Enterprise Trend Report: Social Media in HealthCare Marketing

Enterprise Trend Report 

Social Media in HealthCare Marketing 

More than ever, it’s essential for hospitals and health providers to rethink their healthcare marketing mix to include social media. 

The proof is in the numbers: 34% of consumers use social media to search for health information, according to research data from How America Searches: Health and Wellness. 

While it’s easy to identify demand, many healthcare marketers are not exactly sure how they might tap into the social web to reach business goals. To help understand the possible applications, consider these examples of how the social web can work for hospitals and others in the healthcare industry: 

Reach Mainstream Media 

70% of journalists now use social networks to assist reporting, compared to 41% the year before, according to a Middleberg Communications survey reported by PRWeek. With numbers that high, it only makes sense for healthcare marketers to leverage social media channels in order to achieve coverage by both mainstream media and industry publications. 

As part of healthcare marketing efforts, organizations can use social media channels – including blogs, forums and microblogs – to share success stories from out-of-the-ordinary operations or treatments, medical research or other significant achievements. For example, when Aurora Health Care tweeted a knee operation in April, it received significant media attention, both from mainstream media and industry publications including Good Morning America, the local Milwaukee public radio network and Hospital Management Magazine. 

Communicate in Times of Crisis 

When disaster strikes hospitals and healthcare providers are at the center of it all. Healthcare providers can leverage social media networks to provide real-time updates both for those directly affected by the crisis and those watching from afar. 

During the November Fort Hood shooting attack, Steven Widman of Scott & White Healthcare – one of the hospitals that treated Fort Hood victims, used Twitter to provide up-to-the-minute news. 

Through Twitter, Widman provided updates on emergency room access and hospital operation status, re-tweeted news from Red Cross and communicated with reporters.  

Twitter followers increased 78% in just three days. 

Scott & White Healthcare was listed on the front page of Twitter as a “trending topic” The hospital’s YouTube channel was ranked the 79th most viewed non-profit channel during the entire week surrounding the crisis.

Provide Accurate Information to Patients 

73% of patients search for medical information online before or after doctors visits, according to HealthCare New Media Conference. With the magnitude of health information available on the web – both accurate and inaccurate – it’s likely that these patients can easily be misinformed. 

By integrating social media into the healthcare marketing mix, organizations can share accurate, timely information regarding symptoms, diseases, medications, treatments and more. Social sites like Inspire are providing a forum for patients to share their health problems and questions about treatments with other patients, as well as qualified medical personnel. 

B2B Crisis Management: Effectively Communicating in the High-Tech World

C-level executives and managers from B2B companies will ask me about their ROI on social marketing and how they can use social media as part of their overall marketing and sales strategy. The truth is social media should be less about consumer interaction for these companies and more about utilizing for internal communication, especially during a crisis situation. For example, a recent Mashable article emphasized the adoption of Google+ as enterprise business software versus just a social network. The article identified project collaboration opportunities in certain features such as Circles as well as hosting division meetings in features like Hangouts. While the idea of using a public social networking forum to conduct business matters may seem absurd to some people, companies should take into account a couple of factors. First, employees are prone to spending more time on social networking sites versus email or phone calls. Employees are fairly proficient in understanding social media and will be prone to adopting these tools versus complicated hardware. Secondly, companies need to think of social networks as cloud-based software that can help streamline internal communication and ultimately save a company time and money to implement.

So, how can social networks be used for crisis management?

Gone are the days of operating in a vacuum. Emergency communications now involve the highly interactive, high-speed world of social media. Reasons to incorporate and monitor social media include:

Effective communication: Attention needs to be given to social media communication at all phases of the disaster, crisis or emergency. It’s a dynamic, two-way street and the only way you’ll know if you are being heard is by monitoring. You can then respond in a timely and meaningful way.

Awareness of what is being said about your response to an incident.

Enhanced situational awareness, and the ability to keep in contact with staff, suppliers, clients and community activities during an incident or disaster.

The ability to dispel rumors and misinformation.

In Japan, for example, after the massive 9.0 earthquake and resulting tsunami, Tokyo’s transportation network and communication systems were paralyzed because of the constant network congestion. With the phone lines down for almost 24 hours, people utilized the internet to communicate with others and collect information. The internet and social networks became the platforms to retrieve information about disaster struck areas, nuclear power stations, as well as information to support those suffering and to direct donations.

Once a social media monitoring strategy is developed, it should be incorporated into semi-regular tests or exercises to ensure employees know what to expect and what to do. Additionally, mobile devices are often the easiest way to access social media during a crisis — plan how to best utilize them.

Avoiding A Mobile Crisis: Protecting Your Company’s Data on Smartphones

While smartphone devices provide ample opportunity for companies to manage day-to day operations away from their desktop, there is also a risk that important company data can fall into the wrong hands if not careful. More than 70 percent of people surveyed by Sunnyvale, Calf based Dimensional Research say the use of personal mobile devices for work purposes have contributed to increased security-related problems. When one of those tools goes missing, not only would the employee's personal information be at risk, but company email, messages, client contact information, company log-ins and access codes all could be potentially exposed.

According to the report, the No 1 factor affecting the security of sensitive data over mobile is lack of employee awareness of their company’s security policies. Companies need to invest in software and gadgets to not only track company-affiliated mobile devices, but protect and manage the work information stored on those devices. In addition, companies should also consider these following tactics to further avoid a corporate mobile meltdown:

1. Employee training on mobile device security. Employees should be made aware of basic safeguards such as updating passwords and having the ability to wipe a stolen device.

