According to our just released research, 9 in 10 hospitals or health systems are currently involved to some degree with Social Media. Other key results from the study:

• Only one in three hospitals/health systems has a formal Social Media marketing plan.
• Hiring and budgeting for Social Media is rare, but starting to happen more and more.
• The tedious work of monitoring Social Media sites falls on the shoulders of relatively few people within an organization. 70% of respondents has less than 3 employees assigned to this task.

Overall, the research left no doubt that Social Media has gained tremendous footing among hospitals and health systems. The results also offer a snapshot of what health marketers are doing, along with some helpful tips. One recommendation: focus early goals around increased traffic to your Web site. In general, respondents found it difficult to show returns in metrics such as attracting new patients, improving community relations, managing customer service, employee engagement, and crisis management. However, respondents did experience considerable success in “driving traffic to the Web site”, with Video Sharing (i.e. YouTube) and Social Networking (i.e. Facebook) being the most effective for accomplishing this task. No matter what the returns, there was unanimity among respondents (even those not involved with Social Media) that engagement is absolutely necessary. As one respondent whose administration has blocked access to all Social Media sites put it, “we know our organization is being talked about through various Social Media outlets but we have no way to participate. As a result any inaccurate or incorrect posting goes unaddressed.”
 
It would be interesting to run this survey again in a year or two to see how the responses change over time. I imagine that the number of organizations budgeting or staffing for Social Media projects will increase dramatically, as new tracking tools and processes make it easier to justify further investment. Next time around, I am willing to bet that we will not need to include a series of questions for those not involved with Social Media, as I expect no holdovers to remain. (Of course, I had the Chargers in the Super Bowl, so take everything I say with a grain of salt!)
   
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