Impact of Social Networking as a media and marketing tool for hospital
Jim Young
users as it relates to searching and accessing healthcare information,
an assumption made is that similar patterns for searching pet health
issue would follow. Unfortunately there appears to be no reported
studies on internet usage related to pet health care. Despite the
lack of direct information as it relates to pet health enquiries, the
questions remains are Social Networking Sites (SNS) an effective
marketing and management tool for healthcare in general and veterinary
medicine specifically?
As background – approximately 62% US Households own a pet (about 71
million households). From the 2008 American Veterinary Medical
Association Sourcebook - nearly 50% of owners considered their pet to
be a family member and 48% considering pets to be companions. The
demographics would indicate that a significant portion of the
population and specifically internet user could be leveraging the
media as source of healthcare/pet care information. Since we do not
have numbers of pet owner utilization of SNS for accessing information
on pet health issues, we turn to data available for healthcare in
general.
In looking at “e-patients” as defined in Pew Internet to be internet
users who research healthcare issues, we see that approximately 61% of
internet users fit this category. Of those, 39% (or approximately 23%
of all internet user) utilize SNS with Facebook, MySpace being the
primary sites. The Pew Internet study1 further indicates that “only a
small portion” of “e-patients” utilizes SNS as source for obtaining
health related issue, following or posting health related comments.
A recent survey conducted by GreyStone.Net with a panel of (human)
hospitals determined that 90% have or are actively monitoring social
media sites, of which 60% have a present on Facebook and Twitter
sites. The primary motivation for seeking a present was to attract
new patients, along with supporting Community Relation, Customer
Service, Employee Engagement and Crisis Management but only 12.5% of
hospitals realizing some level of success. The article suggests that
hospitals with a clear plan and marketing strategy (which is
approximately 30% of the participating hospitals) are capable of
achieving value in having a Social Media presence2.
Given the relatively few number (no exact figure indicated from Pew
Internet), of “e-patients” using SNS for healthcare information, the
fact that some hospitals have being successful in recruiting new
patients is actually an important finding. The significant is every
more impressive give that SNS have just recently achieved momentum and
entering into main stream utilization. Significant growth has been
demonstrated in just the past year as indicated by studies conducted
by comScore3. In the one study it was shown that Facebook in 2009
has double it audience – now close to 112 million and is currently the
4th “ranked property” on the internet, accounting for 7% of all
internet use. Additional comScore information indicates that the top
three SNS in the United States are Facebook > 100 million; MySpace 70
million and LinkedIn at 30 million users.
What exactly are the effective tools to be a presence on SNS? The
studies do not specifically address the success tools used and the
caveat is that both GreyStone and comScore happen to be marketing and
as well as research organizations (not releasing the tools of success
within the studies). Assumption to effectiveness would be same as
with other internet media sources (e.g. timely update, relative
material, interesting stories and information written to intended
audience).
In tracking success, a starting point is to at least establish a
presents on the primary sites. Along with setting up the sites is the
need to determining measuring tool to be employed.
At Atlantic Street Veterinary Hospital Pet Emergency Center, we began
surveying clients in December of 2009 to determine drivers to patient
visits. Now with nearly 3 months of data, the results are very
telling. In the “How did you hear about us” surveys that we have
performed, Internet represents our third highest resource used by
clients in coming to our facility. This ranks behind direct referral
from our local colleagues and previous visits but ahead of Yellow
pages, site location and even “Word of Mouth/Friends and Family”
referrals. Not know is the SNS impact as we have only recently
created a Facebook connection as well as Twitter. This is certainly
an area that we will closely watch and perhaps begin getting even more
specific in our questions related to internet resource being utilized,
as we see SNS gaining traction.
1 Fox, S and Jones, S: The Social Life of Health Information (June
2009) Pew Internet & American Life Project
2 Roberts A: New Numbers on Social Media [Web blog] (January 20, 2010)
GreyStone.Net
3 Lipsman, A: 2009: Another Strong Year for Facebook [Web blog]
(January 21, 2010) comScore Voices