Elementos de producción

There are several factors that healthcare organisations have considered why it is essential to use social media their organisations. Part of this section, the researcher, will critically evaluate the reasons and its effectiveness of why Social Media has become very useful for healthcare organisations.

Healthcare organisation has increasingly affected by the recent recession and government cuts. Therefore, most organisations, including the healthcare one, are looking for an alternative marketing tool that can deliver their marketing aims at a low and effective cost. Sharma et al. (2013) explained that Social Media had become a prevalent marketing tool with many organisations in helping them to build their networks, disseminating of information which has encouraged trust and confidence of

56

the customers. In the past, healthcare organisations had used expensive advertising campaigns to reach their customers, such as meetings and events, internet marketing and journal advertisement as part of their marketing and communication strategies. Thus Social Media provides Healthcare Organisations with an alternative option, which is much cheaper.

Upward (2013) claimed that Social Media provides excellent flexibility in terms of the ability to target specific groups of consumers with minimal waste coverage; the ability to tailor messages to meet informational needs of the target audience, interactivity with customers; ability to link multiple information outlets and in return receive high Return on investment (ROI). Overall, Social Media provides an analysis tool for healthcare organisations to evaluate what information is accessible, and the customers are interested in relatively small costs per contact. At the same time, providing the organisation's high exposures means to update information that is current and relevant to their target markets. It helps the providers to plan for the future and making a strategic decision (Zappe, 2010).

In recent years, Social Media has become an exciting and valuable marketing tool to increase communication among the customers, colleagues, family, friends (Health Leaders’ Media Intelligent (2013). Korda and Itani (2013) explained that healthcare organisations have begun to use social media in ways that attempt to meet the demands of their patients, employees, subcontractors, insurers and the general public. It has become the preferred choice to communicate for health promotion as its effectiveness to reach the mass public audience.SM has an impact on health knowledge, behaviours and outcomes show these tools can be useful in meeting individual and population health needs (Korda and Itani, 2013).SM can be a powerful

57

tool with broad reach and interactivity that enables both anonymity and social networking according to participants’ preferences Korda and Itani, 2013).

Social Media has been successful in facilitating brand engagement with customers. It is happening because customers are less like to trust TV advertisings or corporate communication. They are talking to each other like never before on social network channels. Healthcare Organisations (Woodcock et al., 2011) has been able to influence customers’ behaviours through powerful communication methods on Social Media such as advertising, sales promotion, packaging, and display. On the other hand, SM enables the brand to extend its personality to engage with customers and customers’ terms; at the time they want it. This help then to increase the engagement level with their brand and ultimately, their products or services. Brand teams need to treat SM as a relevant and appropriate method to develop consumers’ engagement as a part of the marketing mix.

Healthcare organisations who have used ‘word of mouth’ for 100 years have rapidly adopted SM to engage with their customers. SM could be used to measure marketing effectiveness and create new channels for visibility and eventually, sales. The available information on SM platforms has been influencing decision making in healthcare and increases collaboration between the organisation and the professional involved to deliver care to patients with no geographic boundaries.

SM could do brand monitoring and management. At the moment there are not many organisations doing that. But organisations outside of the healthcare industry, such as Dell, have built a reputation by monitoring their brand on social media. It helps to mine data from various SM channels and keeps track of what the customers are talking

58

about when it comes to their brand. SM has allowed a healthcare organisation to reach their target audience.

Healthcare Organisations are using Social media to raise awareness about them by sharing organisational news services, community events and general news from local or national press such as majors’ studies, legislation and general news for health- related stories (successful stories) to the patients or stakeholders. Successful stories highlighted staffing, nurses, doctors and patients’ achievements, awards and customers outreach, which can also drive traffic to the organisation website. SM can help healthcare organisations to increase their company profile through the Search Engine Optimisation to create a positive effect on a provider’s search engine page. SM could be sued to drive traffic to a website by linking social media platforms with their website, which can create viral traffic and increase their company profile (Upward, 2013).

According to Fox and Fallows (2003), many organisations and professionals in American are using social networks to make them visible to their customers. It is due to the increase in the number of people who have gone online to seek mental health information online. Rooney (2011) has suggested that it. Healthcare organisations are increasingly providing the customer to the tool where they can rate the organisations and provide constructive feedback. Most of them will allow users to blog about their experiences on the company website or social media channels.

