Seems like we have mentioned this before but a conversation with a client the other day reminded me that the art of marketing and promoting our healthcare organizations is really an endless task that can always, always be improved upon.
And the first place is almost always with the source – the patient or the referring physician, whoever you consider your customer. There are formal methods for obtaining good information about your customer’s wants and needs, i.e. surveys, physician relation liaisons, but let’s take a quick look at some informal methods that are easy to initiate right now.
Social media tools allow for listening in an informal method. This kind of surveillance can help you be more nimble and lead you to a greater awareness of new trends or provide market insight that can help you navigate your outreach.
Listening can involve paying attention to your brand (or your competitors’) as it is mentioned in on-line conversations. You most likely have set up a Google Alert for specific words and names to help you keep track of mentions. If you haven’t yet done that, go to Google Alert and get started. You can also set up a Twitter alert in the same manner with TweetBeep or use Twitter search for another great listening device. Both are free just like Google Alert. With these search tools, you can capture what is being said about you or your brand on Twitter and in many online conversations.
You may have alerts set for your organization’s name but also consider more generic key words that you are interested in hearing about, i.e. “physician relations,” “oncology,” “wound center” or “healthcare marketing.” You can set up as many alerts as you choose and they can be formal names (your brand name, your competitor’s brand name, a specific physician’s name etc.) or key words or phrases.
There are a variety of services, free and premium that you can access to help you listen more closely. Social Mention scan blogs, forums and such for your key words or brand name while BackType provides other social media listening devices.
Monitoring the alerts is only half of the process of listening. Once you get beyond brand reporting, you need to consider the more complete context of the conversations. What drives the conversation? Is there a need or a frustration? To get a more complete picture of your patients’ needs or how best to improve or promote your healthcare services, you will want to be more in touch with the overall conversation that is happening about the particular medical service you provide. Scanning is worthwhile but make sure you a deeper sense of what the conversation is about.
Tags: brand alerts, listening, on-line tools
