How to Increase Your Social Potential? For the Healthcare Industry

Close to 90 Million net savvy Indians today use Facebook and millions of people are acquiring mobile devices every month. Social media features on phone come as a package to further sell the phone. India is definitely experiencing a mobile and technology revolution. Now how the public will react will depend upon what messages are being announced by the brands in the complex, but a rapidly growing web eco system.

  

Social Media is growing Healthy at Net-sphere

Social media (Facebook and Twitter) and healthcare in India is growing together healthy. An annual report reads that the healthcare sector in India is set to gear up. They should start taking internet as an opportunity, which they can’t afford to loose. India is experiencing unprecedented online traffic growth in the last one year and healthcare features prominently in the ‘to-check’ list. Health had an impressive 21.1 reach (in terms of percentage) in India and social media tops the list of what people are searching. Facebok has become a fine rich source to check health and fitness centric pages to adopt changing life styles. People have either sought medical advice or received diagnostic confirmation from physicians after chatting up with internet buddies. India grew at a rate of 81% last year; there are 71% active FB users second only to the USA.

Conversation to Conversion

Internet is a relatively low cost platform for hospitals for branding and positioning. The ‘social’ nature of their job makes it imperative to understand the changing behavioral pattern of the healthcare industry. People seek, understand and share information through social media and then perhaps make an informed decision. Hospitals today are more social than before, almost 90% of them use social media in building community relationships, to share any hospital related news and to build local repertoire. In-fact some of the hospitals are also involved in answering questions, or have association with online advocacy forums. 

Is there a Need for a healthcare digital strategy?

It’s true that India is the blue eyed market space for Facebook. In June, Greg Marra and six other fellow engineers from Facebook’s Menlo Park’s office did a Recce through out the Indian landscape to ‘identify real world problems to give technological answers.’ The toi reported in June that India’s is a laboratory for Facebook and the growth of online traffic in FY13 was such that India did better than countries like Russia, China and Brazil. Japanese technology and healthcare giant Omron India’s social media strategy is a good example how they seek to tap the social space. The top social media players in India are Apollo hospitals, Manipal Hospitals, Narayana Hrudayalaya Institute of Cardiac Science and the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences.

Do you track your (healthcare brand’s) performance on web?

According to a January-2013, Pew report supported by the California HealthCare Foundation, indicates that one out of three American adults have utilized the internet for find out a medical issue which they may have. Women are more likely to head to the internet to find out a solution of a problem which they may have, the report says, including them with degrees and advanced degrees.  If strategized and executed well the Indian healthcare sector and people both can benefit immensely. Social media is rapidly changing the very nature of healthcare related information people have used sharing’. There are over 400 Million plus websites and the right process should be to track the online conversations initiated by users in remote locations seeking health related information. Today 1/3^rd of consumer access and disseminate emotional and informational content via social media. How do you track it? What do you do with the humungous data you have/or not? What is the strategy you should adopt to develop a thought based leadership? How would you create brand awareness? How would you build and engage a customer? How do you create a total recall of your brand? Content is the king here and any wrong step can jeopardize your brand value. Cut the crap and get meaningful data done by the right people from the trade.

Reference:

Google news, Pew, Webenza, www.compukol dot com