Hospital Social Media Best Practices

Hospital Social MediaBest Practices

Shel Holtz, ABC

September 27, 2010

Many Hospitals, One Voice:

Important numbers about U.S. healthcare consumers

• 61% of adults look online for health information• 38% of women comfortable discussing personal

healthcare issues in online communities• 36% want to see what other consumers say about

medication or treatment• 34% use social media• 46% use healthcare portals• 67% use search engines• 21% use Wikipedia• 50% of global population is under 30 years old

Why should you care?

• 93% of social media users believe organizations should have a presence

• 85% of social media users want organizations to interact with customers using social media

What got

us here?

What is social media?

• The online technologies and practices that people use to share opinions, insights, experiences and perspectives and to collaborate with each other

“Of the IM Generation i.e. those born after 1980,

62% of the content they consume comes from

people they know personally”

Dissecting Consumer Generated Content

Consequences

• Content moving to the “edge”

• Attention is on the edge

– …and now to apps, as well

• You can’t control the message

• Groups form and act

CentralSource

Content

ContentContent

Content

ContentContent

Content

Content

The Old Model

Wiki

Blog

MySpace

Blog

Twitter

BlogFacebook

Jaiku

Podcast YourSite

The New Model

What is communication?

-- Gazetteer of the World

Royal Geographical Society, 1856

Old School The Digital World

Transmit Engage and Participate

Preach Advocate

Command and Control Influence and Persuade

Formal and Instructive Informal and Conversational

Tell Your Audience Build Community

Institutions People and Relationships

Deadlines Real Time

Powerful Media Powerful Networks

Target Audiences Communities

Classes of Social Media

• Conversation-enabled publishing platforms

• Social networks

• Democratized content networks

• Presence networks (micro-blogging)

• Content sharing sites

• Virtual networking platforms

What

Geneqate

s

Buzz?

Profession Hobby

Family

Source: Forrester Research

Healthcare and

Social Media Today

If hospitals won’t do it,

patients and doctors

will do it

for themselves

(because they can)

So, how active

are hospitals?

Let’s do the math:

• 5,815 hospitals (according to AHA)

• 825 engaging in social media

•15.9% engaging in social media

The state of social media

in health care today

is not good

This is just sad

• Most hospitals aren’t engaging at all

• Those that are engaging are mostly…

– Tactical

– Disjointed and uncoordinated

This is good news

for your hospital

What the 15.9%

are doing

Being strategic: Alignment with goals

• Customer service:– Point of contact– Early warning of issues– Outcome: More positive word-of-mouth

• Community outreach:– Engage those within our community– Outcome: Attract patients, doctors, philanthropy

• Patient education:– Extend existing programs– Outcome: More positive word-of-mouth

• Public relations:– Engage media and other influencers

– They’re already using these channels

– Outcomes: Goodwill in the bank, positive stories, strong relationships

• Crisis communications:– Ensure your story dominates the river of updates

– Outcome: Survive the crisis with enhanced reputation

Being strategic: Alignment with goals

What the 15.9%

are not doing

(for the most part)

Your opportunities

• Engage employees

– The front line of PR and customer service

Employees as ambassadors

Sharing Mayo Clinic blog

is for patients and employees

Dispelling the myths

• Employee productivity

Back-of-the-

envelope

calculations

Productivity

up 8.1%

MindLab International:

10 minutes of personal Web use

Reduced stress, increased productivity

Also consider…

• Time spent working at home

• Extra hours logged at work

• True measure of productivity

• Hidden value of employees’ networks

• IT in charge of productivity?

• Would productivity really improve?

Conclusion

• Not a technology issue

• Manage by exception

Dispelling the myths

• Employee productivity

• Security

Conclusion

• Data monitoring

• Malware protection

• Granular access

Dispelling the myths

• Employee productivity

• Security

• Loose lips

Conclusion

• Policies and guidelines

• Training and communication

The case for open access

• Futility: Employees don’t need your network

The case for open access

• Futility: Employees can get around your blocks

Employees tend to re-route around

a blog, go to another server, and find

other ingenious ways of doing what

they want to. And these rerouting

efforts may actually be even more

time-consuming.

