Social Media Use in Health Marketing

In healthcare marketing, where reputation is one of the most important attributes of success, creating and monitoring on-line reputation is critical.

More patients are using social media to get information on best doctors and hospitals, and to share their experiences and stories with the medical system.

Social media is a great tool to reach out targeted but large target audience at low cost.

Lee Aase from the Mayo Clinic, which has put lots of efforts to use social media once said,

As I approaches 0, ROI approaches infinity

Nevertheless, there is resistance to use social media in the healthcare marketing.

But whether health marketers embrace social media or not may decide their organizations’ destiny in 10 years.

Simply dive in and get involved.

Here’s a few tips to get you started.

1. Twitting

• Real-time conversation between patients and doctors.
• Used as short clinic newsletter – let patients know what’s happening in the clinic
• Send out “reminding messages” such as next visit, flu shot and/or dietary restrictions.

2. Facebook Page

• Platform to engage patients and let them engage with each other.
• Powerful places to share patient’s testimony

Best practices –Mayo Clinic Face Book

3. You Tube

• Educating patients
• Sharing patient stories

Best Practices –Go Insulin, an unbranded YouTube channel,

4. Blog

• Sharing patient stories
• Serving as a hub of others social media efforts

Best practice – Sharing Mayo Clinic

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Hurdles for New Media Marketing in the Pharma Industry

The pharmaceutical industry is the most scientifically advanced, but the most retarded world when the adoption of new technology, particularly new media, is considered.

Can you imagine how much the pharmaceutical industry spends for internet advertising? According to Pharma Marketing blog, only 1 % of the total media spending!!!!

There is huge resistance in embracing social media among pharmaceutical companies because of two main factors:

• Regulatory hurdles: The freedom of speech is very, very, very limited in pharmaceutical marketing. All the information going to consumers must be reviewed by the company’s medical, legal and regulatory body and submitted to FDA at time of dissemination. There is NO possibility of having REAL-TIME conversation in the pharmaceutical marketing.

• Psychological hurdles: Pharmaceutical companies tend to control their internal and external environments to the same extent as they are regulated by the government. We must admit that we have less power to control our messages on new media. Pharmaceutical companies won’t want to hear about some adverse effects caused by their products through their blog, Twitter and Facebook. Do the companies expect more negative stories than positive ones?

I was too much pessimistic on this post, wasn’t I? Wait….In spite of the above hurdles, there are some positive cases on the usage of new media in the pharmaceutical marketing. Stay tune for my next post 🙂

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Must-have item: New Media Driver’s License

For many of us, the first and possibly only license in our possession is a driver’s license. It is a symbol of freedom as well as adulthood. Certainly, it is a necessity to live in America.

However, there is one more license we have to get to live in this digital world:  New Media Driver’s License.  Emerging popularity of new media has changed our way of living. We make friends without knowing faces, sharing information with people whom we hardly know, and even making critical influences in the Presidential Election.

Acknowledging the new media’s power, Michigan State University opened a new course called “New Media Driver’s License” (what a fancy name!). The class is instructed by Derek Mehrabahn, CEO of Ingenex Digital Marketing. Throughout the semester, students will learn about various new medias such as blog, twitter and facebook through individual engagement with these tools.

Since 2006 and or so, I have sensed that the new media revolution rushes upon us and I have to ride on this wave to survive as a communicator. And finally I have started blogging on health communication that I have experienced and I am studying, both in Korean and in English.

I believe that New Media Driver’s License – that I can get after finishing the course – will give more insight how to integrate new media into traditional PR and communication principles.

If you are not a blogger or communicator in cyber space yet, please take a look at our digital bus (the site of the New Media Driver’s license course), and get on the bus now. I believe that New Media Driver’s License will be a “MUST-HAVE” in the near future to live as a “social animal.” 

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