Sure we’ve all heard how great social media is for your hospital and how sometimes it’s difficult launching a social media strategy because of a little thing we like to call governance. But, if a proper governance policy is in place, social media can work wonders for hospitals. Here are some reasons why “the powers that be” at hospitals should encourage and embrace social media usage:
There are several reasons as to why hospitals should use social media.
• Higher visibility: Blogging, social networking and social bookmarking are highly—and some would say more—effective in reaching online users versus reaching them solely through your hospital’s Website.
• Greater communications: Social media tools are a powerful way to listen to your patients and obtain a better understanding of them, as well as an easier way to reach the media for news stories and press releases.
• Lower cost: Publicize and promote causes, hospital events, health fairs, support groups, etc. without having to spend tons of advertising dollars or inflate your marketing budget.
• Internal brand awareness: Social media helps users engage and interact with several different communities internally and externally. Our July newsletter actually discusses this more in detail. Check it out!
Lisa M. Federico | Content Specialist | AVID Design
Last week, I had intended to write a follow-up to my “Pondering the Hospital Fired for Facebook Comment” blog when I came across another “hospital employees fired for Facebook” story, except this one was not as difficult to reconcile.
Bizarre, right? And unlike the situation in my previous blog, there weren’t any gray-area issues that I couldn’t sort out. This time—at least based on what I read—it seemed that the hospital undoubtedly made the right decision.
What Does This Have to Do With Healthcare and Hospital Social Media?
Apparently, quite a bit—especially in regards for healthcare systems and hospitals possibly needing to immediately revisit their social media governances and policies, and to find a way to fully inform their employees of these guidelines and expectations.
Whether the lines are incredibly blurry (as with last week’s Facebook story) or potentially criminally rigid (with this recent story), the omnipresence of social media in hospital employees’ personal and professional lives have reached a critical point.
On one hand, an embrace of social media is essential for a hospital (or virtually any business) to effectively communicate, relate and promote with its customers and communities. Furthermore, the success of that concept can be best maximized if a wide range of employees participate.
On the other hand, if patients’ lives, privacy and safety—as well as employees’ careers and hospitals’ reputations—are going to be compromised because of social media’s immediacy and lack of editorial control, then social media’s potential in healthcare may quickly become very limited, which would also be a shame and just as unnecessary.
What social media policies does your hospital have? How do you inform and train your staff? Do stories such as these frighten hospital leadership, and if so, how do you mitigate those fears.
Although I have a few phobias, like my alarming fear of heights and flying in airplanes, Friggatriskaidekaphobia (fear of Friday the 13th) is not one of them. We all hear about myths and superstitions associated with this particular date, so with that day being today, I thought I’d compile a short list of myths relating to hospital Website design, SEO and the like.
Happy Friday the 13th from Jason Voorhees and AVID Design.
Since a list of 13 myths would be more apropos for this date, I thought I’d spare the folks out there who too suffer from phobias, like triskaidekaphobia (fear of the number 13).
1.) Website Design – A hospital (or any) Website redesign will solve all my Web problems.
Many hospital marketers believe that a redesign is simply the “cure” for solving any and all Website problems because a fresh design is all that is needed. This is untrue. These same people don’t take into consideration that the strategy that goes into a redesign can sometimes be as important, if not more important, than the actual design itself.
2.) Content— If users are going to be guided to my hospital’s Website to read up on procedures and services offered, then posting every bit of information I have online is the only way to go.
First things first…users don’t read on the Web, they simply scan, so it’s best to write relevant, bite-sized chunks of optimized copy that are easier to read (e.g. bulleted lists). Secondly, content is not just written text, it is also images, videos, etc. And don’t be fooled about trying to fit all information on one page, it is okay to have a few pages as long as the copy is relevant and includes at least one call-to-action and effective anchor text to navigate through the pages.
3.) Social Media and Web 2.0 – If I build a Facebook fan page for my hospital or I start a hospital CEO blog, it will accumulate numerous fans and page hits overnight.
This doesn’t happen overnight, it takes time and effort to cultivate an audience, and a good social media and Web 2.0 strategy should be put into place before embarking on this trip.
4.) Website Design – I have to do my hospital’s Website redesign all at once.
