Tag Archive for: Social Media

Healthcare Marketers: Listen and Engage through Social Media to Learn About Your Audience

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This week in our Healthcare Branding Series, let’s concentrate on the importance of listening and engaging with your social media audience.DHG-blog-ProTips-v3

To engage healthcare consumers who visit your website, you must know what types of content they want. If you’re unsure, try engaging them in various ways on social media, and listen to their feedback and input to gain insights that can help drive your digital content strategy. Here are some tips to get you started:

  • Create social posts that interest your followers. Do you have something relevant to say about a trending healthcare topic, such as the flu or a popular news story? Share tips and information on a wide range of issues – from health-related facts and warnings to health promotions and educational events. Pay attention to likes, comments or shares – people read click because they find something interesting; they share because they’re convinced others will find it interesting too. Likes and shares, then, are decent indicators of what types of content people want to see. Use that information to steer the direction of your future blog posts.
  • Ask questions. You don’t have to be hard-hitting. The questions can be light and fun. And since photos have an engagement rate of 87 percent (as opposed to four percent with links), why not share a photo with a question to get followers talking. The answers have the potential to offer great insight.
  • Generate engaging moments. Social networks are for sharing. Engage your followers by encouraging them to post something. After all, you must give to get. For example, during American Heart Month you could urge followers to share selfies of their favorite ways to exercise for heart health. You can ask for photos of their best all-pink outfits for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. It could even be a simple question, such as, “What are you most thankful for this Thanksgiving?” Take the responses as indications of where and how to invite and inspire people into a conversation, to take part in a community forum, so to speak. Low response rates mean people don’t find it a worthwhile topic to act on.
  • Observe patient connections. Patients sharing their experiences with one another can be a very powerful thing. Not only can they receive emotional support from others with their condition, but patients can also offer word-of-mouth recommendations for physicians or services. Watch and listen to the conversations they’re having. What questions are they asking other patients? What are their concerns? This insight may provide ways to improve on and offline patient experiences.

When you engage with followers, you may at times receive very honest opinions about your organization. If  you receive praise, don’t forget to say thanks. If you get a complaint, recognize that it’s an opportunity for informed improvements driven by customer feedback. Always acknowledge patient or visitor concerns.  If there are multiple similar complaints, review how your hospital or practice is living your healthcare brand.

For more information, visit our other topics in this series:

Healthcare Marketers: Develop a Digital Content Strategy to Enhance Your Online Presence

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ProTips-#2This week in our Healthcare Branding Series, let’s focus on the importance of digital content strategies.

The meteoric rise of the internet, social networks and mobile browsing has changed how healthcare consumers seek out information. For healthcare marketers to reach audiences with meaningful, helpful information when and where people are looking for it, it’s critical to have a content strategy. Besides providing information consumers want and need, your online content should aim to boost search engine optimization (SEO) and enhance the user experience by providing answers to questions people are asking.

The good news: online health information is in high demand. According to the Pew Research Internet Project, 72 percent of internet users say they’ve searched for medical information online. Among them, 77 percent started with a search engine as opposed to a specific website. To boost your search rankings, make sure your website provides helpful, patient-centric information, and integrate your online content across multiple channels. While practice details and information about your services are valuable, content that answers patient questions will attract higher search engine traffic. To further enhance your online presence, create pay-per-click and other digital ad campaigns that link to topic-specific (and keyword-driven) web pages, or to campaign landing pages with clear calls to action like schedule an appointment, sign up for a class or newsletter, take a tour, or attend an event.

Online videos are also very popular in the healthcare space, so they’ve become a must-have for many successful web and social content strategies. Videos are so popular and highly regarded among consumers seeking information that YouTube is the second largest online search engine. In fact, according to Google, YouTube traffic to hospital websites increases 119 percent year over year. Simply put, videos offer a great opportunity to improve SEO and expand your reach.

In short, your content should fulfill your customers’ needs. If you’re not sure what information your customers want, check back next week when we discuss how to learn about your audience by listening and engaging with them on social media.

We encourage you to check out our other topics in this series:

To discuss how we can we deliver content marketing excellence across all channels, contact us today.

