Do you handle social media marketing at your hospital?

Would you like to learn some new social media secrets that will help you do your job better?

In part 1 of this article, I interview Nancy Cawley Jean, communications and media relations specialist, focused on social media at Lifespan, a health system in Rhode Island. Nancy has been in healthcare communications for more than twenty-five years in several different roles.

“In all of those roles I was never able to make one-on-one connections with people until now. Within healthcare, unless you’re a direct provider, you’re not able to make these personal connections with patients and so for me social media is really rewarding.”

Making one-on-one connections with patients is very important in hospital social media marketing

Image Source: Leechia on photobucket

Nancy shares her experience as a successful hospital social media manager and content creator.

Q. What are some of the social media goals of Lifespan?

A. Our goal for social media is to increase brand awareness for each of our five hospitals. Each of them has a specialty and our main objective is to position the hospital and our physicians as authorities in their particular space.

For example Rhode Island Hospital is our largest facility with 719 beds. It’s an acute care facility with the region’s only level one trauma center and specializes in neuro-surgery, cardiac surgery and other specialties that are all specified in the marketing plan. So our social media goal for Rhode Island is to promote these specialties –  and again this aligns completely with the hospital’s marketing plan.

Our content too is tailored around the specialty area of the hospital and we try to post social media updates on Twitter or Facebook that aren’t all about us but rather reaching out to our communities in a way that keeps us top of mind with them.

Q. What kind of tone do your social media conversations take?

A. We’re trying to build a more personal relationship with our audience so that it’s not just ‘corporate speak’. Everyone in our community knows that it’s Nancy that’s tweeting and posting on Facebook. If I’m going to be away for example, I let people know that someone else will be filling in.

We like to be very personal even in responding to issues. For example if someone tweets, “I can’t find a parking space, I’m going to be late for my appointment,” I try to respond as quickly as I can to offer them a map of the campus. I’ve even offered to call their doctor’s office to let them know that the patient is running late trying to find a parking spot.

Q. How do your patients respond to your personal touch?

A. The response has been amazing. Sometimes people mention the name of our hospitals on Twitter not knowing there’s someone listening on the other end. When they receive a response they’re always very amazed and grateful that we recognize them, and that we even send them best wishes for family members who are at our hospitals.

Because of that outreach they’ll stay in touch, keep us posted on the progress of their family member and it’s just really nice to have these engaging conversations with them.

More to come…

In part 2 of this series (next week), we will hear more social media tips from Nancy Cawley Jean including some of the ‘must-haves’ for a successful hospital social media manager. Stay tuned!

Over to you: Share your feedback and let us know what you know what you thought about this conversation with Nancy.