Are hospitals in India harnessing the power of social media to grow business and visibility or struggling to understand the medium? By M Neelam Kachhap
Social media has impact, and is instant. Much like the Internet transformed our lives at the turn of the century, social media is impacting our lives and business today. Networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest are defining the way we reach and interact with clients and customers. One of the most talked about topics on social media is health. Be it information on diseases or queries about hospital services, conversation on healthcare delivery are enticingly high on social media. “Many people use the Internet to get additional healthcare information but most of that knowledge is unstructured, inaccessible or more often, unreliable. Social media adds a layer of social validation to online information that makes it seem credible (there’s another debate around whether more information is better),” says Dr Viren Shetty, Senior Vice President of Strategy & Planning, Narayana Hrudayalaya. In fact social media is an extension of the word – of – mouth culture. “Healthcare as a service category works on word of mouth. People always recommend good doctors and hospitals to their friends and family at the first given opportunity. Nowadays, since social media is being rampantly used, this creates an additional platform for people to talk about healthcare providers,” shares Vivek Shukla, GM and Head of Marketing-GCC, Aster DM Healthcare.
It is a two-way communication platform. “Users today are self-diagnosing themselves, going as far as even researching about remedies and cures. Social media ensures a two-way discussion where not only is the user reading about a condition/ disease but is also getting answers. In fact, I would go as far as to say that social media is the best tool for any country’s health department to make sure all citizens are in line with the best healthcare facilities and practices,” says Chiragh Cherian, Director – Online & Below the Line Initiatives, Perfect Relations. “If there is one thing that social media does most effectively is create awareness. First step to good healthcare in any country is to make the people aware, whether it is about precautions, cures or centers where treatments can be found. Case in point is the recent Ebola epidemic. Had there not been social media, the wide-spread knowledge about precautions and symptoms would not have reached the people at such a fast pace and many more lives could have been lost,” he adds.
Although there are no studies to illustrate the number of hospitals using social media in India, big corporate hospitals have been early adopters. “Most of the large hospitals in India run Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts. I can’t comment on whether we use them effectively, but this is a nascent field and we’re all still trying to get over losing our Blackberries. Social media gives hospitals and doctors the tools to have two-way conversations with patients and this benefits the patients a lot more than in years past,” points out Shetty. A larger patient base has more scope to engage in a two-way communication. Examples like Apollo Hospital, Fortis Hospital, Max Healthcare and Narayana Hrudayalaya have had accounts on at least three social media networks. Besides a large number of doctors employed with these hospitals engage with patients like never before. “We have seen that today most doctors use Facebook or Twitter and also maintain good websites. As far as I know, very few hospitals make their mark on social media and actually provide necessary help to patients,” feels Dr Srinidhi Karti Chidambaram, Vice – President, Health Communications & International Patients, Apollo Hospitals and Senior Consultant, Special Quality Initiatives, Apollo Hospitals. Ideally, hospitals should use social media to understand any unique requirements or pain points of their existing services through user generated content, but most hospitals online do not use this medium effectively. “Almost all hospitals have a profile on one or more social media channels. But most of them do not use it effectively. They need to work proactively on relevance and impact all the time. Making a Facebook page just for the sake of it and loud self-propaganda on it defeats the purpose and sometimes even harms the brand,” shares Shukla. Looking through another lens Cherian says, “You would be surprised that not only large hospitals, but also pharmacies and independent clinics use social media. However, each of them has their own level of outreach, whether it’s social media or even online advertising and clinic listings. The large hospitals rely on social media to dig into the medical tourism influx in the country.”
Are you ignoring the elephant in the room?
With the advent of low cost mobile technology and access to telecom services, penetration of Internet has doubled in India. With this the reach of social media has crossed social as well as geographical boundaries. According to “Mobile Internet in India 2015” a report released by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and IMRB International in June 2015, there are approximately 371 million mobile Internet users in the country as of June 2016. The report said that year-on-year growth of mobile internet users in India for December 2014-2015 was 71 per cent in urban India while the user base in rural India has gone up by 93 per cent. Clearly, Internet is the mainstream in India today and not keeping up with this flow may not be favourable for hospitals especially when there are numerous benefits in doing so.
