Social Media, Internet, Content, Curation

One in three Brits visit the doctor less often than normal thanks to health and fitness gadgets, a survey has found.

Here are five key points to increasing your influence in support of your strategies.

According to a 2013 study by the Pew Research Center, almost 40% of adults in the U.S. are currently caring for an adult or child with significant health issues. These unpaid “caregivers” may come from a wide range of cultural and socio-economic backgrounds, but they face similar challenges when it comes to making decisions that can significantly affect the health and wellbeing of their patients as well as their own lives. 

While traditional healthcare marketing efforts have been focused primarily on educating and influencing patients, new research shows that family caregivers are often just as influential (if not more so) than patients when it comes to making choices about health providers, products and services. With a rapidly aging population contributing to an increase in caregivers, it’s vitally important for healthcare marketers to understand the behaviors, needs and interests of this audience.

Understanding how caregivers research, evaluate and make decisions for both their patients and themselves can lead to more effective ways of getting our messages out and improving brand recognition within this influential but underserved audience.

Caregivers Search for Health Information Online

One of the most interesting findings of the Pew study is that caregivers are more likely than the general population to search for health information online. Eighty-four percent of caregivers with internet access say they went online within the past year to research health topics such as medical procedures, health insurance and drug safety. And of those caregivers, 80% used a search engine.

Although the importance of maintaining a robust web presence is not new for marketers, regardless of industry, the Pew data underscores the importance of search engine optimization (SEO) when it comes to increasing exposure and driving qualified traffic. Organizations that rank highly in organic search have a greater chance of attracting information seeking users and then converting them into prospects, leads and then customers.

Juggernauts like WebMD and Wikipedia may get the lion’s share of these health-related queries, but there are many opportunities for smart organizations to improve their visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) that relate directly to the products and services they offer. Through proper keyword research, active link-building, and the creation of useful, useable, authoritative content using their subject matter expertise, healthcare organizations can improve brand exposure and increase qualified upper-funnel traffic to their websites.

Caregivers Use Social Media

Caregivers often look to search engines to help them find medical information, but they’re also relying on social media, online groups and discussion forums to connect with other caregivers, get and give support, and exchange recommendations and tips on common challenges. In fact, social media use among adults ages 50-64 (the prime caregiving years) increased more than 400% from 2008 to 2012 (source).

And while Twitter and Facebook may be appropriate for sharing and getting support and recommendations from friends and family, caregivers may not always feel comfortable sharing personal health information on these semi-public platforms. A number of sites such as CareZone have recently launched that merge the community aspects of social media with tools for helping caregivers communicate in private groups and manage the care of a loved one.

Healthcare organizations have multiple opportunities to connect with caregivers through these social channels. Whether it’s advertising on social media or communities geared towards caregivers, creating and distributing relevant, engaging content through these same channels, or even building their own in-house tools and support networks for caregivers, the power of social sharing and engagement to build trust and generate interest can’t be ignored.

Caregivers Perform Complicated Medical/Nursing Tasks

In addition to normal day-to-day care, a 2012 study by the AARP Public Policy Institute found that almost half of all caregivers are also in charge of performing complex medical or nursing tasks, such as managing multiple medications, providing wound care, dealing with special diets, and even operating specialized medical equipment. Unfortunately, those caregivers also reported that they’ve received little support or training from health professionals on how to perform these tasks, causing them added stress and worry about making a mistake.

Caregivers Need Help Caring for Themselves

One of the biggest challenges facing caregivers is that they often spend so much time taking care of their patients that they have little time to take care of themselves. In addition to the stress associated with caring for (and worrying about) a loved one, they also often end up neglecting their own health and wellbeing due to the demands of caregiving. Things like getting enough exercise and sleep, maintaining a healthy diet, and giving themselves time to re-charge end up taking a back seat to the day-to-day care of their patient. Add onto that the financial worries and time constraints of caregivers who also need to work full- or-part time jobs and you have a recipe for severe stress and burnout.

While caregivers may be reluctant to actively seek out personal help and respite, that doesn’t mean that health organizations can’t offer these types of services and information in order to address their needs. This might take the form of counseling programs aimed at helping caregivers navigate their own care, respite services that run in parallel with patient care or even pamphlets and online resources that show caregivers how to provide better care for their patients by proactively taking care of their own health and wellbeing. The idea that a healthcare organization cares about their health as well as their patient’s health is a powerful message and one that can help build trust and credibility.

