A Health care Case Study

(this is part of 2 of a 3-part article on using Web 2.0 strategies in Health care. Click here for Part 1)

Join the current dialogue

Social media trends make Web 2.0 strategies attractive marketing options for health care organizations. Your target audience is already out there communicating with one another, so go ahead and join the conversation by listening to what your audience is saying and contributing to the discussion.

There are already a number of patient social networks –general communities like HealthCentral and MedHelp and disease-focused sites like PatientsLikeMe and DiabetesMine. Watch as former patients talk about the service they received from your organization. Thank people who sing your praises and learn from those who make negative comments about the service they received from your employees.

In addition to these health care-specific outlets, the mainstream social media sites are also engaged in important conversations your organization needs to be aware of. For those just starting out in the social media world, take time to learn about Facebook, Twitter, Technorati (blogs) YouTube and Flickr. These are “common” outlets that can quickly help you see what conversations are going on. For example, for Twitter, you can go to http://search.twitter.com/ and type in your organization’s name. This will search through all the Twitter conversations and pull up any mentions of your company.

Start your own community

While there are numerous conversations already going on, sometimes the best way to reach your target audience is to create your own avenue for dialogue. We helped one of our clients, White Memorial Medical Center, create an “I was born at White Memorial” Facebook group. To maintain the authenticity of the discussion occurring on the Facebook page, White Memorial has recruited actual patients born at the hospital to serve as the group’s administrators and be the face of the social media campaign.

White Memorial didn’t want their audience to see this as just another marketing gimmick. At the core of the campaign is an opportunity for White Memorial patients to talk to each other. By helping them see what they have in common – having been born at White Memorial –hopefully that will help forge friendships with one another and a lifelong relationship with the hospital.

The Facebook group has been introduced to the general public through organic and viral marketing, again with the ultimate goal of people viewing this as an authentic and natural place to converse. As the group further develops, it will likely also be connected to White Memorial’s marketing and fundraising efforts.

Check-in next week for Part 3 of this series.

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• dominic says:

  October 21, 2009 at 12:30 pm

  Thanks for the article.

  I’d like to add that beside “patient communities”, there are other great opportunity that can be leveraged by brand for market research, brand development and influence like doctors community, nurse community.

  You also can go “niche”. One of our agency client is monitoring drug efficiency in a specific community of people that are fighting cancer and mining un biaised feedback from that community.

  Best