Not just a fad
Although logging-in may seem like a remote way to achieve patient safety and care goals, it may just be the remedy hospitals are looking for to create awareness. “Social media is indeed a very powerful tool in healthcare particularly in creating health awareness which is the first step in disease prevention,” says Chidambaram. Another reason for hospitals to be on social media is easier access to community outreach. “If used well, hospitals can use social media to reach out to a more targeted audience. It can help make messages and initiatives viral. It is a great tool to spread socially relevant messages that have a bearing on healthcare,” opines Shukla.
Besides this, patients looking for support from people suffering from similar diseases find solace on social media. “Doctors shouldn’t treat diseases over facebook but the more important role of social media in healthcare is around connecting patients with each other. There are countless support groups on social media for patients suffering from chronic or terminal conditions. These support groups have tremendous psychological value and fill the social vacuum created by the nuclear family structure,” shares Shetty.
Public relation is another growing discipline that effectively uses social media. “Starting from talking about the core services, to specialists, the hospitals can also use social media effectively for other brand building activities. These could be World Breast Cancer Awareness Day, Marathons for Awareness, etc. These not only help build the brand but are also used as a tool to make people aware. I am sure that the number of women who go for mammograms today is way more than the number five years ago. All this is because of the awareness that hospitals have spread using various tools, social media being a major one of them,” says Cherian.
Tips on using linkedin to engage healthcare professionals (Courtesy LinkedIn)
Below are a few examples of how specific healthcare industries can use LinkedIn groups to interact with healthcare professionals in a credible place where they are seeking out information to increase their understanding of the medical field:
- Healthcare IT companies can use groups to start conversations around pain points in the industry, such as electronic health records and management, and increase awareness around products and information that offer solutions.
Groups like Healthcare Information Technology and the National Association for Healthcare Quality each have hundreds of discussions every month on a range of Healthcare IT topics. - Pharmaceutical companies have a similar opportunity within groups to engage with healthcare professionals around upcoming events and launches.
Conferences and product launches can be promoted within existing groups or new groups can be created that are dedicated to a specific event, for example Healthcare Conference: A Student Club Conference at Harvard Business School - Authentically responding to discussions or starting conversations with group members about what a company is offering and the impact on patients can elevate your image with healthcare professionals more than direct marketing alone.
Some of the most popular group topics range from how new health tracking tools are changing the way doctors can treat patients to holistic approaches to healthcare.
Groups such as Continuing Medical Education can be used to highlight education materials and invite discussions on new research findings or upcoming journal articles.
Many hospitals introduce new services on social media as well as training programmes and workshops. “Hospitals use social media as an extension of their marketing strategy. Some of them announce the launch of new departments, new specialities, or new hospitals in new locations. Some hospitals conduct marketing campaigns thinly disguised as awareness campaigns on subjects like stroke prevention, diabetes, or heart health. Other hospitals conduct workshops and seminars online with videos, live Q&A and questionnaires,” shares Shetty.
Brand-building activity is yet another use of social media to create value. “There are many roles a hospital needs to play when using social media. Not only are they supposed to build their brand and talk about their services, specialists, they must also perform the duty of making people understand,” opines Cherian. “You cannot let a complaint or SOS on your social media handle go ignored or unanswered for long. The approach is simple. Set your teams into two departments, reactive and proactive. Your reactive team has to consist of a 24-hour tracking and monitoring and ORM (Online Reputation Management) mechanism. The proactive team is a mirror to your corporate communications and marketing departments. If a hospital is on social media, the team has to be sewed into the corporate communications and marketing departments. Unless there is a good sync between the three, being on social media will become a disadvantage rather than an advantage,” Cherian adds.
