This document discusses strategies for hospitals to effectively engage audiences on Facebook. It emphasizes using Facebook to connect with communities rather than just advertise. Examples are provided of hospitals that successfully engaged audiences on Facebook through contests, viral videos, and blogs. Tips are given for using Facebook tools like polls, tabs, and insights to interact with followers. The document also covers segmenting audiences and legal/ethical considerations for healthcare organizations on social media.

1. Facebook
Engagement
Strategies for
Hospitals
NESHCo 2011 Fall Conference
Dan Dunlop

2. Be Willing To Have Fun

3. Facebook
 Caveat: Social Media Experts? We’re all in
this together
 Stop the madness
 Not about piling up followers
 Not about spewing information
 I don’t care how many hospitals are using
Facebook
 I care that they are using it effectively
 Klout? Just try to keep up!

4. Engagement, Not Advertising
 Yes, it is a marketing tool
 Engaging
 Connecting
 Community-Building
 Activating

5. The Obligatory Stats
 NRC Research Study
 23,000 participants in US
 41% use social media for health info
 94% said Facebook was platform of choice
 YouTube was 2nd place with 32%
 50% still prefer hospital website as a source
 Pew Internet and American Life Project
 39% of patients use social media sites (general
info – only 12% for health info)
 1 in 4 people with chronic disease has used
Internet to seek out others with same condition
(Peer-to-peer help)
 New pathways for patients to find and help
each other
 http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/P2PH
ealthcare.aspx

6. Engagement

7. What You Don’t Want to See

8. What You Don’t Want to See

9. Compare That to This (Mayo Clinic):

10. Mayo has
cultivated an
environment that
encourages sharing

11. A Conceptual Construct: Hive
Marketing
 Think of a Bee Hive and all the activity taking
place…
 Bringing together individuals with a shared
interest (moms, for example, or cancer
patients)
 Allowing them to share their passion
 In the case of brand advocates, giving them a
forum to express their support
 Become a true resource for them; this comes
first
 Feed them information that confirms their
decision to support the brand

12. Your Audience is not
Homogenous
 Social Media allow you to speak to niche
audience and be relevant to them
 To most effectively engage segments of your
customer base, you must create vehicles
that speak to them specifically
 “Social Media will prove to be the nail in the
coffin of the one-size-fits-all customer
experience model.” Robert Wollan& Nick
Smith, The Social Media Management
Handbook
 Don’t forget about the importance of
LISTENING. Two-way medium.

13. Build Up Equity for a Rainy
Day
 “Green Stamps” analogy
 Market traditional services
 Circumvent traditional media when
necessary
 Take messaging directly to
audience, unfiltered
 Allow for conversation and engagement

14. Signature
Healthcare

15. Segmenting Audiences
 Signature Healthcare & Tufts Medical Center
Affiliation
 Primarily Women’s Services: Maternal Fetal
Medicine, Neonatology, Genetic
Counseling, etc.
 Signature: Diminished connection with the
community over several years
 #1 goal is to rebuild the connection with
suburban moms
 Leadership transition
 No social media presence

16. Our Approach
 Market “with” rather than market “to”
 Engage and allow for conversation
 Listen and respond – let people know you
are participating
 Communicate shared values
 Must feel authentic
 Provide value via the relationship
 How do you enrich her life?
 Sense of community - belonging

17. SignatureMoms.com

19. Not a Story about a
Blog
A Story About the
Power of Facebook

20. Facebook Promotion
 Posted contest announcement to Facebook
Wall:
 Looking for 8 local moms to serve as
bloggers
 $250 prize and a position as a mommy
blogger
 4 to 6 week long promotion
 Entries: write on our Facebook Wall and
tell us why you’d be a great mommy
blogger; or submit a video
 Extended the contest to heighten interest
 Selected 7 local moms and one employee
of Signature

21. Facebook Promotion:
Engagement

23. Contest Buzz & Engagement

27. Trifecta:
Blog, Facebook, Twitter

28. Early Facebook Stats
 Remember, we started with no social media
presence at all
 204 Facebook fans in first 6 week (contest
period)
 25,160 post views, 252 post comments

