by Stephen Sumner | @st3ph3n6 | LinkedIn
Notes for the ‘Healthcare Industry’ – How NOT to run a Social Media Strategy?
I don’t know when you last went to see your Doctor, or to see a Consultant at your hospital, but when I go to see mine a significant part of those meetings is based on one fundamental thing ‘listening’;
You’re asked a series of questions to help with the diagnoses, this is done to help try and determine the best course of action for your medical advisor to recommend, all done in order to get the diagnosis correct, so it’s an extremely important skill that they ‘listen’ to what we say.
From what we can evidence the healthcare industry seems to have forgotten this vital skill when it comes to social media. So, as part of our ongoing research into several different market sectors, I drew the ‘Healthcare’ market straw, we simply wanted to see how they’re going about using ‘Social Media’ and doing some of that ‘listening’.
Whilst this blog isn’t intended as a qualitative, or quantitively driven ‘research’ piece we decided to look at some of the big guys who play in this sector around the world. They include GE Healthcare, Siemens, LG Electronics, Samsung, Fitbit, GSK, P&G, Unilever, and Philips to name a few. I looked at their own corporate websites, blogs contained within, and of course the ‘corporate social channels’.
I also looked at the senior leadership teams responsible for strategy and innovation, along with the ‘heads of’ social for these companies.
We focused on those global companies because they do the R&D, design, manufacture, and distribute all kinds of hardware, consumable, and usable healthcare solutions. They all operate in the B2b, and B2c sectors, with different divisions, and in numerous territories.
Within B2b they’re selling into those Doctors and Specialist Consultants mentioned earlier, along with the hospitals and health clinics they work in. In B2c we find them when you and I go into a drug store, pharmacy, or in some cases the local Supermarket where we can find an array of ‘over the counter’ products, some of these products are consumables, and some are hardware products, but one things for sure it’s an extremely lucrative, and very competitive market.
What we found wasn’t overly surprising; in a world that’s still obsessed with ‘broadcasting’ and regurgitating the corporate message, we consistently found evidence that whilst they are happy to have a ‘social media’ presence, it seems for the majority ‘Social Media’ is mainly a platform to talk about themselves, the products they sell, and the benefits (their) products and services deliver.
Many of those corporate ‘Social’ channels do indeed have quite a large following, but they also employ 100’s of thousands of people around the world, those people have their own families, and I suspect a number of those ‘followers’ are also made up of every company with a vested interest in the related supply chain.
What’s difficult to establish is how many of those ‘followers’ are real people like you and me, I genuinely couldn’t understand ‘why’ we would want to follow them?
In the corporate healthcare space, there is very little evidence (I’m being kind here) that they are in fact listening to people, let alone engaging with them. If you go and look at the ‘Corporate’ pages on Linkedin, and Twitter, for most of the big players, you will see post, after post, about how wonderful ‘their’ products and services are, how big, clever and innovative the company is.
A few of these posts have managed to stimulate a number of inbound ‘comments’, however, I see little, or no response or engagement from the brand, maybe a chance to have some great conversations with real people, possible business opportunities, but no, nothing!
In fairness to several of them, when it comes to ‘consumer’ platforms I noted attempts to answer, ‘featured product’ questions, but again very little that’s really focused on educating, informing and engaging the consumer, it’s all about ‘sales’.
We also looked to benchmark the senior people responsible for ‘Digital Transformation’, including ‘Social Media’ and communications in these companies, the best example had posted something about the company on LinkedIn and Twitter once a month since March 2019, prior to that nothing since mid-2018, it was a common theme for most of the leadership teams in all these companies.
We even found a ‘pinned’ tweet on someone’s Twitter profile that had been there since 2016!, and without naming and shaming this was a very senior person whose job is represent ‘social’ for the company.
I also found a senior person in one company who is responsible for innovation and strategy, which as I understand it also includes ‘Social Media’, this person was extremely pedestrian when it comes to ‘social media’. Her/His weapon of choice on Twitter to simply ‘retweet’ the corporate message from other people in the company, or showcase his/her next business trip, and speaking engagement about themselves. But yet again, no engagement with you and me outside of comments on the brand, or colleagues award wins.
My summary from all this research is that none of them really know what ‘Social Media’ is for, they’re obsessed with talking about themselves, at corporate, and it also seems at personal level.
Virtually all content post I have seen is nothing more than ‘adverts’ dressed up as content designed to ‘sell’ the brand.
Social media has already disrupted the way businesses are perceived by you and me, it’s no longer about what ‘you’ tell us you are.
Social Media is just that, ‘Social’, and being social means, you engage, interact, inform, answer questions, and spark positive debate. It doesn’t mean it’s a platform for you to constantly talk about YOU, or advertise your latest gadget that “cleans my teeth better than the next guys fastest selling electronic tooth brush”, and neither is it coming up with overly creative ‘intrusive adverts’ dressed up as educational content, and dreamed up by the ad agency whose only role is to keep you sweet in case you start asking questions about ‘ad fraud’. Why?
Because that just isn’t what being ‘social’ is all about, and if you and your competitors are positioning yourselves as a key part of a world community for ‘healthy living’, then you need to do more than run ‘focus, and research group’ exercises to become an integral and accepted part of the ‘community’. It’s a complete mindset change, it requires you to forget what you ‘think’ social media is about and understand that its already changing how your current customers, and new potential prospects are seeing you.
If managed within the right ‘Social Selling’ framework you will see magic happen, you and your entire business will start to genuinely ‘hear’ because you are truly listening, and you and your employees will create conversations on social media that will make you think twice about traditional advertising.
“I found an alternative way, come with me” – Seth Godin
People who read this article also read these:
https://dlaignite.com/dear-ceo-its-time-to-change-course/
https://dlaignite.com/taking-action-often-equals-success/
https://dlaignite.com/can-social-media-be-the-oasis-you-seek-in-a-competitive-market/