What’s the ROI for putting your pants on!!
Return on investments (ROI) are difficult to determine for a social media activity. Being on social media is important, there is value in it but it is difficult to measure. Many activities at hospitals as in other business cannot be quantified or weighed against or connected to revenues like admin or housekeeping. As a marketing guru once asked ‘What’s the ROI for putting your pants on in the morning’. In fact, marketing activities also cannot be quantified directly in terms of revenues or profits because they do not affect financial outcomes directly. Similarly, social media affects the business through a series of cause and effect relationships so its difficult to calculate ROIs in monetary value. The value that social media brings is in terms of connections and visibility. “ROI for social media is very high, assuming you subtract the manpower costs, because the costs of running online campaigns is next to nothing. Manpower costs get rolled into the overall marketing spend,” says Shetty. In addition, there are various matrix used to track social media like Reach, Site traffic, Leads generated, Sign-ups and conversions etc. “ROI is usually quite good. Mainly because the investments are very minimal and the messages can be targeted at the exact demographic and geographic locations of your choice. Additionally, it is easy to measure the ROI on social platforms as you can gauge the number of responses and conversions clearly,” shares Shukla.
Do it like them
NurseJournal.org a a social community website exclusively for nurses and healthcare professionals gathers social media statistics for hospitals around the US to find the most social media-friendly hospital. A list of 100 hospitals for 2014 has Mayo Clinic on the top with (five lakh Facebook fans, eight lakh Twitter followers) followed by Cleveland Clinic, Baylor Regional Medical Center, Mount Sinai Hospital, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.
Examples of social media engagement
Example 1– One hospital actively promotes Do it Yourself at home videos for first aid and other medical conditions.
Example 2– One healthcare player created a very successful campaign where people can take one pledge for improving their lifestyle and living healthy through social media. This saw active participation from a about two lakh people including celebrities.
Example 3– One hospital engaged corporate players and created a poster designing completion on facebook. Employees of various companies made posters on healthy living and shared on the hospital’s page.
Here in India no such data exists but a cursory look at Facebook reveals that among Indian corporate hospitals Apollo hospital (@TheApolloHospitals) is most liked hospital on Facebook with 2,181,480 likes and 32086 checkins. Narayana Health (@NarayanaHealth) had 1,143,114 likes and 37,282 people talking about it; Aster Medicity (@dmmedcity) has 152,786 likes with 20,652 people talking about it where as Fortis Healthcare (@fortishealth) has 926,222 likes and 23,444 people talking about it on Facebook. There are many hospitals listed on Facebook along with the ones mentioned but do not update their pages frequently and have much less ‘likes’ to display.
Dark side of the moon
Reliability of information has been a key concern while using social media. “People discuss current healthcare-related issues on social media. It is not uncommon for us to see some household tips or some latest information on zika virus on social media. All of us have sometime or the other seen and liked or shared healthcare relevant information with our friends on social media. However, as a word of caution, there is another side to this. Social media can also promote myths and incorrect information. So the society at large should be aware that information needs to be cross verified,” warns Shukla. Providing a different perspective Shetty says, “In innocent times gone by, a hospital’s reputation was developed by word – of – mouth and the reputation of their doctors. This trust took many years to acquire and was earned by organisations that put a lot of effort in being the best in their field. Social media has reduced the cost and time of building a reputation by orders of magnitude. This is both an advantage and a disadvantage because some hospitals who let the work speak for itself didn’t evolve a social media strategy and are losing the battle for our diminishing attention.” This is true for many good hospitals in India. Another major concern for hospitals is negative publicity. “Social media can be used to build up factually inaccurate stories, which is a cause for concern. However, timely interventions can help mitigate such crisis,” shares Chidambaram. Adding to this Cherian says, “This is a sensitive industry. An unsatisfied patient or their family, can use social media to defame a doctor or the entire chain of hospitals. Social media is often seen as a review platform, but what many people do not understand is that medical situations don’t always proved to be 100 per cent successfull. When emotions run high, even a stranger will relate to your situation and spread a negative post.”
