Social Media 'likes' healthcare: The case for social business

Social media is changing the nature and speed of health care interaction between consumers and health organizations. Recently PwC Health Institute released a report entitled ‘Social media “likes” healthcare – From marketing to social business. The report examined how healthcare in the US and Social Media interacted and here is what some of the largest health care companies are doing in and with social media.

Here's an extract:

"Social media is changing the nature of healthcare interaction, and health organizations that ignore this virtual environment may be missing opportunities to engage consumers, according to a new report by the Health Research Institute (HRI) at PwC US entitled, “Social media likes healthcare: From marketing to social business.” The report found that social media activity by hospitals, health insurers and pharmaceutical companies is miniscule compared to the activity on community sites. While eight in 10 healthcare companies (as tracked by HRI during a sample one-week period) had a presence on various social media sites, community sites had 24 times more social media activity than corporate sites. The finding holds significant implications for businesses looking to capitalize on social media opportunities.

“The power of social media for health organizations is in listening and engaging with consumers on their terms. Social media has created a new customer service access point where consumers expect an immediate response,” said Kelly Barnes, US Health Industries leader, PwC. “Health organizations have an opportunity to use social media as a way to better listen, participate in discussions and engage with consumers in ways that extend their interaction beyond a clinical encounter. Savvy adopters are viewing social media as a business strategy, not just a marketing tool.”

PwC’s report includes findings from a recent HRI social media survey of more than 1,000 U.S. consumers and 124 members of the eHealth Initiative (eHI), a national association of industry organizations focusing on health information and technology. HRI also interviewed more than 30 industry executives and tracked the social media activity of a number of hospitals, insurers, drug manufacturers, and online patient communities to create a Week-in-the-life of Social Health snapshot.

The consumer survey found:

• One-third of consumers now use social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and online forums for health-related matters, including seeking medical information, tracking and sharing symptoms, and broadcasting how they feel about doctors, drugs, treatments, medical devices and health plans.

• Four in 10 consumers say they have used social media to find health-related consumer reviews (e.g. of treatments or physicians); one in three have sought information related to other patients’ experiences with their disease; one in four have "posted" about their health experience; and one in five have joined a
 health forum or community.

• When asked how information found through social media would affect their health decisions, 45 percent of consumers said it would affect their decision to get a second opinion; 41 percent said it would affect their choice of a specific doctor, hospital or medical facility; 34 percent said it would affect their decision about taking a certain medication; and 32 percent said it would affect their choice of a health insurance plan.

• While 72 percent of consumers said they would appreciate assistance in scheduling doctor appointments through social media channels, nearly half said they would expect a response within a few hours.

• As is the case more broadly, young adults are leading the 
social media healthcare charge. More than 80 percent of individuals between the ages of 18 and 24 said they were likely to share health information through social media channels and nearly 90 percent said they would trust information they found there. By comparison, less than half (45 percent) of individuals between the ages of 45 and 64 said they were likely to share health information via social media.

Eighty-two percent said their organization’s social media efforts are managed by marketing/communications. Few organizations said their IT departments and digital teams owned social media strategies.

Evolution from Social Media to Social Business Strategy

While some health businesses have started listening and participating in the social media space, they have not fully connected it to business strategy. The HRI report found that organizations that are strategic about their use of social sites are beginning to differentiate between social media and social business. Social media is the external-facing component that gives and receives customer input. Social business is where core internal operations, such as customer service, data analytics and product development could use social data. Additionally, patient-reported data on social networks could offer new insights on behavior and lifestyle to help inform care plans and improve the quality of life for patients with chronic conditions. 

One-half said they are concerned about how to integrate social media data into business strategy and processes.

HRI’s survey of eHealth initiative members found:

• Eighty-two percent said their organization’s social media efforts are managed by marketing/communications. Few organizations said their IT departments and digital teams owned social media strategies.
• One-half said they are concerned about how to integrate social media data into business strategy and processes.

PwC says that hospitals, insurers and pharmaceutical manufacturers can benefit from the interactive nature of social media. Insights from social media offer instant feedback on products or services along with new ideas for innovation that could lead to higher-quality care, more loyal customers, efficiency and even revenue growth."

The above post is an extract from PwC press release - New York, April 17, 2012 

Tools to build your social healthcare practice

Are you a doctor, dentist, physiotherapist, allied health professional, practice manager, health care peak industry association? Trying to ascertain how social media can be used effectively for your practice? In the area of health care the challenges to both effectively target and respond to online discussion is one that requires special consideration.

There’s a lot of buzz today about social media marketing in health care practices. When I speak at medical and health care related industry conferences I am usually asked by health care practitioners and their team members, “Can social media be effective in building our practice?" And, “Is it necessary for us to be engaging in this 24/7 space, it's so time consuming?”

Social media is word-of-mouth marketing online. It can be used effectively for patient education, to increase patient loyalty and is a powerful tool for acquiring new patients through word of mouth referral.

However to implement an effective social media prorgamme it begins with strategy -“why”  What are your goals, what are your trying to acheive and how will you measure your success. Executed well social media is a powerful tool for what I call 'out-practice service'.

In it's simplest form, social media in health care communication is all about the story you have to tell, be it for health promotion,  provision of valuable patient resources, fact sheets, and more.

