How to Get Started With Social Media for Your Hospital or Practice

I often write under the assumption that my readers, primarily hospital staff and healthcare marketers, already know how to use social media. But the glaring reality is that only 1,188 of the 5,795 registered hospitals in the United States are using social media. That’s only 20 percent!

So, today, I write for the other 80% who are trying to figure out where to start. Welcome!

Let me say this first: if you’ve held off on using social media because you are meticulous about wanting to do things the right way, then I applaud you. Just because a thousand plus hospitals are using social media, doesn’t mean they’re using social media strategically to benefit their bottom line. Your hospital is better off having no social media program at all, than to have a purposeless social media presence just for the sake of having one.

On the contrary, if you’re stalling on getting started with social media for your hospital because you’re afraid, or feel that you lack the time, or feel that you don’t have the budget, then I’m happy to deliver some good news to you:

1. Social media is not scary (and conversations are happening online with or without your participation — that should be scary enough to get you started)
2. Social media time investment can be manageable when you work smart (and it has a big payoff for consistent effort)
3. Social media is incredibly affordable, especially compared to some of the stale traditional tactics you’re still paying for (and not seeing results from)

We’ve seen hospitals, health systems and even small practices benefit from our online Social Media Builder videos series, so it’s something I wanted to share for those in the ‘getting started’ phase. It’s an affordable membership that takes you through valuable step-by-step tutorials to help you put a strategic social media program in place. Heck, even your intern can’t screw this up! Just about anyone, from your marketing intern to receptionist, can contribute to laying the groundwork for your social media program by going through these chronological videos, checklists and worksheets.

You can download more information and purchase the membership for $1,979.00 here by selecting the Social Media Builder Video Series option.

If you need a social media program that drives profitable patient volume while increasing the community’s awareness of your organization and physicians, I’d highly recommend you consider this option knowing you can get your social media program setup in as quickly as eight weeks.

You can view other Educational Resources we offer at http://www.turnupyourvolume.com/edu.

We hope this is valuable to those of you looking for tools to help you get started.