 

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Healthcare Social Media: Directing the Conversation

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Healthcare Social Media (#HCSM)We know, we know – you’ve heard it many times: your healthcare organization needs an active social media presence. There’s plenty of information out there about best practices for healthcare social media (#HCSM), so the last thing you need is another how-to blog post. Instead, let’s take a look at how people say they’re using social media in matters related to their health, and how providers are
joining – even leading – the conversation.

To quote the creators of this infographic that illustrates social media in healthcare, “People will talk about anything on Facebook – even their surgery or their doctor.” Those are important conversations to know about, and it’s equally important to make your own messages heard. With that in mind, here’s our take on the key findings presented in the infographic:

Patients can share their own health experiences freely…and many do. One in four people will post socially about health experiences or updates, and one in six will post reviews about factors related to those experiences, including doctors and treatments (yet another underlying incentive to make sure your customer service and/or patient care is at the top of its game).

Also worth noting is video shares. When we wrote last year about healthcare marketers expanding reach with online videos, we reported that 32 percent of people watch health videos online. Research shows at least half of those people don’t just watch – they also share, provided they feel it’s something others want or need to see. Take, for example, the popular Cleveland Clinic video called “Empathy” – no doubt you’ve seen or heard of it, since it made the rounds on several social sites thanks to social sharing:

On a side note, the Cleveland Clinic video is also a great example of emotional branding in healthcare, but that’s a whole other blog topic (read it now!).

Of course, smaller scale messages get noticed and spread on social media, too. To build awareness for a fundraiser, blood drive, health fair or any other event your organization is involved in, post about it socially and encourage your followers to share. You won’t waste your time – research shows “supporting health-related causes” is the number one answer when people are asked which health-related topics they’ll talk about on social media.

Blog. Blog. Blog. Far too few healthcare providers are doing it. What a great opportunity for you to emerge as a thought leader in various dialogues related to healthcare! Yes, it needs to be good content, and yes, it takes planning, processes, oversight, people and time. But if you can become a trustworthy voice of healthcare information in a sea of relative silence, by all means, you should.

Just one blog will do, but some take it further with multiple blogs, like Holy Cross Hospital in Ft. Lauderdale (a separate blog for each service line), and of course, the many blogs of Mayo Clinic, a well-known thought leader in #HCSM. Mayo Clinic’s blogs incorporate patient stories, podcasts, news and research, student perspectives, guest bloggers and more.

People trust healthcare providers more than any other group that’s writing and posting professionally about health-related topics. Among them, doctors are trusted the most (60 percent), followed closely by nurses (56 percent) and hospitals (55 percent). Providers outrank patient advocates, pharmacies and drug manufacturers, insurers, fitness centers and other patients when it comes to trustworthy sources for accurate, helpful online information about health-related issues.

Encourage your expert care teams to contribute to your organization’s blog. Share each contribution on your social media outlets, and make it obvious at the newsfeed-level that it’s authored by a doctor, nurse, therapist or whatever the case may be. This will increase the likelihood that people recognize it early on as a reputable resource, and therefore worth sharing. Be sure to feature clinicians in your online videos, too.

Take time to provide the information people really want, and they’ll take time to listen and share. During a shooting rampage a few years ago in central Texas, Scott & White Healthcare tweeted ongoing, real-time updates on ER access, hospital status, Red Cross news and more. Knowing what information people wanted to find at that moment in time – and delivering it in full throttle – boosted the healthcare system’s Twitter following by nearly 80 percent.

Another powerful example: in the aftermath of Haiti’s 2010 earthquake, Rush University Medical Center sent a team of doctors to help. The doctors provided first-hand accounts, and the situation unfolded across a new category on the Rush News Blog: Mission to Haiti. In the wake of a tragedy, people want to know what’s going on and how things are being handled, so this was a great way to share what their doctors were seeing and doing.

Those two examples are disaster-related, but the concept applies to any content you share. The key is knowing what people want from you, and delivering it when and where they’re looking for it.

Do you have any #HCSM success stories or insights of your own to share? If so, let us hear from you in the comments! We’d love to hear from patients and providers alike.

