Developing a Social Media Marketing Plan

JENNINGS Marketing for Better Health jenningsco.com

IN FOCUS STRATEGY Developing a Social Media Marketing Plan by Mark Shelley and Dan Dunlop You should get familiar with these if you aren’t familiar with the function- It’s time to take your hospital into the tools, but before taking action, you ality, strengths, and weaknesses of the world of social media marketing, but need a strategy for how you’ll engage various platforms. first there are a few items to consider. your stakeholders and target audiences » Culture and preparedness. Start Too many organizations are pursuing using social media. by assessing your organization’s appetite social media without first developing How do you get started? Generally, for social media. How risk averse is it? the strategic rationale that supports and your social media marketing plan should Fear in the C-suite is one of the major guides the program. The appropriate emulate the following typical market- obstacles you’ll face when implementing first step is the development of a social ing communication plan: a social media marketing program. media marketing plan. 1. Identify goals and objectives Determine the steps you need to When developing such a marketing 2. Conduct market analysis (e.g., look take to bring members of your leader- plan, there are many tools for you to at trends, needs, competition, and ship along and prepare them for this consider employing, and the options best practices) venture into the world of social media. grow more varied every day. For example: 3. Implement social media program Start feeding them a steady diet of » Blogs (e.g., Wordpress, Blogger, and components, including integration articles, white papers, and books on Typepad) with a traditional campaign the subject. » Social networks (e.g., Facebook, 4. Assess and allocate resources Ideally, presenting them with a well- MySpace, LinkedIn, and Ning) 5. Monitor and measure reasoned, strategic social media market- » Microblogging (e.g., Twitter, ing plan will help make your leadership Pownce, Tumblr, and Jaiku) That’s the big picture. The following more comfortable with the idea. » Social bookmarking/content shar- steps specify what you should consider » Target audience. Define your tar- ing (e.g., Delicious, Digg, Diigo, when creating a social media marketing get audience and key stakeholders and Fark, and Squidoo) plan for your hospital. Although there research how they use social media. This » Discussion boards and forums are several steps to the process, this need will provide insights that you can apply » Online video (e.g., YouTube and not be an overwhelming endeavor. to your plan. ICYou video) Given what you already know about » Objectives and goals. Take each » Patient communities (e.g., Patients your market and your target audiences, group (e.g., grateful patients, refer- Like Me, MedHelp, Daily Strength, you should be able to draft a prelimi- ring physicians, employees, reporters, and Revolution Health) nary social media marketing plan in just influentials in the community, and » Podcasting a few days. Don’t try to write a book. your board) and outline its associated » Photosharing (e.g., Flickr) Keep it simple and direct. For example, marketing objectives. » Presentation Sharing (e.g., Slide- focus on: Compare these objectives to what Share, myplick, and SlideBoom) » Participation. If you’re not in- you’ve learned about how each group » Virtual worlds (e.g., Second Life) volved in social media, get involved. currently uses social media. Also look » Wikis Consider this remedial training. At a at industry best practices and review » Widgets minimum, join Facebook, LinkedIn, the activities of your top competitors. and start following some industry blogs. As you move forward, you should be But looking at social media tools is You will find it difficult to sell or even prepared to adjust your goals based really putting the cart before the horse. construct a social media marketing plan on new learning about the potential

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CONTACT: Dan Dunlop at [email protected] 919.929.0225 JENNINGS Marketing for Better Health jenningsco.com

STRATEGY

that social media represents. You may well learn that possibilities exist that you had not anticipated, and this may affect the goals you set. » Desired outcomes. Clearly define your organization’s goals. They may include increases in brand awareness/ stature, enhanced search rankings and Web traffic, improved preference, en- gaged brand ambassadors, and grow- ing patient volumes. Be as specific as possible. The desired outcomes should affect the ways in which you measure results. » Toolbox and channels. Identify social media channels that will help you accomplish your marketing objectives for each audience. This will become your toolbox. The vehicles you select must consider several factors, including resources, desired outcomes, and their ability to effectively deliver your message and Lexington Medical content. This assumes that you know Center uses its blog to update the strengths of various social media patients on any platforms. (Hopefully, you’ve done the news regarding the earlier analysis of each group’s use of organization and its leadership. social media.) Identifying the appropriate social media tools may require the most research. For example, you may not know which LinkedIn groups reach a specific target audience, so you’ll need to get on- the traditional marketing and branding » Resource allocation. If you allow line and start digging around. Join those efforts of your organization. And don’t it to happen, your social media pro- groups and start following the conversa- forget about PR and media relations. gram may end up dominating your tion. Find out what these people care There are many great social media tools life. That fear keeps many people from about. Identify the top bloggers and that can make your PR program more taking the plunge. It is vital that you thought leaders that you want to influ- effective, such as pitch engine, LinkedIn, make your program sustainable, avoid ence. Start following those blogs and filtrbox, and Meltwater News. Be sure overtaxing your internal resources, and monitoring those conversations. to incorporate those into the plan. fend off social media fatigue. You’ll » Integration. Define the process Consider, too, the role of social media you’ll use to integrate the program with in internal communication. continued on p. 8