Conclusion

When it comes to marketing to the growing caregiver population, the most important thing is to have empathy for their situation and to understand the significant role they play in their patient’s ongoing care and success. By understanding the daily challenges and decisions that affect the lives of caregivers (and their patients), you’ll start to identify how your organization can address those needs in ways that strengthen your brand and increase your exposure among this influential audience.

And since there’s a good chance that you might be called on to provide caregiving services to a friend or loved one at some point in your life, keep in mind how you would want to be treated and marketed to if you were in a similar situation. Ditch the pushy sales pitches. Forget the self-promotional marketing fluff. Be authentic. Be helpful. Because making life easier for caregivers is just good business. 

Many physicians not only understand but use social media to improve relationships with patients and find new ones. Social media marketing for your medical practice is an efficient way to enhance marketing and bring in new patients.

It can be a little challenging to connect with patients outside your clinic or hospital. Many doctors use Medical blogs, Facebook and Twitter accounts to make this connection. Below are a few tips on using social media marketing for doctors offices.

1. Build Relationships 

You can develop loyalty and trust with both your prospective and current patients through social media. Add patient staff interviews and patient testimonials on YouTube and upload these to social media sites for more coverage. Creating a professional profile for networking on LinkedIn can better your practice as well and help you to network and build relationships with potential patients.

2. Read & Respond to Reviews

People tend to leave reviews on social media sites about other businesses and practitioners. Make sure you are not just reading reviews of your practice but also leaving feedback and making positive responses to them. You can really influence your reputation by staying active on these sites and interacting rather than having reactions or doing nothing at all.

3. Test the waters

You will want to dive into many different social media sites, however, be careful not to spread yourself out too thin. Facebook is a popular place to be, and so is Tumblr and Twitter. To effectively develop an online reputation, you will need to embrace diversity and get involved in a few social sites, just start off slowly. This will enable you to test out your audience.

Other things you can do include:

• Offer in-depth knowledge and healthcare tips
• Make suggestions on new healthcare services and products
• Interact and engage with your followers and community

By staying active on social media sites and offering things like healthcare tips, products and more, you can stay active and avoid conduct that is unprofessional. You can stay social by making new product recommendations to help your social following stay healthy. Community interaction will encourage more people to participate and keep them around. If you receive feedback from a patient, make sure you go back and respond or share feedback as well. Being active online through social media will really benefit your medical practice and let people know you are available more than just in the office.

One of the most compelling reasons for hospitals to use social media is because it allows organizations—of all sizes—to establish a personal relationship with patients. One of the best ways to do this is by telling meaningful, powerful patient stories.

And hospitals don't have to look too far when seeking patients to celebrate. Social media and marketing experts tell the Daily Briefing that at the average organization, there's no shortage of inspiring stories to draw from.

Case study: Mount Sinai Hospital

For example, Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City recently highlighted the story of patient Ron Gardner on Facebook as Gardner underwent Deep Brain Simulation surgery for Parkinson's disease. The hospital shared pictures from BattlingParkinsons.com of Gardner before, during, and after his surgery.

The photos evoked a huge outpouring of support. Gardner continued to interact with the site throughout his treatment, posting updates on his surgery and thanking all those involved in his care—surgeons, nurses, anesthesiologists, radiologists, and even the receptionist—for their "compassion and professionalism.

During the campaign, Mt. Sinai also continued to interact with Gardner, "liking" and responding to his posts—an engagement strategy that the hospital emulates across each of its media channels, according to social media director John Ambrose. "Using patient stories, we try and connect with as many people as we can," Ambrose says, adding, "We put a human face on health care in this way."

Case study: MD Anderson

Similarly, one of MD Anderson Cancer Center's most successful media campaigns was a music video called "Hold On," a song written by Greg Lizee, an associate professor of oncology. The video received "hundreds of comments, shares, likes, views—you name it," says MD Anderson's Laura Nathan-Garner, adding that the video was "unlike anything we've done before."

