The Road to Successful Blogging for Your Community Hospital
August 21, 2012
In today’s internet-driven world, blogs connect your community hospital with the online healthcare community. Establish a plan and your niche to expand your hospital’s presence on the web.
Strategy-determining questions:
- What is your overall plan?
- Who is your niche audience?
- What are your goals?
The answers to these questions will help tailor your team’s efforts to one common goal. With 59 percent of Americans now looking online for medical information*, it’s crucial to make your hospital’s knowledge, specialties and resources available on the web.
Establish a Niche
Though blogs are a cheap, simple way to present lots of data and information online, an effective blog is written with intention. Defining a clear target audience for your hospital’s blog(s) is just as important as in traditional forms of marketing. Once you determine who you are writing for, you can write on topics relevant to that audience.
Niche blogging narrows the focus of your message and allows you to connect on a deeper level. For example, your blog could focus on life after cancer, the struggles of parenthood or the challenges of running a hospital. Can’t decide on one audience or topic? Consider creating multiple blogs – just be sure you have the time and material to maintain them all.
Drive Traffic and Generate Discussion
Blogs are a great way to direct traffic to your community hospital’s website and social media accounts. Make these links prominent on your blog. This will establish and interlink your community hospital’s web presence. Individuals who would not have otherwise stumbled upon your hospital site may be driven there by a compelling blog post. Enable comments on your blog posts to encourage discussions. Remember that healthcare is a personal business, and you must connect on a personal level. Interacting with potential staff, patients or members of the healthcare community can boost your hospital’s brand and reputation.
* Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, Aug. 9 – Sept. 13, 2010 Survey. N=3001 adults; margin of error is +/- 3 percentage points for the full sample.
Maximize Communication to Boost Community Hospital Marketing
August 3, 2012
Poor communication – due to time crunches, stress or a failure to understand your audience – can be costing your community hospital time and money. Make the most of your community hospital marketing and vendor relationships by communicating effectively.
Three tips for more effective communication with your vendors:
- Simplify communication. Many frustrations from client-vendor relationships stem from people using complicated terminology and not speaking the same language. Your vendor won’t necessarily understand your hospital terminology just as you may not understand his technical jargon. Keep it simple. Explain your goals in relevant, easy-to-understand terms so everyone is on the same page.
- Practice. Take the time to distance yourself from your email. Reread it. Is it easy for anyone to walk by and understand what you’re trying to convey? Test your ability to communicate in a non-technical fashion by attempting to teach or review a project with someone unfamiliar with it.
- Be intentional. Does your contact communicate best over the phone or via email? Are you even talking to the right person? Is the information you’re trying to express better communicated in bullet points for easier reading? Every communication represents an opportunity to improve.
Don’t get lost in translation. Here are some of the top four communication pitfalls I’ve spotted and how you can successfully navigate through them:
- Never respond before reading. Don’t rush through emails or hastily review projects. Set aside time to carefully address all questions asked. Supplement emails with phone calls, in-person meetings or video conferences to determine key project points, especially if there’s a change in direction.
- Compile communication. It’s not very efficient to fire six emails with string-of-conscience thoughts. If you’re someone who likes to respond quickly, draft an email and then walk away for a while. Make sure you’ve addressed all facets of communication and included all feedback and answers required.
- Take time to catch everyone up to speed. It’s inevitable: there will be latecomers – team members brought into an already advanced marketing project.
- Be proactive about getting these new team members up to speed. Meet in person or in a video or phone conference to direct their enthusiasm to new, forward-thinking project developments and decisions. The time investment will ensure the team member feels valued, and your project is less likely to be delayed by broken communication or incomplete knowledge.
- Involve decision-makers early so their input is incorporated into projects at the start, rather than at the end when it might completely change the nature of a project.
- Pay attention to the warning signs. Part of the nuance of being a master communicator is the ability to quickly spot communication breakdowns and intervene swiftly. If you receive an email that seems even remotely confused or frustrated, pick up the phone and call to resolve the issue. Similarly, if you’re the one who’s perplexed, consider switching to a call or in-person meeting for clarification.
