Healthcare business model for social media based on trust

Measuring the financial effects of social media programs may be difficult for healthcare providers, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a business case to be made for an online presence. 

“The immediate returns from social media may not be quantifiable via traditional financial metrics,” read an August report published by Triple Tree, a Minneapolis-based investment bank. “There are many factors that should be considered when determining the value of social media for a healthcare business, including the financial impact on revenue and costs, brand image, engagement and reputation management.”

There are more than 3 billion registered users across more than 200 social networking sites and more than 60 percent of adults have looked online for health information, the reported noted, citing past research.

Many users are using these sites to share opinions and information on conditions, providers, hospital, treatments and insurance companies. This gives providers ample opportunity to use social media to research, engage, educate and enable patients.

A specific financial return on individual retweets, mentions, likes and fans is currently impossible to measure, but each of these occurrences give providers a chance to build trust and reputation. For that reason, social media interactions can be considered a form of currency, according to the report. “In healthcare, trust (or ‘likes’ and ‘fans’) is the consumer’s proxy for quality and confidence that a healthcare provider or payer will serve them well, which in turn, increases the likelihood that consumers are willing to buy their services.”

As healthcare’s utilization of social media grows, providers should think about:

• how, where and why patients and stakeholders are interacting online;
• developing methods for two-way conversation to occur;
• payment reforms and the move toward patient-centered care;
• tools to manage social media accounts; and 
• how to use the vast amounts of data available through social networking sites. 

“Consistent, well-accepted methods of measuring the financial value of social media are in their infancy, and in healthcare, these methods are embryonic," the report read. "While most healthcare organizations are moving forward with social media strategies, we believe that companies who intuitively understand and invest in the power of consumers will be better positioned as segment leaders."