Social media for fertility clinics: a practical guide

Your followers include people just starting to ask questions, people in the middle of treatment, people whose treatment has not worked, donors, single parents by choice, same-sex couples and people freezing eggs for later. A post that delights one group can hurt another.

Be thoughtful about dates such as Mother's Day and Father's Day, which can be painful for many of your followers. Acknowledge them gently, or not at all, rather than celebrating.

Two to four posts a week is enough. Write in plain words and explain every technical term the first time you use it.

• Monday: a treatment or test explainer, such as what an AMH test measures.
• Tuesday: what to expect, such as your first consultation or egg collection day.
• Wednesday: meet the team, including embryologists, nurses and counsellors.
• Thursday: emotional support, such as where to find counselling or support groups.
• Friday: practical details, such as information evenings, prices or how referrals work.

Success rates: the June 2021 enforcement notice from CAP, issued with the HFEA and the CMA, says it applies to clinics' own websites and social media pages. It says clinics should only publish the very latest HFEA-verified data, should not give undue prominence to a subset of patients with good results, should not show percentages without making clear how many patients were treated, and should not make superiority claims such as "No.1 clinic in London" without substantiation. Clinics must say exactly which measure they use, such as live birth rate per embryo transferred, and distinguish clinical pregnancy rates from live birth rates.

Prices and packages: the notice says not to use misleadingly low headline prices, to be clear about what is included (scans, blood tests, medication, egg collection, embryology, embryo transfer and freezing), not to claim a discount is for a limited time if it is not, and to avoid absolute claims such as "100% refund" when patients can claim "up to" 100%. The CMA's consumer guide says suggesting success rates are better than they are is misleading and likely to breach consumer law.

Add-ons and complementary therapies: the notice recommends linking to the HFEA's add-on ratings. The HFEA rates add-ons green, yellow, grey, black or red depending on the evidence, and says add-ons without strong evidence should only be offered in research. The notice says clinics should not claim complementary therapies treat fertility problems or improve the chance of pregnancy; claims about relaxation and mood are likely to be acceptable.

Enforcement: the ASA reported in December 2025 that its monitoring collected 9,340 paid fertility clinic ads from Meta and Google between September 2024 and October 2025. Common problems were unproven "best" claims, percentages without patient numbers and clinical pregnancy rates instead of live birth rates. By October 2025, 96.7% of assessed ads were in line with the CAP Code's misleadingness rules.

This is general information, not legal or clinical advice. Rules differ by country and change, so check with your regulator, professional body or a lawyer before you post claims, prices or photos of the people you serve.

Sources: CAP with the HFEA and CMA: Enforcement Notice, advertising of fertility treatments (June 2021, PDF), checked 15 October 2026; GOV.UK (CMA): Fertility treatment, a guide to your consumer rights, checked 15 October 2026; HFEA: Treatment add-ons with limited evidence, checked 15 October 2026; ASA: UK fertility clinics achieve high compliance following enforcement (December 2025), checked 15 October 2026

Baby announcements and patient stories are powerful, but they are also health information and an implied promise about results. The ICO treats data concerning health, including inferred health status, as special category data. In the US, HHS says the HIPAA Privacy Rule generally requires written authorization before protected health information is used for marketing. The FTC's endorsement guidance says that if you cannot show an experience is typical, the ad must make clear what people can generally expect.

1. Get written consent from every adult in the story, naming social media and how long you will keep the post.
2. Never confirm in a comment or reply that someone is or was a patient.
3. Balance success stories with posts about the whole journey, including treatment that did not work first time.
4. Add context to any story, such as "results vary, ask us about your own chances".
5. Keep embryo images, scans and records free of names, dates of birth and reference numbers.
6. Remove posts promptly when someone withdraws consent.

Sources: ICO: What is special category data?, checked 15 October 2026; HHS: HIPAA Privacy Rule, marketing, checked 15 October 2026; FTC: FTC's Endorsement Guides, what people are asking, checked 15 October 2026

Fertility pages get questions about individual cases, complaints about outcomes and, sometimes, upsetting comments. Answer general questions in public and move anything personal to a private channel with a named person.

• Do not give medical advice about a person's own situation in comments.
• Hide comments that share someone else's medical details or photos.
• Ask every patient for a review the same way; Google's policy bans incentives and selectively asking happy patients.
• Signpost counselling and support groups in your profile and pinned post.

Source: Google Maps user-generated content policy: fake engagement, checked 15 October 2026

Check your success rate posts every time new HFEA-verified data is published, and take down anything out of date.

Disclosure: Zolyp, which publishes this guide, makes an AI social media manager. It plans a balanced week across your content pillars, writes the captions and designs the visuals in your brand voice, and schedules them to Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Business, X, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, and Threads. You can add your own photos to any post, and you start by approving every post. Brand Brain can hold words you never want used, such as "guaranteed" or "best clinic". Zolyp does not check success rates or prices against CAP, HFEA or CMA guidance, so read every post before you approve it. Everything in this guide works just as well done by hand.

• Week 1: check every success rate, price and add-on post is current.
• Week 2: film one treatment explainer and one team introduction.
• Week 3: one emotional support post and one practical details post.
• Week 4: promote the next information evening and plan next month.