29. The Impact on Twitter
 256 Twitter followers in first 6 week (contest
period)
 375 updates

30. Blog Traffic

31. Blog Engagment

32. Lexington Medical
Center
Pink Glove Dance
Contest

35. Pink Glove Dance –
Lexington Medical Center

37. Results
 543 Likes and Comments for the month
 Monthly Active users rose from 808 to 1,161
(includes fans and non-fans who either viewed
or interacted with your page or a News Feed
Post)
 127 new Fans or Likes
 1,222 total Likes/Fans
 25,959 post views – The number of times fans
have read a News Feed Story posted by your
Page.
 60,000+ people liked the video on Facebook
 114,000+ views on YouTube

38. Facebook
Marketing Tips

39. Facebook Marketing Tips
 Create a business page, not a profile: Just visit
https://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php
 Make your page easier to share by claiming
your Page’s vanity URL:
http://www.facebook.com/username.
 Automatically post blog content to your Wall
(Wordpress&HubSpot)
 Don’t automatically have your Wall posts sync
with Twitter! I’m not a fan.
 Create Custom Page Tabs: (SocialAppsHQ)
http://www.facebook.com/welcometab

40. Facebook Marketing Tips
 Launch contests! Consider using a promotion builder App like
Wildfire: http://www.wildfireapp.com/
 Create a Welcome App using Custom Tabs. Set the page as your
default landing tab (do this under “manage permissions”)
http://www.facebook.com/welcometab
 Use Facebook Insights! Download Page Insights PDF. Download
your data for more detail (Excel Spreadsheet).
 Add the YouTube App to your Facebook Page so your fans can
view your videos directly within Facebook.
 Post Questions or Polls: In the status update bar, you have the
option of posting a poll. Click on Poll Options.
 Use a third party Facebook App like Hootsuite to schedule your
posts in advance.
 Understand EdgeRank, Facebook’s Algorithm for deciding what
gets shown on the user’s news feed. The more edges a post
has, the more likely it will be on a user’s News Feed. Edges are
shares, likes, comments, tags, etc. For Everything you Ever
Wanted to Know About EdgeRank, go to
http://tinyurl.com/3ty455n

41. Adding a Poll or Question

42. Custom Landing Page/Tab
(http://apps.facebook.com/welcometab/)

43. EdgeRanker

44. Facebook Changes
 “Top Stories” now appear at the top of the News Feed. It
used to be that the newest content from friends
appeared at the top.
 News Feed Algorithm has changed what actually
appears on your News Feed.
 “Comments” have the most impact on EdgeRank.
 Also, a user’s affinity toward your brand is key! (The
number of times the two of you have interacted.)
 “Freshness” (recency) is also important. Freshness
often determines what you see on your News Feed.
 Weight – The number of times users have interacted
with the content in question.
 You are competing with every other person or business
that a user “Likes”
 Multimedia posts help with engagement: videos and
photos

45. Facebook Changes
 Ticker – Moving less important info into a
live Twitter-like feed on the side of the page
 Close Friends – Now you can sort friends
and communicate differently and directly
with “close friends”

46. A Few Rules
 Doctors and other healthcare professionals should not friend
patients; invite them to “Like” the organization or practice
 The ethical and legal duty to protect patient confidentiality applies
equally on the internet as to other media
 No one should discuss a patient or a patient’s condition on
Facebook
 Don’t even speak of patients in “cloaked” conversations online
 Put a legal disclaimer on your Facebook page. Remind them this
is a public forum…
 Patients waive their HIPAA rights when they post personal health
info on Facebook (not the case with children)
 Invite patients to take the conversation offline
 Physicians can speak to medical issues on Facebook in a
general, informative manner, but not to specific patient cases.

47. In Closing
 Be engaging
 Create fun and interest – use promotions
 Listen
 Respond
 Combine efforts of
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Blogs
 Track effectiveness
 If you don’t know how to do it, Google it.
Answers to Facebook challenges are easy
to find.

48. Questions & Contact
Information
 Dan Dunlop, Jennings
 ddunlop@jenningsco.com
 Twitter: @dandunlop& @JenningsHealth
 Blog: http://thehealthcaremarketer.wordpress.com