Social Media
Case study 1 (Courtesy LinkedIn)
Challenge
GE Healthcare was launching a global campaign supporting GE’s Integrated Healthcare solutions and wanted to translate the campaign digitally into a LinkedIn-specific campaign. With a predefined campaign look / feel and existing video assets to be featured, Vertic – digital agency was tasked to develop a pilot programme to reach GE Healthcare’s target audiences leveraging LinkedIn’s targeting platform and campaign strategy.
The goal of the campaign was to generate awareness of GE Healthcare’s Integrated Care Solutions and the offerings of GE Healthcare’s two business groups; Centricity Business (Financial Management) and Enterprise Imaging.
Each business group had a specific target audience and associated offerings and value propositions, which is why a highly dynamic solution was necessary to fulfill GE Healthcare’s needs. Additional goals were to generate user engagement and consideration of GE Healthcare’s brand and products/ services (i.e., interaction with content) and subsequently, conversions (contact submission, downloads).
Solution
Vertic – digital agency, developed an end-to-end highly customised experience that featured dynamically relevant messaging, content and value propositions according to GE Healthcare’s segment groups. The campaign supported a customised messaging from pre-click (on LinkedIn prior to clicking through) to post-click (redirected from LinkedIn onto GE Healthcare’s campaign site).
Users were targeted in granular detail to ensure qualified traffic according to their LinkedIn profile including industry, company size, role and seniority on LinkedIn and redirected to the campaign landing page. In doing so, users were only presented with tailored messaging and content relevant to their segment group and pain points, in order to ensure a consistent and highly customised experience.
Vertic created and deployed LinkedIn Sponsored Updates that targeted each of the audience groups with customised messages and assets accordingly. Once the user clicked on the Sponsored Update, he/ she was redirected to a dynamic landing page that would change content and messaging according to the user’s role as listed on their LinkedIn profile. For example, if a radiologist targeted with a LinkedIn Sponsored Update clicked through, the landing page would display correlating content, messaging and calls-to-actions relevant to the radiologist role to incite him/her to take the next step in their decision journey.
Likewise, the content assets featured in the landing page featured hero area would dynamically change according to the correlating LinkedIn Sponsored Update that the user had previously clicked on, so that the user’s experience would be consistent and reinforce click through. Additional content was provided to invite users to further engage with GE Healthcare’s products and offerings; content was featured according to the role selected, which could then be downloaded, watched, or shared.
To increase the likelihood of conversions, the contact button was prominently shown throughout the user’s experience as he/ she scrolls through the site. When the user clicks on the contact form they would also have the option to auto-fill the form if signing in through LinkedIn. This auto-fill functionality supports the likelihood of conversion, as the user does not have the fill out the form manually but can complete contact submission within a single click.
Result
The media campaign proved to be successful in engaging the small yet relevant target audiences, with click-through-rates of our CPC campaigns performing as high as 1.28 per cent. (compared to LinkedIn industry benchmark of 0.3 per cent).
Delivering relevant content to each of the target audiences increased the overall engagement and click-through-rate, as users received content relevant to their functions and pain points. The site optimizations made mid-campaign increased conversion rates from .31 per cent to four per cent. A 1,166 per cent increase.
Social Media
Case study 2
Challenge
Philips used to have many different businesses and was known for its television business. Within 10 years, Philips made a complete change. Now it is focused around three main areas; Healthcare (35 per cent of sales), Lighting (28 per cent), and Consumer Lifestyle (37 per cent).
Philips has 118.000 employees worldwide and spends 6% of its sales in R&D which represents $1.8 billion. They focus on B2C and B2B and one of their target on the B2B market are doctors and hospital staff.
On the healthcare side, their main focus is doctors and medical staff where doctors need trustworthy information. They found out that doctors spend a lot of time on the Internet and especially they love being part of communities for sharing information/ fears/ discoveries. Philips wanted to build a sustainable community. They also researched and found five million medical professionals on LinkedIn. They wanted to stick to their mantra: Designed around you, simple.
They wanted to strengthen their brand, create more promoters, focus on clinical staff, build relationships, facilitate dialogue, be trustworthy/ credible.
Solution
They based the whole strategy around three pillars:
- Philips Commercial website: It is “me and the company” where people ask questions about the Philips products and more technical questions. The commercial relationship between Philips and its customers.
- Get Inside Health: It is a stand-alone website which provides valued and trusted information to doctors and medical professionals (see picture). You can find information about oncology, radiology, cardiology (the latest data or research).
- LinkedIn groups: It is more about “me as a professional amongst my peers”. The group is there to facilitate discussions between peers about health issues and concerns.
That is the overall strategy to maximise the healthcare professionals’ experience with Philips, whether they want to get information about their industry, Philips products or interact with other professionals.
They stuck to the Philips mantra: Sense and Simplicity and they applied it to their community building strategy.
Results
Their groups gather more than 11,000 members on LinkedIn, They are in the top five in Health. Lively discussions and professionals exchanging information. Traffic has been rising steadily on both sites, LinkedIn group and Get Inside Health. They went where their audience is, key element for any community building strategy. They really kept it simple with 3 pillars and a small number of groups on LinkedIn. They realised that moderation was key. They used trusted hosts and experts with their strategy to moderate and provide content, they really used influencers to drive memberships and credibility to their LinkedIn groups. They listened and adjusted the groups/ content accordingly.
Another important point to consider here is privacy and regulations. There are no guidelines drawn on the dos and don’ts of using social media by hospitals or healthcare practitioners in India. This has caused dual distress to the hospitals where patient privacy and consent are not taken into account. Also doctors are not sure if using social media will land them on the wrong side of the law. “There aren’t well-defined rules around doctors being listed on social platforms and several doctors have found themselves at the receiving end of a legal notice from their medical councils. Until the government clearly defines what constitutes building awareness, and what constitutes advertising, doctors are staying away from these platforms,” informs Shetty.
Edge of tomorrow
Social media is evolving at a rapid speed. “This is a fast evolving domain. Every other day we witness some innovative way to utilise social media for creating brands and communities. Patient support groups, infusion of medical updates, medical tourism, etc. are a few areas where social media will play a huge role. In the coming years,” opines Shukla. Video sharing is the way to go forward. From important events to product showcase business are exploring ways to engage customers with live videos. Besides, newer apps are taking the market by storm. For example, Snapchat was only seen as a way to share crazy selfies but brands are using it to get their message out. And WhatsApp has become more than message sharing app. It is the fastest way to get someones attention these days. “I believe at the end of the day, healthcare is all about clinical excellence, patient safety and providing a great patient experience. Social media is an adjunct to achieve these and we need to use it effectively to spread the message of good health,” draws Chidambaram. Virtual reality and augmented reality are just on the horizon. Much effectively used by Video Games but can also provide plenty of avenues for social media. Like following a surgery, a stent or a micro camera in real time. “This is the realm of prediction, but large aggregators like facebook and twitter will continue to be used but will become less useful because of the information overload problem. They will probably splinter into several social media platforms focused on healthcare and nutrition. If you’re looking for a fantastic prediction – then algobots will start trawling through your posts and feed this data to the Artificial intelligence over mind, which will predict your mental state and direct dronecopters to dispense 3D printed happy pills directly to your home,” imagines Shetty. The future implications of social media on healthcare are huge and social media cannot be ignored. “This space has already developed. If you are not in it yet, then you’ve already lost. Agencies/ brands that have already adopted this medium have loyal followers and advocates who see them not just as medical organisations but as expert voices in healthcare industry,” signs off Cherian. Healthy Social Media-ing!