Truth be told, redesigns take an extended period of time to fully complete, so it’s best to break down the redesign process into phases where each phase allows you to concentrate in a particular area, like focusing one phase on your hospital’s specialties and content and another phase on examining rich media. Also, change is received better with your employees and users when made in increments rather than all at once.
5.) Search Engine Optimization—Once you optimize your hosptial’s Website, then you are good to go and should be ranking well in the major search engines from here on out.
SEO is an ongoing process and is never finished (much like that of your hospital Website). What your hospital ranks today for pediatric cancer quite possibly not be the same three months from now. It’s best to have a professional (like AVID Design) provide you with an SEO assessment (that’s FREE) of your hospital’s Website to get the ball rolling on developing a proper search engine marketing (SEM) campaign.
Lisa M. Federico | Content Specialist | AVID Design
One day when social media becomes a part of the mini case studies in textbooks for students of communications, marketing, law and other academic disciplines, this one deserves to be included, as it is indeed quite perplexing—both from a healthcare communications perspective and from a general online communications perspective.
Here are the basics: Cheryl James, a hospital employee at Oakwood Hospital in Dearborn, Michigan, wrote some comments at home on her personal Facebook page aboutcoming “face to face” with “cop killer” Tyress Mathews, a patient that also happened to be accused of murdering a local police officer.
Although James’ comments were indeed barbed—including a hope that Mathews “rot in hell”—they did not explicitly mention his name.
However, when James got wind that the hospital was investigating her comments, she immediately deleted the posting. However, it was too late: She was soon terminated for violating HIPAA regulations and for making “disparaging” comments.
Questions, Questions, Questions
Even if you don’t work in healthcare marketing and communications, this is still an extremely fascinating situation from a number of angles. It certainly has me pondering a number of questions, such as:
What defines “public” in social media? It’s not clear if James’ Facebook settings enabled only her network of “friends” to see her comments or if they were completely open for anybody to see. If she didn’t have any privacy settings enabled, then sure, whatever she wrote was almost undoubtedly public. But what if her settings only allowed authorized friends to view her comments? Does that change whether the comment was public or private?
What defines protected patient information? Neither Mathews nor Oakwood’s names appeared in James’ posting. So, is saying that if a person is admitted to a hospital, it is a violation of HIPAA…even if the person or the hospital is implied and not explicitly mentioned?
What was her interaction with patients? More specifically, how did she come “face to face” with Mathews, and was his safety and quality of care ever at risk of being compromised?
What else is there to this story? In particular, was James a popular and respected employee, or was this the perfect excuse to can an unpopular employee that had more than overstayed her welcome?
And regardless of her stature, how did the hospital discover the comments? Was she being monitored, or did somebody report her?
Even if James doesn’t file a lawsuit for wrongful termination (which would very likely examine these questions), this situation is ripe with precedents that could very well influence similar situations. What do you think?
Each week, we review hundreds of news, blogs, studies and papers that relate to healthcare marketing communications, also known by its Twitter hashtag, #hcmktg. Here are some that you might have missed…
Along with being a solid use of the classic “winter in summer” promotion theme, this article was noteworthy because it used PRLog for its distribution. PRLog is a free service for publishing news releases (including RSS), and it’s one of the easiest and fastest ways to build quality links to your Website, as well as to further the reach of your messages.
It may want to re-rethink that effort. Without giving them a little more time (and perhaps a deeper examination), it’s entirely possible that they are still engaging in outdated marketing strategies.
Although a new Website is intended to “appeal to younger audiences,” it seems to assume a “build it and they will come” strategy. The key will be how well it maintains efforts to not just “build up its presence on social networks,” but to truly engage with its networks.
The pending launch of Google Caffeine (which is the subject of our newsletter feature story next week) is largely going to reward hospital Websites that have a fully understand and engage in building links with social media, news distribution sites like PRLog, etc. If there’s anything to “rethink” right now, it’s that.
This article is perhaps a bit too complex to quickly summarize…but it’s a very profound contemplation of the challenges that hospitals and healthcare systems face with using mass media to inform its communities—sometimes at the risk of “scaremongering” those same audiences. Check it out.
