facebook engagement strategies for healthcare organizations

Facebook Engagement

Strategies for Hospitals

NESHCo 2011 Fall Conference

Dan Dunlop

Be Willing To Have Fun

Facebook

Caveat: Social Media Experts? We’re all in this together

Stop the madness

Not about piling up followers

Not about spewing information

I don’t care how many hospitals are using Facebook

I care that they are using it effectively

Klout? Just try to keep up!

Engagement, Not Advertising

Yes, it is a marketing tool

Engaging

Connecting

Community-Building

Activating

The Obligatory Stats

NRC Research Study 23,000 participants in US 41% use social media for health info 94% said Facebook was platform of choice YouTube was 2nd place with 32% 50% still prefer hospital website as a

source

Pew Internet and American Life Project 39% of patients use social media sites

(general info – only 12% for health info) 1 in 4 people with chronic disease has

used Internet to seek out others with same condition (Peer-to-peer help)

New pathways for patients to find and help each other

http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/P2PHealthcare.aspx

Engagement

What You Don’t Want to See

What You Don’t Want to See

Compare That to This (Mayo Clinic):

Mayo has cultivated an

environment that encourages

sharing

A Conceptual Construct: Hive Marketing

Think of a Bee Hive and all the activity taking place…

Bringing together individuals with a shared interest (moms, for example, or cancer patients)

Allowing them to share their passion

In the case of brand advocates, giving them a forum to express their support

Become a true resource for them; this comes first

Feed them information that confirms their decision to support the brand

Your Audience is not Homogenous

Social Media allow you to speak to niche audience and be relevant to them

To most effectively engage segments of your customer base, you must create vehicles that speak to them specifically

“Social Media will prove to be the nail in the coffin of the one-size-fits-all customer experience model.” Robert Wollan & Nick Smith, The Social Media Management Handbook

Don’t forget about the importance of LISTENING. Two-way medium.

Build Up Equity for a Rainy Day

“Green Stamps” analogy

Market traditional services

Circumvent traditional media when necessary

Take messaging directly to audience, unfiltered

Allow for conversation and engagement

Signature Healthcare

Segmenting Audiences

Signature Healthcare & Tufts Medical Center Affiliation

Primarily Women’s Services: Maternal Fetal Medicine, Neonatology, Genetic Counseling, etc.

Signature: Diminished connection with the community over several years

#1 goal is to rebuild the connection with suburban moms

Leadership transition

No social media presence

Our Approach

Market “with” rather than market “to”

Engage and allow for conversation

Listen and respond – let people know you are participating

Communicate shared values

Must feel authentic

Provide value via the relationship How do you enrich her life? Sense of community - belonging

SignatureMoms.com

Not a Story about a Blog

A Story About the Power of Facebook

Facebook Promotion

Posted contest announcement to Facebook Wall: Looking for 8 local moms to serve as

bloggers $250 prize and a position as a

mommy blogger 4 to 6 week long promotion Entries: write on our Facebook Wall

and tell us why you’d be a great mommy blogger; or submit a video

Extended the contest to heighten interest

Selected 7 local moms and one employee of Signature

Facebook Promotion: Engagement

Contest Buzz & Engagement

Trifecta: Blog, Facebook, Twitter

Early Facebook Stats

Remember, we started with no social media presence at all

204 Facebook fans in first 6 week (contest period)

25,160 post views, 252 post comments

The Impact on Twitter

256 Twitter followers in first 6 week (contest period)

375 updates

Blog Traffic

Blog Engagment

Lexington Medical Center Pink Glove Dance

Contest

Pink Glove Dance – Lexington Medical Center

Results

543 Likes and Comments for the month

Monthly Active users rose from 808 to 1,161 (includes fans and non-fans who either viewed or interacted with your page or a News Feed Post)

127 new Fans or Likes

1,222 total Likes/Fans

25,959 post views – The number of times fans have read a News Feed Story posted by your Page.

60,000+ people liked the video on Facebook

114,000+ views on YouTube

Facebook Marketing Tips

Facebook Marketing Tips

Create a business page, not a profile: Just visit https://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php

Make your page easier to share by claiming your Page’s vanity URL: http://www.facebook.com/username.

Automatically post blog content to your Wall (Wordpress & HubSpot)

Don’t automatically have your Wall posts sync with Twitter! I’m not a fan.

Create Custom Page Tabs: (SocialAppsHQ) http://www.facebook.com/welcometab

Facebook Marketing Tips

Launch contests! Consider using a promotion builder App like Wildfire: http://www.wildfireapp.com/

Create a Welcome App using Custom Tabs. Set the page as your default landing tab (do this under “manage permissions”) http://www.facebook.com/welcometab

Use Facebook Insights! Download Page Insights PDF. Download your data for more detail (Excel Spreadsheet).

Add the YouTube App to your Facebook Page so your fans can view your videos directly within Facebook.

Post Questions or Polls: In the status update bar, you have the option of posting a poll. Click on Poll Options.

Use a third party Facebook App like Hootsuite to schedule your posts in advance.

Understand EdgeRank, Facebook’s Algorithm for deciding what gets shown on the user’s news feed. The more edges a post has, the more likely it will be on a user’s News Feed. Edges are shares, likes, comments, tags, etc. For Everything you Ever Wanted to Know About EdgeRank, go to http://tinyurl.com/3ty455n

Adding a Poll or Question

Custom Landing Page/Tab(http://apps.facebook.com/welcometab/)

EdgeRanker

Facebook Changes

“Top Stories” now appear at the top of the News Feed. It used to be that the newest content from friends appeared at the top.

News Feed Algorithm has changed what actually appears on your News Feed.

“Comments” have the most impact on EdgeRank.

Also, a user’s affinity toward your brand is key! (The number of times the two of you have interacted.)

“Freshness” (recency) is also important. Freshness often determines what you see on your News Feed.

Weight – The number of times users have interacted with the content in question.

You are competing with every other person or business that a user “Likes”

Multimedia posts help with engagement: videos and photos

Facebook Changes Ticker – Moving less important info into

a live Twitter-like feed on the side of the page

Close Friends – Now you can sort friends and communicate differently and directly with “close friends”

A Few Rules

Doctors and other healthcare professionals should not friend patients; invite them to “Like” the organization or practice

The ethical and legal duty to protect patient confidentiality applies equally on the internet as to other media

No one should discuss a patient or a patient’s condition on Facebook

Don’t even speak of patients in “cloaked” conversations online

Put a legal disclaimer on your Facebook page. Remind them this is a public forum…

Patients waive their HIPAA rights when they post personal health info on Facebook (not the case with children)

Invite patients to take the conversation offline

Physicians can speak to medical issues on Facebook in a general, informative manner, but not to specific patient cases.

In Closing

Be engaging

Create fun and interest – use promotions

Listen

Respond

Combine efforts of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Blogs

Track effectiveness

If you don’t know how to do it, Google it. Answers to Facebook challenges are easy to find.

Questions & Contact Information

Dan Dunlop, Jennings ddunlop@jenningsco.com Twitter: @dandunlop & @JenningsHealth Blog:

http://thehealthcaremarketer.wordpress.com