Social media is a whole new game – and it’s perfectly suited for healthcare as a whole.
As marketing dollars are cut, social media is the medium to target your audience and promote your hospital’s brand effectively and efficiently. Studies released almost daily account for the tremendous growth of social media and the impact it has on our world views.
Ed Bennett, University of Maryland Medical Center’s director of web strategy, finds hospitals have gone from having 250 Twitter accounts in May of 2009 to 552 currently, and from 250 YouTube channels to 341. “Hospitals realize that word-of-mouth is the most significant driver you can have, so social media is an opportunity to humanize what can be a scary, complex institution,” Mr. Bennett said. “I tell hospitals ‘Don’t get into social media because you think you’re going to get more patients. Do it because you’re helping be responsible to people reaching out looking for answers.‘ “
Social media is the way word-of-mouth happens in the 21st century. The benefits for the community hospital marketer is social media is everywhere and has touched just about everyone in your target market.
The Benefits of Social Media Marketing
- Opens the door to initiate and nurture relationships
- Friendly introduction you cannot get through traditional advertising
- Allows your market to be aware of what you do in the community
- Promotes specialties to gain patients
- Cost effective medium of the hospital’s brand
- Allows us to build networks of “ambassadors” faster
- “Ambassadors” spread the message more effectively AND more efficiently
Social media is a whole new game – and it’s perfectly suited for healthcare as a whole. Visit Ed’s site (http://ebennett.org/hsnl/) and follow a few of the hospitals on his list to see how they are connecting to their target market.
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