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Healthcare Marketing: 75% of Americans Engage in Social Media – Is Your Hospital?

Research indicates that social media is beginning to rival traditional media in reach.

In a survey of 1700 internet users in the US, Nielsen Online found that 73% engage in social media at least once a week.  That makes the total social media audience consist of 127 million people.   Brian Morrissey reported the findings in a recent article in  AdWeek.

In addition to the total number of Americans engaged in social media, the survey rendered the following results:

  • 47% visit Facebook daily
  • 32.7 million play social games daily
  • Twitter has 105 million registered users but only 11.4 million or 6% use it daily
  • 11% read blogs daily

The number of users of social media is extremely significant.  The numbers rival and even outpace some forms of traditional media.  The 47% of internet users who visit Facebook daily compares to:

 

  • 55% who watch television daily
  • 37% who listen to radio daily
  • 22% who read newspaper daily
  • 11% who read magazines daily

The use of social media is continuing to increase.  As seen in this study by Nielsen, the percentages that are actively engaged in social media are comparable or greater than most traditional media consumers.

This creates new challenges for healthcare marketers.  How do we effectively reach this growing audience?   The answers are not easy.  And implementation is sometimes even more difficult.  But it is important to develop strategies to engage this burgeoning audience.

Traditional media is not dead.  It can still be very effective.  But social media has become pervasive and we must be creative and increasingly proactive in taking advantage of its growing popularity.

TotalCom is a full-service marketing agency helping brands like yours tell their story to the right audiences. Email Lori Moore or call TotalCom Marketing Communications at 205.345.7363 to learn more about how we can help you tell your story.

Hospital Marketing: Banner Ad Best Practices

Research helps identify how to make banner ads more effective.

Dynamic Logic measured ad effectiveness for 4800 web banner campaigns and found that size is not an important factor in whether a banner ad was effective.  In Abbey Klaassen’s article in Ad Age, she offers a few tips from Dynamite Logic’s research for making online banner ads more effective.

1. Simple flash is overused.  Better choices are rich media with video.  For every branding goal Dynamic Logic studied, simple Flash performed the weakest.

2. Try to avoid ads that border content. Those are the banner ads that are most easily ignored.

3. Publishers should consider mixing up ad placement from page to page.  By placing the same ad formats in the same place on every page, consumers become trained to avoid the ads.

4. Not all attention is positive. Avoid flashing, blinking or annoying ads

5. Ads that cover content and don’t have a “skip” or “close” button are by far, the most annoying formats.

These tips are helpful in trying to maximize a hospital’s effectiveness using web banner ads.  The internet is where people are.  Hospital marketers should be there too. But they must pay special attention to the research to learn best practices.

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Healthcare Marketing: Digital Outdoor Provides Creative Options

With the emergence of digital outdoor, advertisers can switch creative in real time.  And that provides enormous opportunities for creativity that really cuts through the clutter.   

Just a few years ago, outdoor advertising was considered a dying medium.  That has certainly changed with the use of digital messaging on billboards and out of home displays.  And marketers are taking advantage of the new technology to reach out and grab consumers.

One example of creative use of outdoor is Vitaminwater, a Coke brand  in the United Kingdom.  Coke placed boards in train stations and at Piccadilly Circus with employees inconspicuously posted nearby to watch those that passed by.  Messages were sent to the digital board and placed under the Vitaminwater logo, which were specifically targeted to consumers who approached the boards.   The messages referenced clothing or accessories specific to the reader, along with the message to “go grab a Vitaminwater for energy.”

The purpose of the billboards was to engage consumers with the brand.  And indeed it did!  How could a passerby ignore a message directed specifically to him or her? And what a unique way to effectively draw consumers to the brand and communicate the brand message.

True, this may not be appropriate or feasible for a hospital but it does show how digital billboards can be creatively utilized.  Real time messaging provides enormous engagement opportunities for hospital brands. Hospital advertising doesn’t have to be boring or predicted.  The opportunities for creativity abound.  Even outdoors.

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