Remember that communication is a two-way street. Embody your community hospital’s best practices in every communication, every email, every phone call. You’ll be a better marketer and communicator for it!
For more communication tips, check out this article from Smashing Magazine >>
10 Post Ideas for Your Community Hospital Facebook Page
February 27, 2012
Boost your community hospital’s Facebook presence by publishing interesting, informative posts. Encourage engagement by tailoring your status updates to fit your audience’s needs and interests. Keep your page alive by implementing these 10 post ideas.
- Stage a live Q&A on your wall with a healthcare expert. Patients rarely have the opportunity to directly ask a doctor questions about a condition or procedure before a hospital visit. Host a conversation on your community hospital page’s wall about a healthcare topic — cardiac arrest, cancer, health and nutrition, etc. — and have a doctor manage the conversation and answer questions. Giving your patients access to knowledge in such a personable way will increase patient trust.
- Create and stage polls. Use Facebook polls to easily gather relevant data about your community. Only poll information that would be valuable or interesting to your community. Use this data to develop programs or services within your hospital to fit your community’s needs. Ask about sleep, diet or exercise habits, family disease history or personal health fears and concerns.
- Highlight relevant research. Share current healthcare articles about new procedures, cures and equipment. Your community will appreciate easy access to up-to-date information, and may start viewing your Facebook page as a reliable resource.
- Post important business information. Use Facebook to promote your hospital as a business — post extended holiday hours or special deals and promotions. Celebrate new additions to your hospital staff or upcoming building improvements and renovations.
- Post event reminders. Include updates about time-sensitive events. Post last-minute changes due to inclement weather or speaker conflicts. Encourage your community to use Facebook to access the most current information about your events.
- Share a simple solution to a problem. Offer quick tips for soothing a sore throat, avoiding the flu or caring for a sprain. Again, your community will appreciate the convenient information.
- Impart interesting facts. Updates using “Did you know”¦?” are a great way to generate discussion. Share interesting health facts.
- Let your community peek behind the wall. Facebook pages are meant to show your company’s personality. Share hospital staff pictures or funny updates. Consider using Instagram as a way to immediately share pictures taken on your Smartphone.
- Feature a fan of the week. Do you have an especially engaged fan on your page? Acknowledge that individual by dedicating a post to him or her at the end of the week.
- Encourage opinions and/or questions. Remain open to suggestions. Debating a color scheme for your new ward or wondering what event to promote next month? Ask your community! Post questions and listen to your community’s responses.
For more ideas, check out Ragan’s Health Care Communication News post on 40 useful updates for your brand’s Facebook page.
How to Create a Facebook Ad for Your Community Hospital
August 15, 2011
For an ad that is simple, cheap and efficient, try Facebook! Market your community hospital’s events and services to targeted audiences.
Facebook offers easy ad placement in just four simple steps:
Design Your Ad: Upload a picture or icon and add text and a title. This is where an engaging title, concise and captivating body text and a simple, iconic image can work wonders.- Targeting: Facebook makes it easy to target your demographic. Choose the location (City, State or Country), age (anywhere from age 13 to 64), gender and interests, and then see Facebook’s calculated estimated reach.
- Campaigns, Pricing and Scheduling: Set your campaign schedule dates and your daily budget (you can adjust this at any time during the campaign). Decide whether to Pay per Impression (pay each time the ad shows up on a page) or Pay per Click (pay each time a user clicks on the ad). You can set the max price bid to pay per click or impression, starting at $0.01. Facebook makes a suggestion to help you set an appropriate price.
- Review and Submit: Once you have submitted your ad and Facebook has approved it, the ad goes live, and you can manage and review the ad’s reach, frequency, cost and number of clicks. To view this report, log into your Facebook account and click on “Advertising” at the bottom of the page.
Related Resources:
- Six-Step Blueprint for Branding on Facebook
- Additional tips and information from Facebook Advertising
Follow our three simple steps to learn how to create an online ad toward a targeted audience.