"What we often hear is that when patients receive a diagnosis, they go online to find people with stories similar to theirs," Nathan-Garner says, adding that "a lot of times if they see that person has received treatment at MD Anderson, then, they will want to follow through and do the same thing."

It seems that the average consumer uses social media for everything today. One can track an entire family history through online records, speak to clients all over the world through video conferencing services, and even access one’s bank account and bills with the click of a button. Given that people are turning to the Internet and social media sites more than ever, it only makes sense that health care companies have a presence on these services so that they, too, can better connect with their clients.

Before crafting your digital marketing plans for your health care site, it is first important to examine who exactly is using them to search for health care information. An in-depth survey by Kantar Media did just that.1 This survey, including data on over 165 million adults, looked at the reasons why people might search for health-related information on the Internet. Here are some of the more interesting findings:

• Of those surveyed, 53% in the Kantar Media study said that social networking was their main reason for accessing the Internet in the last 30 days; 4% used Facebook or Twitter to obtain/research the health care information they accessed.
• In the United States in 2012, 55% of Internet users employed social media with a focus on health and wellness. Among them, 26% visited sites with usergenerated content like Wikipedia, 23% watched informational videos, and 23% viewed blogs about a given health topic.
• Nearly 25% of survey respondents reported that they use social networking sites frequently or occasionally as online health resources (a percentage that has grown every year since 2010).

As for who the people using social media sites to research medical and health information are, Kantar’s Media study found the following:

• The age group that is most likely to use the Internet for health research is 35- to 44-year-olds, followed by those aged 25 to 34, and then 18- to 24-year-olds. The use of social media sites for health care purposes dropped off dramatically at age 45 and continued to decrease with age.
• Consumers with chronic conditions are much more likely to use social networking sites as online sources of health information. Some of the most common conditions include depression, diabetes, migraines, bipolar disorder, and anxiety.

Knowing these important social demographics when creating the digital marketing plan for your health care business can greatly improve the success of your overall social media strategy as well as ensure that you are targeting the right audience in your posts. The sites where users sought health care information were spread pretty evenly across the board, so it is important not to focus all of your content on just one social media channel.

Were you surprised by any of these numbers or statistics? Be sure to let us know your thoughts about the survey and social media for health care!

Healthcare by its very nature is social in many aspects. One of the recent developments of medical professionals is to enter the social media platform. We are all aware of the shift from volume based models to a more socially acceptable value based system in healthcare. The relationship between doctors and patients is getting more similar to other industries, i.e. the relation between a service provider and a consumer. The medical industry is seeking out new ways to implicate customer satisfaction and playing with the tools that proved to increase engagement and reach.

To reach out to customers, one of the savviest ways in this modern market is the use of social media. In fact, according to the Journal of Internet Medical Research, more than 60% of adults use the internet to come across health related information and treatment procedures. This isn’t surprising as the culture of this world is seeking more of an instant solution. When an individual is sick, he wants to know what has really happened and wants it at that very instance. There is really no waiting. Social media in this case is perfectly positioned for healthcare professionals to reach out to patients and provide solutions in an effective and valuable way.

An example for the extensive use of social media in healthcare practiced could be well understood by the stand of the Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media. It is one of the most popular healthcare channels on YouTube with more than 450,000 followers on Facebook and 600,000 on Twitter. Further, they have come up with different Facebook pages especially concerning different departments including gynecology, breast cancer, cochlear implants and many more.

Also the Mayo Clinic has three different blogs targeting different audiences. The main idea is to share expertise with the masses that would very well be your main customer base. Services provided in social media networks for medical professionals would also include webinars, training programs and access to resources. It is quite relevant to assume here that social media plays an increasingly important part in the healthcare industry as more and more professionals and institutions seek the path taken by the Mayo Clinic.

Digital communications and especially social media are laying deep roots in day-to-day healthcare operations. This network includes doctors, patients, nurses, therapists, clinics, hospitals and other professionals who use social platform as a tool for a more effective and far reaching means of communications. YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc are used to share symptoms, research medical information, offering opinions, seeking similar communities, and provide health plans and even prescribe drugs. People use the social medium to keep in touch with other in similar communities having the same symptoms and seeking out references for a proper treatment. If something has worked out for one, it surely will work out for others.