The gold in employee social graphs

• Recruiting

• Culture/values

• Subject matter expertise

• Idea testing/decision making (SMPGs)

• Training

• Intelligence

• Crowdsourcing

• Company and product evangelism

Possibilities• Employee group blog

– Cross-section of employees/jobs

– Talk about culture, pride, values, experiences

– Approach is gaining popularity

• Examples: TSA, Southwest Airlines, EDS

• Evangelism in existing social networks

– Requires new approach to employee communications

Your opportunities

• Engage employees

– The front line of PR and customer service

• Participate in existing conversations

Se

rmo

.co

m

Your opportunities

• Engage employees

– The front line of PR and customer service

• Participate in existing conversations

• Integrate social media with other channels

Possibilities• Heightened awareness

– Links to social media properties on all properties, pages– “Share” links on all hospital pages

• Promote community education– Announce on Facebook, Twitter– Video highlights of training to YouTube– Live-blog and/or live-tweet events

• Support existing initiatives– Blog posts– Dedicated blogs for ongoing issues– Community “tweetups” with administrative, medical staff

Your opportunities

• Engage employees

– The front line of PR and customer service

• Participate in existing conversations

• Integrate social media with other channels

• Open information that doesn’t need to be closed

Possibilities

• MD ratings and reviews

– They’re out there anyway

– Long-term benefit

• Clinical outcomes / transparency

As a management tool in the hospital

it is easier to get people to work better.

People in hospitals are caring and they

want to eradicate disease. For example,

Ventilator Associated Pneumonia. We

created information about the VAP that helped to save more

than 90 lives and posted it. This creates better work because

we are not afraid to say what we're doing and how we're helping.

We put ourselves under the microscope.

-- Paul Levy,

via David Meerman Scott

Your opportunities

• Engage employees

– The front line of PR and customer service

• Participate in existing conversations

• Integrating social media with other channels

• Open information that doesn’t need to be closed

• Facilitate conversations

The Mayo Clinic has

established a few pilot

“secret” Facebook groups

for patients with common

conditions.

Extends Mayo Clinic brand

and gives patients another

reason to tell their Mayo stories.

More condition-focused secret Facebook groups are on

the drawing board.

Possibilities

• Patient groups or forums

– Facebook recommended; they already use it!

Putting tools

in place

isn’t enough

You need…

• A coordinated strategy

– Goals

– Strategies

– Objectives

– Tactics

• Measure against objectives

• Training

3 Levels

of

Social

Media

Oqganic, Systematic

Oqganic

•Established

pqesence

• Ongoing

dialogue

•Paqt of

community

•Employees

involved

Systematic

/ Campaign

• Cooqdinated

•Measuqed

• Stqategic

Stqat

egy

Goals

Oveqaqching Business

Outcomes

•Alteq

qeputation

•Bolsteq a

seqvice

line

•Impqove

qecquitment

Stqate

gies

Appqoaches to

Achieving Goals

•Goal:

Attqact

Patients

•Stqategies:

•Engage in

Community

•Appeal to

Object

ives

Measuqable Steps

•Stqategy:

Engage in

Community

•Objectives:

• 20 Offsite

Events

• 20 Onsite

Tactics

Tools and Actions

•Objective:

20 Offsite

Events

•Tactics:

•TweetUps

• Speakeqs

Buqeau

•Objective:

Offeq

Remote

Access

•Tactics:

•Webcasts

•Live Blogging

Hospita

l

Social

Media

Tactics

Mayo Clinic Tweetcamp

• Combined Webcast and Twitter

Moqe

•Flickq

• SlideShaqe

• Scqibd

• Niche Netwoqks

• Bookmaqking

Sites

• Location

Seqvices

Integq

ation

Tqaditional

Maqketing

Dqives

People

To Social

Channels

Pqimaqy

Objective

Secondaqy

Objective

•Cqisis

Suppoqt

•Digital

Aqchive

•Asset

Distqibution

•Geneqate

Limited Resources?

• Use hub-and-spoke approach

Posterous is a simple blogging platform started in May 2008.

It boasts integrated and automatic posting to other social media tools

such as Flickr, Twitter, and Facebook, a built-in Google Analytics package,

and custom themes.

-- Wikipedia

Post by email

iPhone App

• PicPosterous

– Images and videos

Post by Web

Copyright applies to this document – some rights reserved.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons

Attribution-non commercial-share alike 3.0 license

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0

Questions?

• Shel Holtz, ABC

Phone: 415.367.3820

Email: [email protected]

Web: www.holtz.com

Blog: blog.holtz.com

Podcast: www.forimmediaterelease.biz

Skype: shelholtz

Twitter: @shelholtz

FriendFeed: shelholtz

2nd Life: Shel Witte