- Determine your audience: What demographic are you trying to reach? Think specifics — consider your audience’s age, gender, location and interests. Are you targeting young couples? Middle-aged men with heart problems? Families with infants? Once you have settled on an audience, you can better target your ad campaign.
- Choose an online venue that complements your needs: Keep your audience in mind as you select a site for your advertisement. What age group are you targeting? What sites does that age group visit the most frequently?
For instance, I think you will be surprised to see who is watching YouTube — check out this chart to see that in the U.S., the highest percent of users are ages 35 to 49.- As the chart to the right shows, Facebook also appeals to a variety of ages.
- When choosing a venue, consider your design resources. Some websites (such as YouTube) primarily accept interactive ads with Flash or video content. If you are limited to static designs, then stick to venues where static ads can succeed.
- Design your art:
- Review the specs: Check the measurements and ad sizes for your selected venue. You don’t want to invest the time in designing a web banner or web ad that is incorrectly sized.
- Static ads: For static ads, less is more. Use recognizable images and icons and limited text, and be concise. If the ad permits, reinforce your branding through the fonts, colors and logo.
- Interactive ads: Interactive ads, such as Flash pieces or short video advertisements, can be more involved and have more complicated specs than a static ad. However, in today’s fast-paced world, interactive ads are a valuable tool for engaging online users. Be sure you have a thorough understanding of the necessary requirements for an interactive ad. Many online sites will specify a maximum file size, set video player dimensions and determine file format requirements. Do your research!
- Consider your audience: Check out this article on designing for your audience.
- More tips: This article explains 7 Trends in Online Ad Design, offering tips on fonts, colors and sizes.
Where do I advertise?
- Facebook:
- How: In just a few simple steps, you can design your ad, set your target demographic (from age and gender to location and interests), choose your campaign dates and set a maximum daily budget.
- Where: The ads show up on the sidebar of the Facebook profiles of individuals who fall into your specified demographic.
- Why: With more than 750 million active users, Facebook reaches countless numbers of people every day. Facebook is a great place for simple, static advertisements.
- Google AdWords:
- How: Google walks you through step-by-step to set up your account to advertise within their network, which also includes their search partners’ sites. As with Facebook, you can set a target demographic and determine a daily budget. Create your text and/or image ads from provided templates (or upload your own) and choose keywords or phrases associated with your ad.
- Where: When people search on Google using one of your keywords, your ads may appear above or in the right column next to the search results, or on Google’s search partners’ sites as part of a results page, or on other relevant search pages. You can link it to a webpage with additional information.
- Why: Consistently ranked in the top search engines, Google is a giant in the cyber world. Google AdWords can bring you visibility on one of the most popular internet platforms and its broad network of partners.
- YouTube:
- How: Set up a Google AdWords account to manage your YouTube advertising campaign’s budget and targeted demographics. Choose to place an ad or use a promoted video.
- Promoted Video: Create the ad by uploading a video, then set keywords and categories related to your ad and lastly launch it to see your view counts. You can use demographic targeting, which pulls information provided from users’ YouTube accounts, to direct your ad to a certain age or gender.
- Where: Promoted videos are highlighted and featured at the top of search results within YouTube. For ad placement, you can also purchase many different spots within YouTube, from the homepage masthead to standard banner ad spots.
- Why: As of February 2011, YouTube had 490 million unique users worldwide per month. With users ranging from very young to old, we spend around 2.9 billion hours on YouTube in a month. Take advantage of these staggering statistics by promoting your hospital or service on YouTube!
- How: Set up a Google AdWords account to manage your YouTube advertising campaign’s budget and targeted demographics. Choose to place an ad or use a promoted video.
Setting Your Bid Rate:
- Bidding Against Competitors: The process of setting your bid rate for your ads is an ever-evolving science. Because of national competition for many key words in the healthcare field, you may find it cost prohibitive to buy search terms like “cancer” and will have to get more specific instead. You are bidding against pharmaceutical companies and nationally recognized medical centers for many of the high level terms, and they have much deeper pockets than the typical community hospital marketer. This is one of those times when a professional marketer or agency can be of tremendous value in getting you the most bang for your buck.
