Using Results-Oriented Social Media

Carol | August 31, 2010 More

The following guest post is contributed by John Luginbill, CEO and Founder of THE HEAVYWEIGHTS and author of the blog TurnUpYourVolume.

Using results-oriented social media is the key to increasing patient volume. You need to integrate a strategic, results-oriented social media program to actually see an increase in your patient volume.

Let’s look at two scenarios:

Hospital A decides to launch a social media program. They make it their goal have an online presence in the next 6 months. They serve a large demographic of patients in the area, and seek to engage over 5,000 consumers and publicize their 8 different service lines. They entrust this effort to one tech-savvy member in their marketing department, and get the program running smoothly for about a month or two, only to find the initiative burdensome and unsuccessful, converting just 3% of their follower to patients.

Hospital B wants to get their social media program off-the-ground. They gather 5 key decision-makers and choose a specific service line to promote through social media, collectively creating a strategy. They narrow their target to 1,000 people in the county, and choose unique keywords to reach these people in particular. The social media tasks are divided among the team, setting a goal to get 50 new patients from their social media target by linking to online appointment requests. 6 months later, they’ve received 150 service-line specific requests for appointments, driving 15% of their target audience to take action.

Here’s what Hospital B did right. They:

Used specifics in their messaging and target audience
Divided tasks to make the effort sustainable
Made it easy for their target to take a measurable action
Set clear metrics to evaluate success

I strongly believe the key to successful social media is a comprehensive social media strategy that’s automated and results-oriented.

Want to learn more on how to implement a successful social media strategy for your healthcare organization? HITECH Answers will be hosting a special 2 hour live virtual session with John Luginbill to teach providers and hospitals the steps to developing a social media strategy and implementation plan. THE HEAVYWEIGHTS has helped some of the nation’s largest healthcare systems increase patient volume through social media. Learn from an industry leader by attending this special event. Space is limited – register today.