6 Tips for Healthcare Marketers: Using Social Media Conversations in Content Marketing
Over the summer, Wendy’s turned customer tweets into lyrics for burger-inspired love songs. As tempting as it is (ha, ha) for healthcare marketers to drape bear rugs over white pianos and serenade their audiences, there are far less, uh, cheesy ways to utilize social media conversations in your content marketing.
People use social media to talk about healthcare not only on a large, national scale as states and businesses implement changes related to the Affordable Care Act, but also on a small, personal scale as they share with friends experiences of their doctors and local hospitals. As a healthcare marketer, you should carefully monitor these conversations as they relate both to your own services, providers and facilities and to your competitors.
Undoubtedly, you’ll hear comments your organization will want to address from the perspectives of customer service (and patient experience), employee training and policy/procedure reviews. However, you can also mine information for use in marketing – specifically in the creation of content.
Here are six ideas to get you started:
- In the moment, your replies to comments and tweets amount to “real time” content marketing. Your words do more than show that you’re responsive in the literal sense: they demonstrate you’re engaged with (concerned about, interested in, etc.) your audiences… an important element in the branding of every hospital, insurer and provider.
- If you’re seeing similar confusions repeated or seeing misconceptions perpetuated, be proactive and write about those topics for Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s), blogs and newsletters.
- When you hear serious criticism of your competitors, you’ll want to take steps internally (of course) to avoid the same pitfalls. There may also be opportunities to create content (television and radio spots, online ads or videos) showcasing your organization as the answer to these specific pain points.
- If you’re hearing praise, be sure to say thank you… and share the testimonial as a piece of content wherever you think appropriate. In addition, take a closer look. It’s possible that the positive patient/consumer experience referenced in the social conversation could make a more in-depth story. And if you’re noticing specific aspects of your business or individual employees that social media users seem especially happy and excited about? Follow their lead and create related content about that service/provider. (Bonus tip: Be agile enough that you can do this quickly… while the energy and momentum are strongest.)
- And what about complaints and criticisms – can those lead to content beyond the customer service-type response? Absolutely! There’s this relatively quick fix: “We heard from our patients/customers, and we’ve made the following changes as a result.” And this slightly more introspective approach: “What we learned from an issue with x” or “How we’re meeting the challenge of y.”
- In addition to monitoring for mentions of your organization and your competitors, listen in on conversations on other topics related to your industry and your consumers. These may include specific keywords around health, wellness, disease, injury, treatment, cost, etc. It’s also a good idea to pay attention to community events and business and political developments in your region. Once you know what people are talking about and what interests them about it, you have a list of ideas for new material that’s interesting… not just to you, but to the social audience.
Want a little help setting up some basic monitoring? Tweet @medialogic with a request – we’re happy to share a couple of tips. And in case you’re curious about the Pretzel Bacon Cheeseburger, here’s one of those love songs from Wendy’s:
