Rules of Engagement: Hospitals, Twitter and Potential Patients

A hospital’s main goal in utilizing Twitter is to turn web traffic into foot traffic. But there lies a fundamental problem. Do users respond to twittering hospitals in a meaningful way, and do tweets catalyze facility utilization?

The truth is many hospitals are simply using Twitter to push information out into the world. And while it’s important to mention award wins, promote hospital events and inform the community about service lines, you have to have a two-way conversation with followers to gain any meaningful traction. Hard-line brand building is a well-practiced mode of operation among the few

hundred hospitals actually using Twitter. But twitterers are looking for engagement that informs, entertains and prompts them to take some sort of action (like retweeting or coming to you for care).

With so many online conversations happening on Twitter, there are plenty of opportunities to build your hospital’s brand in a way that gets people through your doors. If your hospital is already using Twitter, don’t stop what you’re doing. The rules of engagement in social mediadom aren’t written in stone, but basic marketing principles that have been around for decades still apply.

Take steps to engage your Twitter audience: 1. Ask followers what they want2. Host condition-specific chats3. Follow twitterers in your community4. Monitor what’s said about your hospital on Twitter and respond5. Give service lines a voice6. Employ copywriting 1017. Show off your hospital’s best programs and doctors

Give your current Twitter efforts a boost by:

Asking. Ask followers what they think about your hospital and online activities. Twitter is great for real-time qualitative surveys. If you consistently give your current followers the information they want, they’ll keep returning and will recommend you to their followers.

Chatting. To get more traffic to your website and Twitter page, host a live chat where viewers can submit questions via Twitter. Make these events regular, especially if they become popular. Make sure the chat topics cover interesting, relevant issues to which your audience will likely contribute. If possible, recruit the most gregarious expert on staff to host the stream. Personality is king and queen.

Following. If you have more followers than you are following, look for community members and organizations to connect with. Think about the groups your patients are affiliated with. There’s no reason why a hospital shouldn’t be hooked up with local organizations that target specific groups or health conditions. All groups can benefit from your health education.

Monitoring. Use Twitter search to see what people are saying about your brand. If something is amiss, investigate it, fix it and tweet about your repair to the person(s) affected. Also, perform regular Twitter searches for key terms that relate to your service line specialties. Use search.twitter.com/advanced to find an opportunity (i.e., someone’s need) in your area; then artfully offer your services or event as a solution.

Segmenting. For hospital systems, consider separate Twitter pages for the most visited centers or most commonly treated conditions. You don’t want to confuse or isolate your audience by letting a general hospital page morph into a pediatric or cancer centric page. While any traffic is good traffic, your page name(s) should be distinguishable so you don’t frustrate visitors.

“WHAT do you want tweeted from your hospital?” included a link to the following poll:

WHAT do you want to see tweeted from your hospital?

Appointment reminders Post discharge follow-up Tips/advice (e.g., healthy recipes from

the dietitian) Tweets from live education events Hospital news Medical advice (e.g., how to avoid the flu) Service line marketing

Missed yesterday’s flu web chat? Not to worry – catch a full replay w/ all of the doctors’ answers anytime.

Hospital is VERY dirty and disgusting compared to our hospital! It almost feels like I gotta sanitize my hands every 15 minutes!

Trying to get out of Hospital. Smells disgusting, dirty and dangerous! Has its own police station in the hospital!

The way the emergency room at Hospital (formerly know as ) is the pits. It takes about 10 hours 2 C a doc.

Sizzling. Don’t limit your 140 characters to abstract findings that the fast-paced nature of Twitter will quickly swallow. Employ a little copywriting 101 and do some research to create informative headlines that pop and, therefore, are more likely to get retweeted.

Showing. Show off your best asset regularly. For example, if your hospital prides itself on short wait times, tweet actual wait times. Tell the twittersphere when the waiting room is near empty. Think about how “no line, no waiting” works in grocery stores. In addition, back in July 2009, Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Mo., tweeted a surgery being performed on a little boy who was severely burned on his neck by fireworks six months earlier. The hospital’s tweets were deployed in a way that educated the public and informed family members, who didn’t have to wait long for periodic updates about the child’s progress:

WFUBMC researchers successfully grow replacement penile erectile tissue for rabbits; potential to benefit patients.

Get your hands tested to see how clean they are—or aren’t. 10am to 3pm Th, Oct. 15 Fountain Entrance Lobby UI Hospitals and Clinics.

Dr. Singhal is scrubbing in to prepare for the surgery

Dr. Singhal will be performing surgery to insert tissue expanders into the patient’s neck.

In case you’re wondering. Our patient’s mom gave us permission to tweet about her son’s surgery.

Dr. has made the 2nd incision, & is now making room in the neck to fit the expander.

Our patient’s mother just said she is grateful for the updates on Twitter

By inflating the expanders over time, new skin will continue to stretch and grow

At the end of the expansion there will be lots of extra tissue to allow Dr. to perform plastic surgery to reconstruct the skin defect.

Hospitals occupy a unique position in social media. While regulations bar certain actions from taking place online, you, unlike other service providers, know that your followers will always want your advice. Potential and existing patients already patrol the Internet and social media for insight on symptoms, where to get care, who the best physicians are, and so forth.

With a multi-dimensional Twitter strategy, you can position your hospital as an all-around problem solver. Whether you’re offering directions or sending out a thank you, your expert presence online can encourage traffic offline.