in weeks nobody records. Open Settings and the Idea bank row tells you how full it is. When it runs out, Monday's drafts revisit ground you've already covered from a new angle until you record again.
• Seasonal ideas are separate, and always there. The ideas in Ideas this week come from VetPost, not from your bank, and they never run out. An empty bank means Monday's drafts are repeating themselves, not that the app has nothing for you.

If you get interrupted

• A call comes in mid-memo. If a phone call or another app takes the microphone, your recording pauses and nothing is lost. Come back to VetPost and choose Resume recording to carry on, or Start over.
• A memo didn't get sent. If the app closed after you recorded but before you sent, the record screen shows a card that says your last memo didn't get sent. Tap Pick up where you left off to add a photo and send it, or Discard it.

For administrators

About 10 to 15 minutes a week.

The administrator is the person who runs your practice's Buffer account. Your job is to review the drafts VetPost writes and approve the ones you want posted. Nothing posts without your click.

Watch: For Administrators: Approving Posts in Buffer, and Your Manager PIN (6 min)

Your weekly routine in Buffer

In Buffer, click Publish on the left. You use two tabs: Drafts, where every new draft from VetPost lands, and Queue, where approved posts wait for their slot on your schedule. You don't need the Approvals tab.

1. You get a "Your VetPost draft is ready" email for each new draft. You don't need to jump on every one. Once or twice a week, open the most recent email and click Open your drafts. Opening your drafts from that link is what lets your other channels follow your post as quickly as possible.
2. Go through the drafts one at a time. Click the pencil icon to edit one. Change anything you like in the draft, the words or the photos: add, swap or remove them, up to four.
3. When a draft is ready, click Add to Queue. It takes the next open slot on your schedule and goes out to all your channels just as you left it. Publish Now does the same, right away.
4. Don't want a draft? Click its three dots and choose Delete post.
5. Keep going until your drafts are empty. That's the job.

• Only Facebook shows in the Queue at first. Your other channels show up after it, within about 15 minutes when you opened your drafts from the email link. No need to panic.
• Buffer's free plan holds up to 10 posts in the Queue at a time. Drafts have no limit, and a paid Buffer plan has no Queue limit either.
• Approve drafts within a month. A draft left in Drafts for more than a month can have problems when it's finally approved.

Protect your practice-wide settings with a Manager PIN

Two settings in the app apply to every phone at the practice: Where posts go and Your logo. If anyone switches off a channel or changes the logo on their phone, it changes for everyone. To prevent accidental changes, set a Manager PIN in the app under Settings, then Your practice. Each phone asks for it only once. Full details are in section 6.

After it posts: the first hour

Facebook decides how far a post travels based on what happens in the first hour after it goes live. Early comments and replies tell it the post matters, and it shows the post to more people in your area. You know when posts go out, because you set the schedule. When one does, spend a few minutes on the page: reply to every comment, and leave a real comment or two on posts from other local pages you follow. People who get a reply come back and comment again, and in a small community, that's how a practice's page becomes the one everyone's seen.

The clinic library

Your clinic library is your practice's own photo bank: your team, your rooms, the barn, your patients (with permission). Real photos build more connection than stock photos, and they're what VetPost suggests for your posts. Fill it with photos you'd be happy to use again and again.

Watch: The Clinic Library: Your Practice's Own Photos (90 sec)

• Three ways to add photos. Tap Clinic library on the record screen, then Take photo or From photos. Or, when you add a photo to a memo, tick Also save to the clinic library.
• Labels are how VetPost finds the right photo. Give each photo a short label with names: the person, the pet's name or breed, the room. "Dr. King with Scout," "the recovery barn."
• The labels pay off when you record. Mention Dr. King in a memo, tap From the clinic library, and that photo is already waiting under Suggested for this memo. Tap the photos you want, tap Add, then send.

Adding Instagram, TikTok and Google Business Profile

Head to your connected channels page. If you've just finished setting up VetPost, the Channel Connections button on the last setup page takes you there too. You'll need your practice code (it's in your welcome email, and in the app under Settings, then Your practice). Connecting works best on a computer, so it's worth doing from a desk rather than a phone.

Watch: Adding Instagram, TikTok and Google Business Profile (2 min)

1. Find the channel you want and click Connect.
2. Follow the steps it shows: click Open Buffer, click Connect Channel in Buffer, pick the channel, and allow access.
3. Come back to the channels page and click I've connected it — check now. Once it shows as connected, your posts go there too.

TikTok and Google Business Profile work the same way as Instagram. Buffer's free plan covers up to three channels; connecting all four needs a paid Buffer plan, which Buffer bills you for.

The same page shows at a glance what's already connected, and it's where you reconnect Facebook if posting ever stops working.

On your phone? Open Settings, then Where posts go, and tap Email me the link. We'll send your practice's own channels link to the email address you signed up with, so you can open it later at a desk.

What's in Settings

Tap the gear at the top of the record screen to open Settings.

• Your practice. Shows your practice code, with a Copy button. To add another phone, install VetPost on it and enter that code. Every phone at the practice shares the same setup.
• More than one practice on one phone. Under Your practice, tap Add another practice and enter its code. Once two are paired, tap one to switch; new memos, photos and posts go to the active practice. Anything not yet sent is lost when you switch, so the app warns you first and lets you go back and send it.
• Manager PIN (optional). Under Your practice, the Manager PIN row lets a manager set a 4-digit PIN. Once it's set, changing the logo or Where posts go asks for the PIN once on each phone, and that phone remembers it. Everyone can still record memos, add photos and post as before. Five wrong tries lock it for 15 minutes. If you don't know the PIN, ask your practice manager. A manager who has forgotten it can email hello@vetpost.app from the practice's contact address to have it cleared, then set a new one in the app.
• Where posts go. Lists every connected channel with a switch. Approved posts publish everywhere that's switched on, at the same time. Your review channel, where drafts land for approval, is always on. Some platforms only take certain posts: a post without a photo or video won't go to Instagram or TikTok (it still goes to your Google listing), and videos don't go to your Google listing. That part is automatic. The Where this post will go card on the record screen opens the same switches.
• Your logo. Add your logo and it goes in the corner of every photo post, on a small light or dark backing so it shows up on any photo. It's optional, and you can switch it off any time. A logo file with a see-through background looks best.
• Help. Ask a question about VetPost in plain words. If the answer doesn't cover it, you can send the question straight to the VetPost team.
• Report a problem. Sends an optional note, plus the app version and device details, to the VetPost team.
• Disconnect this phone. That phone stops being paired and stops sending memos. Other phones at the practice aren't affected.