- Do Your Research: There are tons of other places to advertise on the web. Research your targeted demographic before selecting the perfect place to advertise. Use resources such as the chart below to determine which sites your targeted demographic is most likely to visit.
Community Hospitals: The Importance of Being an Online Resource
February 17, 2011
The Internet has become a primary source for healthcare information. With medical knowledge in such high demand on the Web, community hospitals must promote their brands by being a resource to online consumers.
Recent Findings From The Pew Internet Project
Click here to download the full 2011 report from The Pew Internet & American Life Project.
- 59 percent of the overall U.S. population seeks heath information online.
- Nearly two-thirds of these health seekers were looking for information about a specific disease or medical problem.
- 17 percent of cell phone users have specifically used their phones to look up health or medical information.
- Nearly half of internet users who go online for health information are searching on behalf of someone else.
What This Means for Community Hospital Marketers
- The online public is in need of a credible source for medical information.
- By establishing your hospital as an informed source on the Web, you will gain patient trust.
- The Web will direct a whole new audience of information seekers to your community hospital.
- This online community will only grow, so getting ready now is a must.
Get to Know Your Online Audience
According to The Pew Internet Project, the following demographic groups are more likely to search for healthcare information online:
- Women
- Non-hispanic whites
- Young adults
- Those with higher levels of education
Online Marketing Essentials
- Make sure your hospital’s website is easy to find on search engines, especially Google:
See 5 basic search engine optimization techniques - Send frequent e-mail newsletters of health data and information to your patient lists; include links to more information on the Web.
- If you have lots of health information available in digital form, consider establishing a searchable database for online patients seeking information about medical problems.
Hospitals With a Presence on the Web
- University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinic offers a complete online Health Information Library for online medical seekers. The site features a full index on topics such as symptoms and diseases, surgeries and procedures, nutrition and self care. You can also request an appointment online or browse the hospital staff to find a doctor.
- Presbyterian Healthcare of Charlotte, N.C., also offers an online Health Library with categorized searches for medical animations, interactive health tools and an assortment of health topics in both English and Spanish. Presbyterian also sends out regular e-newsletters on a variety of health topics, which are also available online.
Benefits of Patient Portals and Your Community Hospital
September 5, 2010
Offering online services through patient portals will help your community hospital build strong, loyal relationships with patients and improve patient satisfaction.
Just in case you didn’t know, patient portals are online applications that allow patients to access health information and to interact and communicate with their providers.
In today’s tech-savvy world, consumers are seeking flexible, sophisticated forms of communication with their healthcare providers. Many hospitals are looking to and developing interactive patient portals to better communicate with their patients.
Gabrielle DeTora recently wrote a great article on the benefits and features of patient portals. Gabrielle states that, “the ideal circumstance is to have your patient portal mirror your consumer website and feature easy to navigate applications.”
Features of patient portals may include:
- Appointment scheduling
- Online bill management
- Prescription management
- Physician referral and access
- E-mail reminders
- Customized health information
- Personalization of the consumer website
- Hospital or clinic pre-registration
- Registration for classes and events
- Tracking and screening tools
- Discussion boards
It is predicted that more than 75 percent of hospitals will be utilizing this technology by 2014, and that it will bring them big benefits.
“Offering online services through a portal interface starts to build a real relationship. The data is clear that, once a consumer has set up such an online relationship, they are less likely to leave it to set up a similar one elsewhere.”
Benefits to Patient Portals Include:
- Improved patient satisfaction
- Better informed patients
- Higher level of security for patient information
- Improved cost efficiencies
Patient portals allow patients to communicate with providers and access information according to their schedule. As as a healthcare marketer, you are always seeking better ways of connecting with your consumers and creating a stronger sense of loyalty, and I believe this technology is doing just that.
I would encourage you to read Gabrielle DeTora’s complete article, “Patient Portals — the New Platform for Health Communications”
Niche Blogging and Your Community Hospital
September 1, 2010
Defining a clear target audience for your hospital’s blog(s) is important in order to deliver relevant information on a personal level.
“If you market to everyone, you will end up marketing to no one.”