Vogel et al. (2014) have claimed that many psychologists are establishing themselves on social media as a mean of directing marketing their practices. They have been using the channels available to them to get their message out about the services they provide and network with other clinicians. They have also participated in public or

59

semi-private forums where they have been able to demonstrate their expertise and increase their visibility and credibility.

Barlett et al. (2011) explained that managing positive corporate images and reputations could lead to better relationships between the organisations and stakeholders. Furthermore, Lake (2011) suggested that the concept of dialogic relationships to allow stakeholders to exchange their ideas and opinions. However, it can be a timely exercise to harness a customer’s contact and engage with them. Rooney (2011) pointed out that Social Media provides a platform where businesses could build closer relationships with their customers as well as expand their market reach to the customers they could not reach before.

According to Kotler et al. (2008), Social Media can serve the function of building dialogic relationships between organisations and customers. He continued to say that Social Media can help the organisation to establish emotional connections between the organisation and its customers, which in turn can foster strong consumer relations. Their organisation can use the information received to determine the needs, wants and concerns of the customers. It allows the organisation to create and disseminate content through SM that can help authenticate their relationships.

Social Media allows healthcare organisations to nurture personal and professional relationships; allowed for the more rapid exchange of knowledge; created forums for collegial and interactions and published for the dissemination of information and discussion of nursing and health-related education, research, and best practices.

Organisation uses Social Media to network with potential customers to build a relationship and achieve a better understanding of the customer needs. The organisations want their message to reach as many people as possible. To maximise

60

the reach and organisation profile they must have a presence where customers are ‘hanging out’ which is according to Halligan et al. (2009), they are ‘hanging out’ on social networking sites.

In today’s business world it has become increasingly for Businesses including healthcare one to develop and maintain strong organisational identities and strong sense who they are to be successful (Bartel, 2001; Foreman and Whetten, 2002). Moore and Sonsino (2003) stated that organisational identities are referred to what customers perceive, feel and think about the company. Corley et al. (2010) had suggested that corporate identity is a social construction that derives from repeated interactions with others. The interaction consists of a feedback mechanism where organisational audiences have the opportunity to express their opinion and impressions of the organisation (Gergen and Davis, 1985). Drawing upon on the work of (Gergen and Davis, 1985) definition of feedback mechanism within the system, it will suggest that SM can serve as a feedback mechanism, allow all stakeholders a chance to provide their preferences, opinions, and thoughts about the organisation. This also allows the organisation an invaluable opportunity to learn, adapt and adjust to ultimately enhance their identities to align with their customers’ feedback. Because of the ability to interact and receive feedback from customers’ SM can help the organisation and stakeholders to create and maintain a stable organisation identity to engage their customer in word of mouth, which may result in positive organisational outcomes such increased purchase intention.

Kim and Kang (2014) have suggested that hospitals across the world are using SM to educate, publicise, entertain and otherwise trying to establish themselves as the go- to place for customers in need. SM has made sharing information into two-way facilities where customers can provide feedback more or less straight away, which has

61

allowed people to connect and share information in an online space. People can report news, views, and opinions and solicit conversation through their domains or dedicated websites. According to Fisher (2012), Social Media provides healthcare organisations with a platform to post updates about their workday or conferences as well as to connect with colleagues which can be educational conversations to inform and support the individual, provider, indirectly benefiting the patients.

Kaplan and Haelein (2010) explained that Social Media is an extremely useful tool for interactions between customers and service providers by providing relatively simple, easy to access and unbiased platforms for sharing feedback. It has allowed the customers to look for reviews about a service or solution before committed due to the availability of information online. There is also an increase in customers wanted to share information and comment on their experiences about products and services in the Social Media Platforms for other customers to see and make an informed decision on their purchase.

Coombs (2012) pointed out that Healthcare Organisations should use Social Media to promote their mission and value corporate social responsibility to keep the customer informed. He continued to suggest that a critical aspect that Social Media can help the organisation is ‘issue management’. Social Media can identify an issue potential situation through anticipating, evaluating and responding to the issue as early as possible to prevent a crisis that can have a severe impact on the organisation’s performance which can lead to severe consequences and damage to their reputation. Due to its interactive nature, Social Media can accomplish an issues management function by providing an opportunity for the organisation to monitor and observe the interactions on the platforms. It also allows the organisation to ask pertinent questions on those platforms to detect any threats to their reputation, opinions, and attitudes on

62

the organisation which will enable them to use this information to solve the issues proactively. Social Media can also keep their customer's knowledge about the company.

2.4.3. Challenges and Barriers of using Social Media in private healthcare