There’s a recent article at the Baltimore Sun that describes how Doctors offices are trying services like Facebook, Twitter and even Groupon to attract new patients. In fact, through the use of Groupon, one Optometrist expanded their customer based and connected with other eye doctors across the country.

“Groupon has offered a growing number of deals for eye exams, teeth-cleaning and whitening, electrolysis and chiropractic services. Approximately 15 percent of Groupon deals nationwide are for health care services, says Julie Anne Mossler, a company spokeswoman.”

Obviously, buying drugs online not all healthcare services are practical for promoting through discounts. Who’s going to pick an emergency room or gynecologist because of a coupon?  But there are plenty of competitive healthcare services that can make good use of discounts through services like Groupon and reach an entirely new market.   Read the full story.

As companies evolve their marketing programs to digital and online, the pharmaceutical industry is hampered by a lack of clear guidelines from the Food and Drug Administration.  Advertising Age commented on a recent eMarketer study, “DTC Pharmaceutical Marketing Online:A Slow Shift to Digital” that “pharma marketers are waiting around”.  Not only is online marketing effective for growing pharma profits, but it’s where customers spend their time discovering, consuming and sharing information.

From AdAge:

“Pharmaceutical online ad spending is expected hit $1 billion this year and keep rising through 2014, according to report prepared by eMarketer. But until the Food and Drug Administration issues its draft guidelines for online pharma marketing, that growth remains limited.”

“U.S. health-care and pharmaceutical online advertising spending will reach $1 billion for the first time this year, up 10.6% from last year, according eMarketer. By 2014, online ad spending in the health-care and pharmaceutical industry, which includes direct-to-consumer and over-the-counter remedies, is expected to reach $1.52 billion. Yet despite those growth rates, pharma’s share accounts for only about 4% of overall U.S. online ad spending.”

Clearly, there’s a tremendous opportunity for growth in pharma online marketing.  At the same time, the FDA has its challenge in creating guidelines for an industry its still trying to understand.

Panel experts voiced their support for allowing drug and health care companies to access the power of social networks during the Food and Drug Law Institute’s recent Advertising and Promotion Conference in Washington, D.C.

These experts discussed how to communicate the message of drug and health care product safety and risk to the public as they wait for the Food and Drug Administration to set guidelines online pharmacy without prescription on how health care companies and marketers can proceed into the social-media space — regulation that are expected by the end of the year.

“The right patient, the right medication, at the right time, should be our goal,” said panelist Freda Lewis-Hall, the chief medical officer and a senior vice president at Pfizer. “We have narrowing opportunities to provide the best informed, most accurate information about our products.”

The problem, Lewis-Hall said, is staying within strict marketing rules set forth by the FDA, while advice from patients, practicioners and anonymous bloggers goes unchecked.

“We know people don’t know how to vet information available to them in cyberspace,” she said. “But the fact remains that we’re not the trusted source of information.”

Read the full post at SmartBlog on Social Media

With a boom in health related blogs, information sites are now gravitating toward social media.  Patients are increasingly sharing medical experiences and seeking advice from other patients who share similar health concerns.   Online communities are giving patients support, personal experiences, and direct answers – something they cannot always get from experts.

While patients are gravitating toward social media, a recent ClickZ article shares that some healthcare marketers seem to be hesitant:

• WebMD has recently lost ground to rival online communities, such as MedHelp.org.  In an effort to fight back, WebMD launched  Health Exchange putting community content on the front lines.  Marketers have been invited to create branded posts and host consumer discussions about health and wellness for the site, but as of April 5, no marketers had signed on.
• Sharecare, a yet to be launched site from WebMD founder, Jeff Arnold, plans to provide users with info from several points of view including celebrity physicians, hospitals, high-profile health authors, local providers and other users.  The site was projected to launch in early 2010 but has now been pushed out until summer.

With over 60 million consumers sharing health experiences online and over 200 hospitals a part of social networking communities, it’s safe buy rx drugs without prescription to say social media is of great importance to the healthcare marketing mix.  Are regulations and compliance issues hindering marketers from taking the plunge?  The importance of growing patient communities to healthcare marketers will continue to increase as a large and highly accessible consumer base.

If you’re new to Twitter, it’s hard to know what tactics to implement.  And even harder to know what effective tactics to implement.

Here’s a list of 5 Twitter Tips for Healthcare Professionals to ensure you’re utilizing the service to its full potential:

1. Stay confidential – Don’t mention any information that can identify clients or patients. Don’t write anything where a patient could identify themselves – it could be embarrassing for them or break client trust.
   
2. Share information – Do post the link to a great article.  Do retweet great information that aligns with what you are trying Viagra Without Prescription to achieve.  If someone writes something you don’t agree with, do post your apposing view and provide links to evidence. Respond to mentions as much as you can.
3. Think simple – Don’t use jargon. Don’t use a big word where a small one will do. Don’t use three words where one will do. If you need to clarify a tweet, link to a blog post or article on your website.
4. Know your audience – Do determine who your ideal follower is before getting started. Do aim for your posts to align with what they would like to hear. Your Twitter account may rank high in search engine results, so you want to ensure your messages would be appropriate for clients, workmates and potential employers to see.
5. Be engaging – Do work with those in your profession or industry to get more evidence based positive health messages out there. Do follow them, retweet their posts and engage in conversations by replying to their posts. Social media is not competitive – it makes the pie bigger, it doesn’t eat into your piece.