Another report by the Pew Internet Research titled “State of Social Media in 2013” suggests that 60% of U.S. patients use social tools like Titter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest to stay connected and interact with others having the same interests. 35 % of American adults have tried to figure out medical conditions from others who might have gone through a similar condition. The e-patient idea is a powerful growing force challenging to break the traditional barrier that had existed between healthcare providers and patients. The new system is more enables, empowered, equipped and engaged and could be further used to educate and enhance health by offering DIY techniques in some instances.

Drawing inspiration from their social habits, the majority of internet users today are demanding access to online information and seeking out alternative ways of treatment that improve care and contain costs. Social media is acting as a catalyst to drastically impact patient motivation and the interaction with service provider. The collaborative technologies of today and the resulting innovations also allows for quicker dispersal of information and help patients who seek out immediate and cost effective medical services.

Since now, the traditional methods of interaction between patients and healthcare professionals allowed little opportunity for the patients to have a say on the logistics, alternative and the methods of care delivery. Now, with the connected setup, the idea has thoroughly changed and patients are empowered to have a greater say and play a role in their wellness and treatment.

The medical service provider is nothing less than any other consumer market. There is competition between service providers (both institutions and individuals) and patients have a wide opportunity to choose someone they would be comfortable with. This could be intimidating for physicians who still want to stick to old school methods, but it certainly benefits everyone.

Known by many other names including the Nintendo Generation, Generation Next, Echo Boomers and most notably Generation Y, the newest group to the healthcare consumer market includes over 75 million adults born since 1982. These millennial members constitute one of the most challenging groups to market to.  

Why? In a nutshell, these younger patients grew up with computers, smart phones, Wii's and Playstations.   These “digital natives,” are multi-taskers who skim and scan so much information on a daily basis making it challenging for healthcare marketers to attract and engage this elusive group.  They are much less accepting of traditional marketing methods, proving more skeptical and difficult to reach than their predecessors.

On the bright side, these members show similar characteristics to their Generation X predecessors when they begin to shop for healthcare services leaving marketers not completely in the dark. For example, we know that they use several sources of information including online search, reviews and ratings sites and social sites for initial research.

Unique to this generation is their independence from physician referrals and reliance on self-directed care decisions when ultimately choosing a service or provider, which makes it tricky for marketers to target and track.

In response to this, healthcare marketers need to find creative ways to communicate and connect with constant personalized content, most notably through social and online platforms, to effectively reach this digital generation.  Additionally, physicians need to provide a total care experience to keep this group from switching doctors or hospitals if they have a negative experience, which is a common trait of this generation.

According to The Advisory Board Company “Millennials show a greater interest in wellness and preventative treatment, but prefer to access health information through the Internet or a fitness center rather than through hospital services.”  They still believe Doctor’s are the most reliable source of information; however, this generation will consult everyone from their friends, family, to the networks they have built around social media.  

So what works with healthcare marketing to Generation Y?

• Marketing Campaigns free of a lot of jargon - they like it clean and simple,
• Interactive campaigns that allows them to engage someone in conversation,
• Blogs that educate them on new medical technologies, or medical breakthroughs, or healthy ways to improve their lives,
• Medical Social Media Marketing to peak their interest and draw them in, particularly, You Tube Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest.

Thus, even though these millennials at first appearance can be a tough sell, there’s a huge opportunity to connect with these consumers more deeply and help win their trust. For they value patient-centered relationships and quality connections through various channels making them a loyal bunch of healthcare consumers for years to come.

In the age of social media, doctors, patients, and ethicists face new dilemmas over organ transplants.

Many of us have seen the pictures of Sarah Murnaghan, a little girl with brown hair named sitting in a hospital bed with a machine strapped to her nose, forcing oxygen in and out of her lungs. She needed a lung transplant, but medical rules typically prevent children under twelve from receiving adult lungs—and pediatric lungs are rarely available.

In May, 2013, Murnaghan’s family started a petition on the Web site change.org, asking the organ-allocation rule makers to reverse their policy. It led to a lawsuit in which a federal judge ruled in early June that Murnaghan should be eligible to join the adult transplant list. She received a pair of adult lungs a week later. The lungs failed, and she received another pair three days after that. Today, she’s alive and recovering.