Real-Life Lessons in Social Media and Healthcare

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In a social media panel discussion moderated by Carol Dobies at the KCHCS Fall Conference, the three panelists – who represented two hospitals and a local firm that monitors, measures and analyzes digital content – shared their experiences and expertise with online patient interaction. Together they provided some important takeaways for healthcare organizations looking to expand their online presence. Highlights include:

Listening should be a key part of your social media strategy, and your efforts should go beyond the content you generate. It’s easy to know what people say directly to you online, but are you also watching what they say about you? “Sites like Facebook and Twitter are great for engagement, but that’s not where Google searches send people,” according to panelist Aaron Weber of Spiral16. “It’s critical to know where people land and what language they encounter when you come up in a search.” A valid point, considering 92% of adults online use search engines, and nearly 60% report using them daily, according to recent research by Pew Internet.

Healthcare-specialized SEO and marketing firms understand that patients search and read content from multiple sources (Yelp, YellowPages.com, Wikipedia, etc.) in addition to the messages you’re putting out there. The key to establishing meaningful patient engagement online is an effective mix of SEO tactics, highly targeted direct marketing and social media strategies that encompass your entire digital presence.

Back up your strategy with social media policies. Social media policies govern your use of social media, from employee access to procedures for triaging patient comments (negative and positive). Front-line employees are the face of your organization, so if you’re comfortable letting them post and interact with patients online, it’s your choice to allow it. In order to protect your brand image and ensure total compliance with all patient-privacy laws, however, usage policies should be clearly articulated and enforced.

In fact, panelist Shawn Arni of Children’s Mercy Hospital advises two separate policy documents: one for page admins/hospital use and another for employee use. For example, staff members are not allowed to post or share anything during work hours. Regardless of how well-intended any given post may be, if it’s made by patient-facing staff in the middle of a shift, it can be perceived as interfering with patient care.

Needless to say, there are many factors to consider when developing social media use policies, but having the right rules in place is well worth the effort. Panelist Belinda Rehmer of Lawrence Memorial Hospital (LMH), agrees. As the hospital’s Community Relations Social Media Lead, she speaks from experience, and LMH’s social media policy has been used as a best practice example by many other hospitals in Kansas.

Studies show that people with the low levels of social interaction have high rates of mortality. With so many networking tools now available online, the obvious question for healthcare providers is how can we use social media to engage patients in ways that improve health? We welcome all input on the topic, so if you have insight to share about patient engagement and social media, let us hear from you!

Dobies Presents Social Media Strategies at KCHCS

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KANSAS CITY, Mo. – “How to Deploy Social Media to Improve Patient Engagement” – that was the topic at hand when Carol Dobies, president and owner of Dobies Health Marketing, led a panel discussion at the Kansas City Healthcare Communicators Society (KCHCS) 2011 Fall Conference last week. Healthcare professionals who attended the interactive session gained a better understanding of best practices in social media strategies. Panelists included representatives from two area hospitals, and a data and analytics expert from a local firm that monitors web and social media traffic.

Engaging Patients through Social Media

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Later this week, I will moderate an interactive panel for Kansas City Healthcare Communicators Society.The topic: How to Deploy Social Media to Improve Patient Engagement. With expert input spanning a wide range of social networking tools and best practices from our healthcare marketing panelists, the session promises to provide an eye-opening look at what it takes to continuously engage patients online.

Here are highlights from colleagues in the healthcare social media field:

Two-fifths of adult internet users in the U.S. have read someone else’s online commentary about health. Many thanks to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, who published a report earlier this year revealing that 80% of internet users search online for health information, and a growing number rely on the internet to connect peer-to-peer. Among the findings:

  • Symptoms and treatments dominate health searches (66% and 56% respectively).
  • 44% of internet users look online for information about doctors or other health professionals.
  • 25% of adult web users look online for people with a chronic illness.
  • 24% have consulted online rankings of doctors and hospitals.
  • 20% look online for people with similar health issues.

