recruitment and training efforts. They advertise their available positions and also search social media sites to determine the integrity and trustworthiness of potential hires.
HEALTHCARE MARKETING – THE SOCIAL WAY As with all businesses, medical practices face stiff competition and budgetary constraints and must differentiate themselves by portraying value and quality to their prospective clients. With the increasing cost of healthcare and a growing number of available hospitals as options, more than ever, it’s essential for hospitals and health providers to rethink their healthcare marketing mix to include social media. The network effect of social media can cause ‘word-of-mouth’ epidemics unlike anything that caregivers have ever seen before. Social media are just the way word of mouth happens in the 21st century. Hospitals are realizing that word-of-mouth is the most significant driver to influence patients, and so social media offers an opportunity to humanize what can be a scary, complex situation. One of the most famous healthcare facilities globally, the 118-year-old
Mayo Clinic, was using social media tactics right from its inception. When Dr. Will and Charles Mayo built Mayo Clinic through collaboration with the Sisters of St. Francis, it was relatively unusual for patients to survive a hospital stay. Quite often they succumbed not to the underlying ailment but to an infection resulting from surgery. The Mayo brothers and the Franciscan sisters pioneered aseptic surgical techniques, which meant that many more patients lived to tell their stories. And when they went home, they spread the word about their experience. According to Lee Aase, Mayo Clinic’s Manager of syndication and social media – “Word-of-mouth has been a crucial part of building Mayo’s brand for more than a hundred years. People come to Mayo, have a good experience, go home and tell others about it. We see social media as the 21st century version of word-of-mouth. We’re talking to the whole world, potentially.” It is also important for the healthcare industry to have a sizable online
presence to ensure that consumers aren’t misled by faulty information, like for Mayo clinic’s it all started initially and partly to keep others from ‘squatting’ on the name and posing as Mayo Clinic. Although a majority of marketers have
embraced online social media and user- generated content efforts, the rise
IN SHORT
For healthcare facilities, social media can act, not only as a valuable marketing tool, but also as a portal for patients to share their experiences with each other Social media in healthcare is something that needs to be taken seriously because if it’s not properly managed, it can do your brand more harm than good Social media is an electronic version of traditional ‘word-of-mouth’ marketing
in social networking and healthcare blogging has sparked a nascent movement to set standards and guidelines that include conflicts-of- interest disclosure and privacy protection for ‘open media’ in healthcare. The challenge with social media is to take advantage of the opportunity
without crossing any important professional and legal boundaries. American Medical Association created a policy about professionalism in the use of social media. Its guidelines include: maintaining standards of confidentiality; using privacy settings to safeguard personal information; and maintaining appropriate boundaries of the patient-physician relationship. In addition, the guidelines suggest that physicians bring any perceived unprofessional content on behalf of their colleagues to their attention and, if the colleagues do not take action, to bring the matter to the appropriate authorities. Lastly, the guidelines advise physicians that their actions online may negatively affect their reputations and medical career.
CONCLUSION The biggest mistake hospitals make is confusing social media with one- way communication tools. Some hospitals have hundreds or thousands of people signed up to follow them on Twitter but only follow back a handful. Or they use Facebook to push out press releases and other information about their organization and to drive traffic back to their own website without showing any interest in what others are talking about. Social media should always be a complementary part of marketing mix.
In order for a hospital to be effective at Facebook or Twitter, someone needs to be there at all times to respond. But there’s also no one-size-fits- all answer for social media. Not every social media approach is appropriate for every hospital or healthcare organization. One need to find the right mix that works, more importantly, figuring out how to communicate therapeutically during social media interactions. Whether you are looking
to increase patient traffic to your office, enhance your reputation in the community, or just want to supplement your other marketing efforts — in order to realize the maximum benefit from social media marketing, it is important to strike a balance between excitement for the potential it holds as a marketing and information gathering resource versus the potential risks the medium represents given the public nature of the much of the information that is being shared in these online communities. People may say bad things about the facility, true or not, that can damage its reputation. At the same time, people may say very good things that can promote the facility. Learning to highlight the positives and manage the negatives is imperative for any organization embarking on social media. Social media has become an undeniable force, and its rapid, informal
communication style represents both possibility and liability for healthcare organizations. Good policies and training help organizations pursue the benefits and mitigate the risks. Social media, if designed well, managed correctly, and supported by the system, could optimize both patient and provider experiences. But patients and providers need to live together in this space (and be supported by the system) to ensure social media is a cure and not a curse.
032 HOSPITAL BUILD & INFRASTRUCTURE MAGAZINE ISSUE 1 2012
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