2. Give employees the tools they need to make sure they can find their devices in case they go missing. ZOMM and Phone Halo are both devices that alert the user when they're about to leave their smartphone behind. With ZOMM, the user carries a small sensor, say on a keychain. Phone Halo's tag can be attached to keys, a wallet, purse or other items. Both sound an alarm when the user is parted from their phone. Your company can even host monthly or quarterly lunch and learn meetings to give demonstrations to your employees on these mobile tools. Be sure to include your IT staff in these meetings so they can help employees install anti-malware and encrypt confidential data.

3. Create company policies on what kind of company data employees can store on their personal mobile devices. You should also have contingency plans when an employee leaves the company and you can securely remove company data from that device.

4. If your company has an app that primarily stores your corporate crisis communication plan, it’s important to only give key stakeholders access to that plan (company personnel that will be involved in crisis situations). Be sure to keep your plan password-protected and have a policy in regards to the app’s distribution and content management.

As mobile devices continue to become more prevalent in business operations, companies should invest time and resources to stay updated on current technologies and news surrounding data protection. We’ll continue to explore these stories more in upcoming posts surrounding web 2.0 in corporate crisis.

Crisis on the Seas: Cruise Disaster Spreads on the Internet

Since Tuesday morning, Italian rescuers and divers continued their
perilous work locating a second "black box" and the remains of five
people in the wreckage of the Costa Concordia cruise ship. While we
have watched the tragic events of the cruise ship unfold, what’s even
more disturbing is how quickly more internal information is coming to
light that shows a lack of personnel responsibility.

Transcripts from CNN show an Italian coast guard official demanding
Captian Francesco Schettino return to his ship, the transcripts show.
"You get on board! This is an order!" the coast guard official
instructed Schettino.

"You have declared 'Abandon ship.' Now I'm in charge. You get on
board -- is that clear?" the port official said.
Port Authority to cruise ship captain: 'Get on board, damn it!'

If this same incident happened over ten years ago or even six years
ago, this same transcript wouldn’t have been made public until weeks
after the incident. When a crisis happens to any company, internal
and external personnel information can be made public just as soon
as the crisis occurs. Since this past weekend, Carnival stocks have
already plummeted. What’s more disturbing as this tragic experience
unfolds is the personal accounts and experiences we’ll hear from
survivors through social media channels and the internet. Although
the company can release official statements, they can’t deny the
stories from survivors that will proliferate throughout the internet in
days to come.

Advertising during a Crisis: When No One Wants to See Your Ads

High product quality, ethics, good customer service—all of these components of doing business are important. When a business fails to uphold these characteristics, some consumers are turned off by the things associated with that business. Former patrons scoff at commercials and billboards and turn a blind eye to magazine and newspaper ads. Case in point: When news first broke regarding BP’s oil disaster, many shunned ads from the company and pushed a little harder on the gas pedal when passing BP gas stations.

When a company experiences a corporate crisis and is seen as “the bad guy,” it may seem the company would want to run and hide its head in the sand until the smoke blows over. However, placing strategic ads can actually be a saving mechanism when it comes to public image rebuilding customer confidence and loyalty.

How do you use public relations principles to guide advertising? The answer to this is the difference between an advertising strategy and an advertising campaign. A solid crisis communication plan includes an advertising strategy that seeks out deliberate placement opportunities to put a company in front of audiences key to influencing public opinion. For instance, a public relations firm that represents a pharmacy chain in trouble would not only place the company’s ads in medical publications but would also look for the philanthropic or “doing-good” section of such publications and place advertising opposite those stories.

This leads us to two textbook terms in creating an advertising strategy amid a crisis: inoculation and recasting. Your company must inoculate the audience by dispelling misconceptions and reinforcing the truth of the circumstances. Your company must also recast the negative in a positive light.

For example, after recalling more than two million vehicles earlier this year, Toyota began airing commercial ads stating it was taking a “pause for the customer” (msnbc.com). The company said it was investing “one million dollars every hour to improve [its] technology and [the consumer’s] safety.” Toyota also ran a series of ads featuring customers who testified about how much they loved their Toyotas, and engineers that explained how expertly the cars were constructed (wsj.com). These ads addressed the consumer who drove the car as well as business stakeholders.

These commercials inoculated consumer sentiment that Toyota was putting out a poor product at customers’ expense. It inoculated the myth that Toyota customers no longer loved their cars. The commercials also recast Toyota from a company that made a big mistake to a company trying to rectify a mistake. The commercials worked. People watched.

Using a public relations firm to analyze a situation, draw up a crisis communication plan, strategize ad placement and follow up, manage consumer sentiment, and thus, handle damage control is paramount in getting the consumer to look your way, even during a crisis.

Will You Be In The Clouds When Crisis Strikes?

A True Story

She was the public relations manager for a multi-state technology company and had just settled into her seat on the airplane for a quiet flight back to home base. She had cleared all her voicemail messages before boarding and felt all was well.

When she landed four hours later and turned on her cell phone, her voicemail had blown up while in flight. The CEO’s secretary left three messages. There was a message from a federal agency media affairs staffer. A message from a client’s public relations manager on the opposite coast. A desperate plea from a PR colleague who often assisted with media matters. And five media calls, including one from an Associated Press bureau chief and one from a major U.S. daily newspaper.

By the time she triaged those calls from an airport phone booth during a 40-minute layover, the story of the company’s unfortunate event was being filed by the Associated Press and had traveled around the globe in less than an hour. For three solid months, she did nothing else but manage the crisis communications for this event. It took her company more than a year to get back to normal and cost the company many hundreds of thousands of dollars in man hours, legal fees and fines.

The Bad News: Regardless of size, no business is immune to a crisis.

What’s your plan?