There are 140 uses for your 140 characters if your healthcare organization tweets. Phil Baumann, a social media strategist and advisory board member for Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media, studied the challenges and opportunities available for providers via Twitter. In the end, he identified 140 different healthcare uses for Twitter – an oldie but goodie for those in need of ideas when it comes to tweeting for and about health.

More than 1,200 U.S. hospitals are now actively using social media sites. And that number is climbing every day. If so many healthcare providers are putting it out there on so many sites, it must be simple, right? Wrong. We all know representing an organization via social media is much more complex than managing personal accounts, so it’s important to know what you’re doing behind the scenes. Fortunately, help is out there, like this list of 20 Excellent Social Media Networking Resources for Health Professionals, compiled recently by HealthWorks Collective.

I’m looking forward to a thought-provoking discussion by our panelists this week. We will update you with the biggest takeaways and lessons learned next week.

SHSMD Word Cloud Finds the Focus of Today’s Hospital Strategists and Marketers

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In our last post, we talked about word clouds and their practical uses beyond the blog. This week, we’ll continue that discussion in lieu of our recent discoveries at SHSMD Connections 2011, an annual conference hosted by the Society for Healthcare Strategy & Market Development. The event was a meeting of the minds from all levels of hospital communications, and the word cloud was our way of learning more about what’s on their minds.

SHSMD attendees participated by entering today’s hot topics into our word cloud app. But what do the results tell us about the directions and challenges hospital marketers face as we head into 2012?

The most commonly used phrase was “physician strategies,” with “social media” coming in close behind. Many hospital strategists are looking for effective ways to engage with physicians and patients. While social media continues to grow as a cost-effective way to expand reach and frequency, strategists are struggling with how to reconcile professional relationships with online social platforms—and even how to get people to “Like” or “Follow” their hospitals in the first place, let alone leverage that affinity. It’s a challenge many of today’s healthcare marketers must untangle, and clearly engagement is the name of the game.

Other issues taking center stage for healthcare marketers include:

• Direct marketing – promoting what works to grow market share.

• Brand building – on-target messaging in the midst of health reform and ACO debates.

• Market-driven plans (and plans that drives markets) – thinking strategically and delivering creatively.

• Better returns – demonstrating improved ROI and ROE as direct results of marketing efforts.

If your marketing initiatives don’t include solid strategic planning in the areas described above, you’re missing opportunities to enhance relationships, grow in volume, improve your brand and more.

What about you—what’s on your mind in healthcare marketing today? If you didn’t share with us at SHSMD, feel free to do so in the comments below. We’d love to hear from you.

Facebooking for Better Health

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Despite having more than 400 million active users, Facebook still has its skeptics. Some common complaints I’ve heard:

  • “It’s a waste of time!”
  • “Who needs an update on what I’m eating for lunch?”
  • “Why do I need to be a Fan of anything?”

Okay, sure. My status updates aren’t always riveting or note-worthy (see: “Dear Coffee, Marry me. Xoxo, Kelly”) and I’m not ashamed to say I “like” a Fan Page called “I Don’t Feel Like Folding My Laundry So I Just Restart The Dryer.”

But while I’m not alone in using the Status Update and Fan Page for innocuous fun, some people are using these basic Facebook features to help improve their health…and even save their own lives.

Like this guy, who decided to quit smoking and inadvertently created a support group among his Facebook friends simply by updating his status with the number of days he’d been smoke free. As his friends followed his progress, they “liked” his status as the number of days increased and left comments of encouragement when his updates expressed wavering resolve. Having a virtual audience to not only hold him accountable but also to offer him support no doubt helped contribute to his continued success.

Then there’s the woman who iused Facebook to help her find a kidney donor. Living in a state that ranks among the nation’s lowest in percentage of licensed drivers who are registered organ donors, she got creative and set up a Page called “Mel Needs a Kidney.” As of the end of May, she had heard from about 100 people who offered to get tested to see if they were a match. In addition to increasing her chances of finding a donor, her efforts are also helping raise awareness of organ donation and registration in Michigan.

So while it’s true many Facebook users limit their activities to tending virtual farms or tagging friends in party photos, there are some who are using the platform to improve their lives. And that’s something I’ll “like” any day.

 

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