Follow these tips to create effective, meaningful and goal-oriented posts.  If you keep confidentiality and your goals top-of-mind, you’ll be able to see the benefits of social media services like Twitter.  If you haven’t already, create your Twitter account now and be sure to follow @healthcareos for updates, tips and news.

How do hospitals measure their social media ROI? Are they simply tilting at windmills like Don Quixote? Too often, we find ourselves counting the number of Facebook fans or Twitter followers or the number of people who viewed You Tube videos, trying to justify engagement in social media.

However, the bigger question is whether hospitals can afford not to buy prescription drugs without prescription engage.

The post goes on to highlight 8 reasons why it’s no longer an option for hospitals to ignore social media in the marketing mix. We’ve summarized a few here:

• Improve customer service: When problems arise (i.e., a patient is unsatisfied with his or her hospital experience), hospitals can respond immediately and resolve the issue.
• Reach younger health care consumers: While most health care marketing dollars are spent on reaching the Baby Boomer segment, social media efforts can reach the 25-34 year old audience.
• Find blood donors: The article cites one hospital that has organized two blood drives via social media — using Twitter to promote and allowing sign-ups on Facebook.

Has your hospital integrated social media into its marketing mix? How did you convince hospital executives to move forward with the plan?

But a recent blog buy drugs online target=”_blank”>post from SmartBlog on Social Media’s Merritt Colaizzi suggests there may be some hope on the horizon. Despite the added layer of complexity resulting from government regulation, several standout health care and pharmaceutical companies are helping to get the social media ball rolling, including:

• ZocDoc puts patients in touch with physicians, allowing them to book appointments online, as well as provide ratings.

• Hello Health allows patients to create a profile and add a doctor to their “team.” The patient and doctors are then connected via e-mail, IM or video chat.

• TIAA-CREF participates in teal-time discussions and offers advice about retirement on myretirement.org, Facebook and TC_Talks on Twitter (pictured below). It even has its own Apple iPhone app.

Tell us about your own standout story of social media marketing in health care.

Gone are the days when health care marketers were full-time professional storytellers — focused on how best to package stories and engaged in one-way conversations.

Today, storytelling is just a part of the job of health buy prescription drugs online care marketers. With the rise of social media, health care marketers must be focused on facilitating conversations and sharing information.

In this video from a presentation by Dan Dunlop of Jennings — a North Carolina-based advertising and branding firm — the opportunities for social media in health care are highlighted. Dunlop works to clear up some of the fears or misconceptions that some health care marketers may have regarding social media in the presentation, “Demystifying Social Media & Making It Relevant to Healthcare.”

Clearly, 2009 was a year of new beginnings for the health care industry — particularly in regards to the acceptance of social media channels like Twitter. But as we move into 2010, will that acceptance shrink, remain stagnant or skyrocket?

We don’t have a health care Twitter crystal ball. But we do have an interview with Phil Baumann, registered nurse and author, by HCPLive. Baumann shared with HCPLive his predictions for the future of Twitter for health care marketing:

Since writing 140 Viagra Online Health Care Uses of Twitter, I’ve been very impressed with the spike in interest in using social technologies in health care. On Twitter alone, there’s a growing community of patients, doctors, nurses, healthcare marketers and others passionate about bringing about changes in health care. I was particularly impressed with the rise in Twitter chats to spur discussion, such as Health Care Social Media (#hcsm). …

I look forward to 2010. My prediction: 2010 is going to be a huge year in social media in general. We’ll start to get over the shiny-new-toy mentality and get into a more let’s-get-on-with-it approach. Healthcare will probably proceed much more cautiously than other industries, but I believe the continued and growing public discussions will help catalyze the revolution.

Additional points made by Baumann on the future of Twitter for health care marketing include:

• FDA’s November public hearing on social media — the first of its kind — demonstrates the dire need for more attention to social media in pharma and other related industries.
• Saleforce’s introduction of Chatter, a social networking tool to help businesses keep tabs on sales and customer service, shows the power of micro-sharing as a communication and collaboration medium.
• If additional major players — SAP, for example — enter this market, health care organizations are more likely to adopt micro-sharing.

What predictions do you have for widespread adoption of social media channels by the health care field?

For health care organizations first embarking on a social media strategy, there’s no definitive formula for what works and what doesn’t work. Perhaps the greatest tool health care organizations have for developing a social media strategy are others’ success stories.

The Significant Science blog recently interviewed John Sharp of Cleveland Clinic, which has successfully rolled out a social media strategy that includes blogging, microblogging and participation on other social networking sites.

Here’s what Sharp had to say about the stakeholders within healthcare organizations that should be involved in launching social media efforts:

Managing social media in health care organizations requires a broad assembling of stake holders who are of a common mindset. These should include: marketing, public relations, information technology, medical education, medical librarians and clinical staff including physicians and nurses. The mix should include early adopters as well as those relatively new to social media to buy drugs online no prescription provide a balance. Additional stakeholders to consider are: a patient representative, an attorney (at least as a consultant), and employee communications.

Additional takeaways from the interview include:

• The future is mobile. The marketing team at Cleveland Clinic is now working on optimizing wellness tools for the mobile web.
• Health 2.0 and Medicine 2.0 are two of the most important, useful conferences for health care marketers embarking on social media.
• Health care organizations should develop a social media policy for employees, paying particular attention to the security of individual social networking sites.