Social Media in Healthcare Marketing

TopRank offers some creative examples of how to use social media in medical marketing. 
But before you start tweeting from the OR, make sure you have a social media strategy. You don't want to waste time and energy on tactics that may not help you meet your goals.
When developing your strategy, be clear on your objectives and your resources. Only then can you form a solid plan of action that will get you results.

5 Examples of Social Media in Healthcare Marketing

TopRank Online Marketing    B2C, Blogging, Microblogging, Social Media

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 fromHow 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 five examples of how the social web can work for hospitals and others in the healthcare industry:

1. Tweet Live Procedures
In the past year, social media channels have helped open up an area of healthcare previously only available to a select few: the operating room.

Last February, Henry Ford Hospital became one of the first hospitals to Tweet a live procedurefrom an operating room. Doctors, medical students and curious non-medical personnel followed along as surgeons tweeted short updates on the kidney surgery to remove a cancerous tumor.

This healthcare marketing tactic can effectively create excitement and raise public awareness for a healthcare organization. In the case of the Henry Ford procedure, Twitter was abuzz that February day with users both re-tweeting the messages from Henry Ford and adding their own thoughts on the event. That buzz can help healthcare organizations both attract new patients and recruit medical personnel.

2. Train Medical Personnel
Some healthcare organizations are beginning to recognize the potential impact of leveraging social media channels to complement training efforts. Mayo Clinic Social Media Manager Lee Aase, for example, incorporated social media into a recent training presentation for local chapters of the American Heart Association. (Check out Lee Odden’s social media interviewwith Aase for Online Marketing Blog.) During the presentation, Aase leveraged Twitter to encourage participants to contribute to the discussion using the #AHAchat hashtag.

Weaving social media into healthcare training initiatives can provide multiple benefits, including:

• Giving trainees a forum to ask questions and quickly receive answers
• Providing presenters with immediate feedback from trainees (i.e., if trainees have mastered a concept of if more guidance is needed)
• Enabling organizations to complement healthcare marketing efforts by sharing slideshows, video or pictures from training sessions on social sites like YouTube or Flickr

3. Reach Mainstream Media70% 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.

4. Communicate in Times of Crisis 
When disaster strikes – whether it be a flood, an earthquake or a terrorist attack – 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.

Widman shared with Found In Cache Blog the results of the social media crisis communication efforts:

• 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

5. Provide Accurate Information to Patients
73% of patients search for medical information online before or after doctors visits, according to this video from the 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. Inspire, for instance, partners with trusted health nonprofit organizations to ensure information is accurate and its community is safe.

The benefits of integrating social media into healthcare marketing efforts are priceless – from improving patient care to gaining media coverage to attracting new patients and staff. If your healthcare organization hasn’t already taken advantage of social networking channels, now is the time. If you’re having challenges getting approval, check out “Social Media in Healthcare Marketing: Making the Case“.

How else can healthcare marketers leverage social media to complement their efforts?

Quality matters. Just ask Google

The quality of your website content dictates how you rank on Google. Check out the latest news on SEO from Ink.com.

Google's Farmer Update: 5 SEO Tips You Need Now

With the latest changes to its search algorithm, Google goes after websites that specialize in junk content.

Search engine optimization may not have the gravity of toppling toppling governments or the can't-look-away appeal of the Charlie Sheen circus, but the field has been making news lately.

First, there was the highly-publicized backlash against JCPenny.com over the retailer's aggressive SEO tactics, which included the use of link farms. This was followed shortly thereafter by Google's official release of a significant update to its search results ranking algorithm, dubbed informally as the "Farmer Update" (for its clear focus on devaluing "content farms"). Later, it was revealed to be known internally as the "Panda" Update. 

Whatever you want to call it, one thing is clear: Small business owners are clamoring to know exactly what happened, who was affected, and what should be done going forward to make sure they remain in Google's good graces. Here's what you need to know to be successful in your SEO efforts.

1. What was the point of Google's Farmer Update?

In updating its algorithm, Google did not reveal anything markedly new concerning the factors that it likes to see in web pages. Rather, this seems to have been an incremental move in the search engine's efforts to drive users to high-quality sites while devaluing low-quality sites.

Specifically, Google identified and penalized the rankings of sites that copy or "scrape" the content of other sites; sites that have low-quality content; sites that have a high ratio of ads to content; and sites that lack brand trust. To put it simply, Google is penalizing sites that don't provide much value to the user. When I perused the sites that were hit hardest by the Farmer/Panda Update, I was in significant agreement that they were truly not providing much in the way of value to users.

2. What went on behind the scenes at Google to roll out these changes?

It is pretty fascinating to learn how Google actually goes about implementing such changes. Essentially, executives at the company ask real people real questions (for example, "Would you buy from this site?", "Is this content useful?") and then make changes to their algorithm that would "correct" the results.

The important thing to know is that while Google uses real people to help define the traits of high- and low-quality sites, the implementation of the changes is applied algorithmically (in other words, nothing personal). 

3. Who were the big losers and winners?

In all of the data we have looked at across our SEO clients' websites, as well as synthesizing a lot of other data out there covering the effects of the update, the short answer is that poor quality sites that have a poor user experience and lack genuine quality content were the big losers (as Google intended.)

There weren't corresponding "big winners", however; rather, there were many small winners. For example, if a site that previously held the No. 1 organic ranking for a keyword fell to No. 20 then, generally speaking, Nos. 2 through 20 all moved up a spot. There were lots of sites that had moderate gains or drops, and you can see a great synopsis of the big movers here.

4. How can I tell if my company's site was affected? Is there anything I can do if I was hurt?

If you haven't noticed anything at this point, then you probably don't have much to worry about. If you are curious if your site was affected in a not-so-dramatic fashion, the website seomoz.org details how you can use Google Analytics to isolate the possible effects of the Farmer Update on your site.

If you were significantly affected in a negative way, there is not a tremendous amount of direct recourse. If you were a large site that scrapes content or is in the arbitrage game—like this one  or this one—then I can say with a fair degree of certainty that your fallen rankings were the intended result of this update. If you are a smaller site and not intentionally playing any of the content or ad arbitrage games, then you may be a part of the tiny fraction of sites that can be classified as "collateral damage" of the Farmer Update.

In a few of these cases, you may be able to work one-on-one with Google to "fix" this damage, but having spent a decade in this field, my best guess is that you are out of luck. Your best bet will be to improve your site: Remove any copied or scraped content; add unique, relevant content; reconsider the amount of advertisements on each page of content (ask yourself, Would this look okay in a print magazine?); and drop any questionable link partners. Quite simply, Google has very little economic interest in handing out manual exceptions. We live in a Google world, and we are forced to play by their rules.

5. What should I do going forward with regard to my SEO strategy?

Here is the good news with the Farmer/Panda Update: Nothing really changed. A company's goal today is the same as it should have been prior to this update: To build user-friendly, high-quality websites that are worth linking to because they feature unique, frequently-refreshed content that adds value to a user's experience. 

If you were one of the tiny fraction of sites that were implicitly targeted by these changes, then you know exactly who you are. Interestingly we have heard very little public outcry from this bunch: It's time to work on a new business plan. And, yes,Demand Media: You are the mayor of this club. You don't like the label content farm? Fine, you are two baby steps above being a spammer. There, I said it.

But for everyone else, I can comfortably say you have nothing to worry about. Build websites worth visiting and content worth linking to, and you will have nothing but a prosperous future in the Google world in which we happily reside.