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CONTACT: Dan Dunlop at [email protected] 919.929.0225 JENNINGS Marketing for Better Health jenningsco.com

STRATEGY

Social Media the content generators? It’s important the appeal and relevance of your social continued from p. 7 to recognize that you don’t have to do media efforts. everything at once. You will be more It is also important to measure pro- need to get tactical by identifying how likely to experience success if you ductivity on your part, not just the you’ll use each platform in your plan avoid biting off more than you can activity of your target audience. This given the internal or external resources chew. Start small and you can always means you should measure your posting you have available. Much information grow the program over time. frequency and your level of engagement. can be repurposed and shared within » Measurement. Determine how » Conversation tracker. Develop various social media platforms. you will measure results, knowing that a plan for actively monitoring social A simple press release can be distrib- not everything can be measured. Build media conversations. It is essential that uted through LinkedIn groups, become these measurement tools into your you know what’s being said about your a blog post, a tweet on Twitter, and plan. Whether it’s Google Analytics for brand online. The most obvious tools fodder for the wall of your Facebook your blogger site, Wordpress’ built-in are Google Alerts and Yahoo! Alerts. group. You must also define work flow analytics (e.g., page views, referrers, and If you don’t have these set up for your and who will do the work. Who will comments), Technorati’s blog rankings, hospital, you should do so immedi- develop content for these various out- friend counts, or member volume on ately. Each service will send you e-mail reach mechanisms? How will informa- your Facebook group, it is not difficult alerts when your keywords come up in tion travel within your organization to to find meaningful ways to measure blogs or traditional news reports.

Lexington Medical Center also connects with supporters on social networking site Facebook.

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CONTACT: Dan Dunlop at [email protected] 919.929.0225 JENNINGS Marketing for Better Health jenningsco.com

STRATEGY

You can also use Technorati’s daily custom RSS feeds to get quick updates on blogs that mention your hospital’s name. BackType notifies you when people comment about your hospital on blogs. Receive updates as they happen or at a the frequency of your choice. BlogPulse is a blog search engine that reports on daily activity relative to your brand. To monitor conversations on Twitter, try TweetBeep. It keeps track of conversations that mention your hospital, with hourly updates. Another option is to use Twitter Search (http://search.twitter.com) and establish an RSS feed on your query. For monitoring conversations on message boards, try BoardTracker. It lets you monitor forum posts and topics. SocialMention.com provides quick snapshots of conversations surround- ing your hospital’s brand. You can set up daily e-mail alerts. Facebook Lexicon lets you search your hospital’s name and immediately see how often it is discussed on Facebook users’ walls. MonitorThis allows you to subscribe to more than 20 search engine feeds at the same time. Take some time and get to know these various tools. Choose the ones that are the least labor intensive and that can most easily be integrated into your team’s daily routine. You can also use these monitoring tools to track conversations about your cross-town rivals. » Lexington Medical Center uses its Facebook photo Policy. Develop an employee page to share images from press events, outdoor social media policy. With an increase ads, and other photos that supporters may find in social media engagement by your interesting.

continued on p. 10

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CONTACT: Dan Dunlop at [email protected] 919.929.0225 JENNINGS Marketing for Better Health jenningsco.com

STRATEGY

Social Media continued from p. 9 organization, an employee social media policy becomes more important. Start by reviewing social media policies of other organizations. For example, Mayo Clinic has its employee social media policy published online. The best reason for actively engaging your stakeholders via social media is that it will help your organization achieve its marketing objectives. Even internal Just like any other marketing initiative, ads are your entry into the world of social media included on should be strategically driven and defined the Lexington Medical Center by a well-crafted marketing plan. It is Facebook page. essential that you understand the various social media platforms, allocate the necessary resources, and secure buy-in within your organization before getting started. H

Editor’s note: Shelley is director of marketing and advertising at Lexington Medical Center in West Columbia, SC, and Dunlop is president and CEO of Jennings Co. in Chapel Hill, NC.

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For permission to reproduce part or all of this newsletter for external distribution or use in educational packets, please contact the Copyright Clearance Center at www.copyright.com or 978/750-8400.

CONTACT: Dan Dunlop at [email protected] 919.929.0225