hospital social media best practices
TRANSCRIPT
Important numbers about U.S. healthcare consumers
• 61% of adults look online for health information• 38% of women comfortable discussing personal
healthcare issues in online communities• 36% want to see what other consumers say about
medication or treatment• 34% use social media• 46% use healthcare portals• 67% use search engines• 21% use Wikipedia• 50% of global population is under 30 years old
Why should you care?
• 93% of social media users believe organizations should have a presence
• 85% of social media users want organizations to interact with customers using social media
What is social media?
• The online technologies and practices that people use to share opinions, insights, experiences and perspectives and to collaborate with each other
“Of the IM Generation i.e. those born after 1980,
62% of the content they consume comes from
people they know personally”
Dissecting Consumer Generated Content
Consequences
• Content moving to the “edge”
• Attention is on the edge
– …and now to apps, as well
• You can’t control the message
• Groups form and act
Old School The Digital World
Transmit Engage and Participate
Preach Advocate
Command and Control Influence and Persuade
Formal and Instructive Informal and Conversational
Tell Your Audience Build Community
Institutions People and Relationships
Deadlines Real Time
Powerful Media Powerful Networks
Target Audiences Communities
Classes of Social Media
• Conversation-enabled publishing platforms
• Social networks
• Democratized content networks
• Presence networks (micro-blogging)
• Content sharing sites
• Virtual networking platforms
Let’s do the math:
• 5,815 hospitals (according to AHA)
• 825 engaging in social media
•15.9% engaging in social media
This is just sad
• Most hospitals aren’t engaging at all
• Those that are engaging are mostly…
– Tactical
– Disjointed and uncoordinated
Being strategic: Alignment with goals
• Customer service:– Point of contact– Early warning of issues– Outcome: More positive word-of-mouth
• Community outreach:– Engage those within our community– Outcome: Attract patients, doctors, philanthropy
• Patient education:– Extend existing programs– Outcome: More positive word-of-mouth
• Public relations:– Engage media and other influencers
– They’re already using these channels
– Outcomes: Goodwill in the bank, positive stories, strong relationships
• Crisis communications:– Ensure your story dominates the river of updates
– Outcome: Survive the crisis with enhanced reputation
Being strategic: Alignment with goals
Also consider…
• Time spent working at home
• Extra hours logged at work
• True measure of productivity
• Hidden value of employees’ networks
• IT in charge of productivity?
• Would productivity really improve?
The case for open access
• Futility: Employees can get around your blocks
Employees tend to re-route around
a blog, go to another server, and find
other ingenious ways of doing what
they want to. And these rerouting
efforts may actually be even more
time-consuming.
The gold in employee social graphs
• Recruiting
• Culture/values
• Subject matter expertise
• Idea testing/decision making (SMPGs)
• Training
• Intelligence
• Crowdsourcing
• Company and product evangelism
Possibilities• Employee group blog
– Cross-section of employees/jobs
– Talk about culture, pride, values, experiences
– Approach is gaining popularity
• Examples: TSA, Southwest Airlines, EDS
• Evangelism in existing social networks
– Requires new approach to employee communications
Your opportunities
• Engage employees
– The front line of PR and customer service
• Participate in existing conversations
Your opportunities
• Engage employees
– The front line of PR and customer service
• Participate in existing conversations
• Integrate social media with other channels
Possibilities• Heightened awareness
– Links to social media properties on all properties, pages– “Share” links on all hospital pages
• Promote community education– Announce on Facebook, Twitter– Video highlights of training to YouTube– Live-blog and/or live-tweet events
• Support existing initiatives– Blog posts– Dedicated blogs for ongoing issues– Community “tweetups” with administrative, medical staff
Your opportunities
• Engage employees
– The front line of PR and customer service
• Participate in existing conversations
• Integrate social media with other channels
• Open information that doesn’t need to be closed
Possibilities
• MD ratings and reviews
– They’re out there anyway
– Long-term benefit
• Clinical outcomes / transparency
As a management tool in the hospital
it is easier to get people to work better.
People in hospitals are caring and they
want to eradicate disease. For example,
Ventilator Associated Pneumonia. We
created information about the VAP that helped to save more
than 90 lives and posted it. This creates better work because
we are not afraid to say what we're doing and how we're helping.
We put ourselves under the microscope.
-- Paul Levy,
via David Meerman Scott
Your opportunities
• Engage employees
– The front line of PR and customer service
• Participate in existing conversations
• Integrating social media with other channels
• Open information that doesn’t need to be closed
• Facilitate conversations
The Mayo Clinic has
established a few pilot
“secret” Facebook groups
for patients with common
conditions.
Extends Mayo Clinic brand
and gives patients another
reason to tell their Mayo stories.
More condition-focused secret Facebook groups are on
the drawing board.
You need…
• A coordinated strategy
– Goals
– Strategies
– Objectives
– Tactics
• Measure against objectives
• Training
Posterous is a simple blogging platform started in May 2008.
It boasts integrated and automatic posting to other social media tools
such as Flickr, Twitter, and Facebook, a built-in Google Analytics package,
and custom themes.
-- Wikipedia
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Questions?
• Shel Holtz, ABC
Phone: 415.367.3820
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.holtz.com
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