This is one of my favorite business quotes – it not only applies when marketing your community hospital through traditional channels, but it applies to your hospital’s blogging practices as well.
One of the unique abilities of blogging is that it allows us to connect and share ideas with people from all over the world like never before, but does that really matter when it comes to your community hospital’s blog(s)? Short answer: No.
The ability to extend our reach and easily connect with people hundreds and thousands of miles away is exciting, but we must remember that bigger isn’t always better. Defining a clear target audience for your hospital’s blog(s) is just as important to its success as it is to the success of traditional forms of marketing.
Think of blogging as grassroots marketing in real-time. It’s about connecting with individuals and building strong, lasting relationships. Focusing on your niche and delivering relevant information that is specific to that audience is the key.
Jamie Lyons of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston has pioneered this concept and is really hitting the mark. The hospital has blogs focused on narrow topics. Below are a couple of examples.
- Living with Breast Cancer, written by a two-time survivor and experienced oncology social worker
- Running a Hospital, by Beth Israel CEO, Paul Levy
Each one of these blogs has a very different niche audience. The power of niche blogs comes from the ability to narrowly focus your message (writing about life after cancer, the struggles of parenthood or running a hospital) which makes each topic relevant to its audience and reaches people on a deeper level.
Having several blogs may seem intimidating at first, but I think you will find that writing posts will be much easier when you have a targeted group rather than trying to make things interesting for everyone.
Remember that healthcare is a personal business and you must connect on a personal level.
Top 30 Resource Blogs for the Community Hospital Marketer
August 20, 2010
These 30 blogs will provide insights from CEO’s, physicians, overall hospital communication, patients and marketers. Even though all of the blogs speak on healthcare issues, it is important to study how each group’s unique views help as you communicate to your diverse patient audience.
As a marketer, your goal is to communicate for your hospital its new and value-added services to your diverse patient audience. Blogs are a great way to stay on top of new communication practices and resource from a wide audience base. Blogs allow you to read information from a targeted audience which makes your research as a marketer more relevant.
The Top 30 Community Hospital Resource Blogs
- Mayo Clinic: One of the top two hospital blogs in the country.
- Johns Hopkins: One of the top two hospital blogs in the country.
- Lexington Medical Center: This is the official hospital blog for the Lexington Medical Center, located in Lexington, South Carolina.
- Science Life: A guide to the changing world of biomedicine, as seen from the perspective of writers at the University of Chicago Medical Center.
Pediatric Hospital Blogs
- Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin: This blog belongs to Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, which serves Wisconsin, Northern Illinois and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and beyond with information about the health system and news about children’s health.
- Riley Children’s Hospital
- Thrive: Children’s Hospital Boston blog is devoted to all things pediatric, healthcare and scientific research. They help consumers and reporters touch base with some of the world’s foremost experts on topics from sleep problems to autism genetics.
Physician Blogs
- KevinMD: Kevin Pho, a primary care doctor board-certified in Internal Medicine, writes a blog that Wall St. Journal states is “punchy, prolific” that chronicles America’s often dysfunctional health care system.
- Roper on Health: This blog is offered by William L. Roper, MD, MPH CEO, University of North Carolina Health Care System. He focuses on health policy, science and news.
- Notes of an Anesthesioboist: This doctor focuses on the literary aspects of medicine and hospital care and has won an award for her efforts.
Hospital CEO Blogs
- Social Hospital: Social Hospital was founded by a hospital CFO who sees tremendous value in the usage of social media tools to build relationships with the communities that hospitals serve.
- More Than Medicine: Tom Quin, President & CEO of Community General Hospital in Syracuse, New York, provides his insights into hospital progress, philosophies and news.
- Running a Hospital: Possibly one of the most popular and candid hospital CEO blogs. Mr. Levy, President and CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, is forthright in his outlook and covers many issues that could pertain to any hospital.
- St. Joseph Medical Center: Scott Kashman is ex-officio CEO for St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson, Maryland. He talks about hospital news, and takes an upbeat philosophy to encourage personnel as well as other readers.
