Social Networks as Marketing Tools

Now it may be a bit of a reach but judging the habits of internet users as it relates to searching and accessing healthcare information, an assumption made is that similar patterns for searching pet health issue would follow. Unfortunately there appears to be no reported studies on internet usage related to pet health care. Despite the lack of direct information as it relates to pet health enquiries, the questions remains are Social Networking Sites (SNS) an effective marketing and management tool for healthcare in general and veterinary medicine specifically?

As background – approximately 62% US Households own a pet (about 71 million households). From the 2008 American Veterinary Medical Association Sourcebook - nearly 50% of owners considered their pet to be a family member and 48% considering pets to be companions. The demographics would indicate that a significant portion of the population and specifically internet user could be leveraging the media as source of healthcare/pet care information. Since we do not have numbers of pet owner utilization of SNS for accessing information on pet health issues, we turn to data available for healthcare in general.

In looking at “e-patients” as defined in Pew Internet to be internet users who research healthcare issues, we see that approximately 61% of internet users fit this category. Of those, 39% (or approximately 23% of all internet user) utilize SNS with Facebook, MySpace being the primary sites. The Pew Internet study1 further indicates that “only a small portion” of “e-patients” utilizes SNS as source for obtaining health related issue, following or posting health related comments.

A recent survey conducted by GreyStone.Net with a panel of (human) hospitals determined that 90% have or are actively monitoring social media sites, of which 60% have a present on Facebook and Twitter sites. The primary motivation for seeking a present was to attract new patients, along with supporting Community Relation, Customer Service, Employee Engagement and Crisis Management but only 12.5% of hospitals realizing some level of success. The article suggests that hospitals with a clear plan and marketing strategy (which is approximately 30% of the participating hospitals) are capable of achieving value in having a Social Media presence2.

Given the relatively few number (no exact figure indicated from Pew Internet), of “e-patients” using SNS for healthcare information, the fact that some hospitals have being successful in recruiting new patients is actually an important finding. The significant is every more impressive give that SNS have just recently achieved momentum and entering into main stream utilization. Significant growth has been demonstrated in just the past year as indicated by studies conducted by comScore3. In the one study it was shown that Facebook in 2009 has double it audience – now close to 112 million and is currently the 4th “ranked property” on the internet, accounting for 7% of all internet use. Additional comScore information indicates that the top three SNS in the United States are Facebook > 100 million; MySpace 70 million and LinkedIn at 30 million users.

What exactly are the effective tools to be a presence on SNS? The studies do not specifically address the success tools used and the caveat is that both GreyStone and comScore happen to be marketing and as well as research organizations (not releasing the tools of success within the studies). Assumption to effectiveness would be same as with other internet media sources (e.g. timely update, relative material, interesting stories and information written to intended audience).

In tracking success, a starting point is to at least establish a presents on the primary sites. Along with setting up the sites is the need to determining measuring tool to be employed.

At Atlantic Street Veterinary Hospital Pet Emergency Center, we began surveying clients in December of 2009 to determine drivers to patient visits. Now with nearly 3 months of data, the results are very telling. In the “How did you hear about us” surveys that we have performed, Internet represents our third highest resource used by clients in coming to our facility. This ranks behind direct referral from our local colleagues and previous visits but ahead of Yellow pages, site location and even “Word of Mouth/Friends and Family” referrals. Not know is the SNS impact as we have only recently created a Facebook connection as well as Twitter. This is certainly an area that we will closely watch and perhaps begin getting even more specific in our questions related to internet resource being utilized, as we see SNS gaining traction.

1 Fox, S and Jones, S: The Social Life of Health Information (June 2009) Pew Internet & American Life Project
2 Roberts A: New Numbers on Social Media [Web blog] (January 20, 2010) GreyStone.Net
3 Lipsman, A: 2009: Another Strong Year for Facebook [Web blog] (January 21, 2010) comScore Voices