INBOUND ACCELERATOR

Healthcare is changing, and how healthcare providers and hospitals approach marketing, is changing along the way.

Those changes in how healthcare is chosen, provided and paid for opens opportunities for healthcare IT companies to step up and assist their customers by changing their own marketing approach to one that provides information and guidance, not just a sales push.

When we asked healthcare providers about their most successful social media channel, more than half pointed to Facebook, likely due to its position as the social media platform that reaches the most American consumers of all ages.

Healthcare is one industry that straddles the line between tradition and new technology when it comes to marketing. While social media now tops the list for how healthcare marketers distribute content to reach new and existing patients, more traditional formats such as print magazines remain an important part of many marketing strategies.

Brand awareness, patient loyalty and patient engagement are the top goals healthcare marketers are working achieve with their content, along with addressing the need to optimize content for search.

If your strategy isn’t written down, is it really a plan? How closely will you—or the rest of the team involved in carrying that strategy out — follow the plan without documentation to refer to?

The idea of blending healthcare, with its many restrictions on privacy, with social media, where nothing seems private anymore, can be tricky for many providers. But the numbers show that it is a wilderness that you can’t ignore forever.

As younger, social-savvy users become patients and healthcare consumers, providers will need to find that balance. These statistics show why.

Last week we talked about the importance of encouraging your satisfied customers or patients to “check in,” rate and review your business on your Facebook page and other social media accounts.

The next step is to ask them for new patient referrals. After all, referrals still account for up to 70 percent of new patients for most healthcare providers. (See Rethinking Healthcare Marketing for more stats.)

Nearly half of all healthcare providers are already using social media as a part of their marketing and patient engagement efforts. Another 40 percent say they are interested in entering the social media realm, according to surveys we have facilitated with providers across the United States.

Why are you using social media? There are many benefits for healthcare providers to having a presence on social media:

• Increased awareness of your practice.

• To educate your patients and others.

• Opportunities for engagement with your audience.

• To make reviews and referrals easier.

But here is another: To increase traffic to your website.

Healthcare marketing has long revolved around content. That content has evolved from print media such as self-published magazines and newsletters that dominated much of systems’ content creation 25 years ago to more active websites and blogs. (See related stats in this infographic.)