1stAvailable have recently developed a number of tools exclusive to 1stAvailable subscribers to help you market the 1stAvailable service to your patients. They are available from our 1stAvailable Facebook page as free downloads. I hope you find them useful. As a 1stAvailable subscriber you should also check out our edition of 1stToday episode, we meet Executive Chairman Klaus Bartosch from 1stAvailable.

The Origins of Six Degrees of Separation and the power of social media for business

Yesterday I spoke to a terrific group of people about developing a social media strategy and programme. The event was organised by that super networker Sean Grobbelaar. I spent quite a lot of time talking about innovation and the importance of connecting with tribes as you plan your social media campaign. The concept of tribes and finding super connectors is not new. We all feel closer together because of the power of the web and indeed more so than ever with the advent of new social media platforms that bring us together often with networks and friends that we may even have lost contact with at some point in our lives. So when we casually say 'gosh isn't the world a small place and it only takes six degrees of separation before I meet someone we mutually know' what does that really mean?

In the late 1960's well before the advent of the internet, psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted an experiment to find an answer to what is know as the small world problem. The problem is this: how are we humans connected? Do we all belong to separate worlds, operating simultaneously but autonomously, so that the links between any two people, anywhere in the world, are few and distant? Or, are we all bound up together in a grand interlocking web?

What Milgram was asking has a great deal of relevance to the success or failure of some social media programmes, that being how does an idea or trend or piece of news - travel through the population?

Milgram's idea to test this question was a chain letter. He got the names of 160 people who lived in Omaha, Nebraska, and mailed each of them a packet. In the packet was a name of a stockbroker who lived in Sharon, Massachusetts. Each person was instructed to write his or her name on the packet and send it onto a friend or acquaintance who he or her thought would get the packet closer to the stockbroker. If you lived in Omaha and had a cousin outside of Boston, for example, you might send it to him, on the grounds that - even if your cousin did not himself know the stockbroker - he would be a lot more likely to be able to get to the stockbroker in two or three or fours steps.

The idea was when the packet finally arrived at the stockbroker's house, Milgram could look at the list of all those who hands it went through to get there and establish how closely connected someone chosen at random from one part of the country was to another person in another part of the country.

Milgram found that most of the letter's reached the stockbroker in five or six steps. This experiment is where we get the concept of six degrees of separation.

This phrase is so familiar to most of us today that we lose sight of how surprising Milgram's findings were. Most of us don't have particular broad and diverse groups of friends.

When Miilgram analyze his experiment to determine how did the packet get to Sharon in just five steps, the answer was not all degrees are equal. He found that many of the chains from Omaha to Sharon followed the same asymmetrical pattern. Twenty four letters reached the stockbroker at his home in Sharon, and of those sixteen were given to him by the same person, a clothing merchant Milgram calls Mr Jacobs. The balance of the letters came to the stockbroker at his office, and of those the majority came through two other men, whom Milgram calls Mr Brown and Mr Jones.

In all, half of the responses that came back to the stockbroker were delivered to him by these same three people.

Think about it. Dozens of people, chosen at random from a large Midwestern city, send out letters independently. Some go to college acquaintances. Some send their letters to relatives. Some send letters to old workmates and so on. Yet in the end when all those chains were completed, half of those letters ended up in the hands of Jacobs,Jones and Brown.

Six degrees of separation doesn't mean that everyone is linked to everyone else in just six steps. It means that a very small number of people are linked to everyone else in a few steps, and the rest of us are linked to the world through those special people.

These people who we rely on heavily are 'connectors', people with a special gift for bringing the world together. We'll talk more about the traits of these special people in a later post, that too is a fascinating insight.

However I wanted to share the relevance of this experiment dating back to the 1960's and the rise today of the phenomena known as social media. Imagine if you could and can tap into these special connectors to communicate the benefits of your product or service with passion and with meaning for their lives. Who will they tell, I wonder...


This in itself is a strong argument for networking on linkeIN, facebook, twitter and so on. Have you observed these special people on social networking sites and met them in the real work perhaps? I'd be interested in your thoughts and observations. One person who comes to mind is Iggy Pintado. He has written an excellent book on what he calls the Connection Generation. He says 'Connection Generation reveals how individuals, groups and networks have progressed beyond their intent to communicate - but to a tangible connection between people, information, experiences and ideas. Due to the advent of internet and mobile technology, this dynamic transcends traditional thinking about societal generations. It proposes that anyone who had access to a computer or mobile device since 1995 - regardless of age - is part of the Connection Generation'. Personally I think what he is showing, albeit in a technology driven society, is how true Milgram's basic experiment was, that the power of social networks offers enormous opportunities to grow our businesses in ways many of us do not tap into.

Stay out of social networking and you may miss one of the greatest business opportunities you have to reach new customers and in some cases turn them into powerful evangelists for your product or service. Of course six degrees of separation also means the reverse is true, a lousy experience and your tribe may tell their friends and so on...

Focus on a great customer experience whatever social media platforms you use: service, customer satisfaction, innovation and brand essence, delivering on the promise remain paramount. A great social media example of doing it well is Zappos, the shoe company. You can read their case study for more information.

For further reading on Six Degrees of Separation, I highly recommend reading The International Bestseller - The Tipping Point, How Little things can make a big difference by Malcolm Gladwell.