- Nick Jacobs: Formerly Ask a Hospital President, Jacobs has stepped down, written the book, Taking the Hell Out of Healthcare, and re-focused his blog to look at health policies.
Patient Blogs
- Patient Power: Andrew Schorr, leukemia survivor and patient advocate, keeps a focus on patient care with his blog.
- Dr. David’s Blog: Focus is on childhood cancer, written by a pediatric oncologist.
- My Overweight Child: Looks at childhood obesity and what you can do to help your child get healthier.
- Kids Health Pediatrics: This site provides child-friendly information on health and wellness.
Professional Networking for Hospital Marketing Blogs
- Healthcare Marketing: Articles and examples of passionate healthcare marketing by Don Dunlop.
- Hospital Marketing Education: A great blog if you like to watch videos as you research hospital marketing tips.
- Health Care and Hospital Communicators on myragan.com: The Health Care and Hospital Communicators section allows members to interact through bulletin boards and other features. They also provide communication-related publications and seminar information.
Hospital Marketing Blogs and Podcasts
- Marketshare: A marketing blog from HealthLeaders Media.
- Unsolicited Marketing Advice: A wide range of tools and tips of interest to the marketing or public relations manager. It has a special, but not exclusive, emphasis on healthcare.
- Weekly Probe: This blog is completely different. Deep, humorous insights into healthcare marketing.
- Healthy Conversations: A healthcare branding blog.
- Interval: Chris Bevolo.
- ND&P: Neathawk Dubuque & Packett.
- The Marketing Edge Blog & Podcast Albert Maruggi of Provident Partners. Covers healthcare, social media and other general new media topics.
- Hospital Impact: This blog is dedicated to providing information for current and emerging hospital leaders, thinkers and enablers. The blog’s mission is to answer the question, “What will it take for hospitals to be the best run organizations on the face of the planet?”
Blogs inspire, feed conversation and give valuable insights – QUICKLY. When the ever-evolving world of multi-channel marketing and the Web changes daily, these blogs provide up-to-date technology advancements, newly released advertising campaigns and valuable insight on your target audiences.
Do you have a blog that inspires you?
Social media marketing can be used as major communication tool for your hospital.
Are you like most healthcare marketers who are quickly trying to get on board with a social media plan for your community hospital? Well, you are not alone. A study by Greystone.net found only one in three current hospitals or health systems has a formal social media plan in place.
I had the benefit to attending the “SCHA‘s one-day social media workshop” where Ed Bennett, a social media guru spoke. Ed has been following social media data for years, and he shared some amazing statistics on social media users that had us all singing the praises of social media marketing. He said that in the past year the mega social website, Facebook, a relative newcomer to the scene has surpassed Google in website visits. At the same time there has been a 10 percent decrease in non-social media web traffic as people spend more time on social media sites.
Tony Chin, principal of Launch Your Movement, wrote a fantastic article on hospital success stories.
10 Hospital Social Media Success Stories
Proactive Outreach
1. Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center CEO Paul Levy blogs to run a better hospital.
2. Geisinger uses Twitter/Facebook to recruit gastroenterologists.
3. Lifespan reaches out to patients and family personally through Twitter.
4. Ob/gyn practice patient-to-patient interaction success using Twitter and Facebook. (PDF)
Concierge Services
5. Scripps uses Twitter to turn angry patients into loyal ones.
6. Norman Regional Health System spends 30 minutes a day on Twitter and Facebook.
Live Event Coverage
7. Children’s Medical Center in Dallas tweeted about a kidney transplant from a father to his son.
8. Twitter during live surgery.
- St. Luke’s in Cedar Rapids
- UNC Hospitals
- Henry Ford
- Sherman Hospital
- OSF St Joseph
- Sinai Hospital in Baltimore
- Methodist University Hospital in Memphis
9. South Coast Health System uses Twitter for real-time crisis communication.
10. St Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital
If you weren’t a believer in how social media can inspire, educate, recruit and create loyal ambassadors for your brand, you will soon be singing the social media jingle too! For more details, be sure to check out his article, 10 Hospital Social Media Success Stories.
Do you have a social media success story? If so, please share it in the comment section below.
