You are here: DIME Home > Social Media > The Use of Social Media within the NHS

The Use of Social Media within the NHS

Communicating effectively with your NHS community has never been more important. Health organisations have begun to recognise the growing importance of social networking sites and acknowledged that they are able to target a much wider audience through these social mediums

Author: Kate Oxton
Date: Apr 12, 2010 - 10:13:54 AM

Printer friendly page

The development and growth of social media has given the NHS a new method of communicating with their communities on important social and public health issues. With more people registering with social networking site such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, NHS community members now expect to be able to be contacted through the channel they most prefer.

 

Social networking activity is increasing on a daily basis, yet is still moderately unused within the NHS. It is a fresh and evolving communication tool and NHS trusts are beginning to understand how they can best utilise it to promote discussion, debate and information sharing in their communities. Popular social networking sites include Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. These channels, particularly Facebook and Twitter, began life as personal networking sites for users to keep in touch with friends and family, but have now evolved into tools of which both public and private sectors organisations can make use of.

 

There is great potential to use social networking as a method to reach audiences that are sometimes missed by conventional marketing channels. Specifically within the NHS, there may be large numbers of community members affected by issues such as smoking,   alcohol and drug misuse, mental health, cancer awareness and sexual health. These are all community members that may benefit from receiving communication through online networking channels.

 

The private sector has for the most part accepted social media and many organisations now take it into account when creating their standard communication strategy. In order to remain relevant and to realize their targets of becoming more ‘customer-centric’, NHS trusts and aspiring trusts must copy this private sector trend and include social media marketing as part of their outreach and communication tactics for their own community members.  

 

Social networking is a brilliant tool for promoting events, information and giving announcements. However, another key benefit is the possibility for information and messages to go ‘viral’. On the Internet, viral marketing is any marketing technique that induces web sites or users to pass on a marketing message to other sites or users.   For NHS trusts this can be huge in terms of reaching a larger audience. Many recent NHS video campaigns have gone ‘viral’ in recent months – NHS Leicester had a video warning young people about teenage pregnancy, NHS Derbyshire launched two videos warning people about the dangers of binge drinking and in November last year the NHS Blood & Transport launched a campaign asking people to join the Organ Donor Register, which also went viral.

 

As with all marketing communications, it is best to make use of all communication channels available; a ‘one size fits all’ approach will not work and will certainly miss some community members. Combining social media communication with direct mail, email, SMS (text messaging) and communication through the press and websites will guarantee a well rounded message is portrayed, yet opens the door for two way communication between the NHS trust and their community.

 

Managing all these communication platforms can be made easier by using an all-inclusive NHS community membership management solution. These solutions, built purposely for NHS trusts and aspiring trusts, enables those managing their NHS community to manage all these marketing channels from within one software platform. Quality community management solutions should also be integrated into CRM and other back end office systems, meaning that all data relating to specific community members can be maintained at all times. These NHS community involvement solutions also include email marketing, event management, forums, surveys and analysis tools.

 

Resource Box

Silverbear’s Community Involvement Solution for the NHS is part of the portfolio of solutions from Silverbear Ltd . Employed within NHS trust and aspiring trusts throughout the UK, Silverbear’s Community Involvement Solution for the NHS helps to build, define, examine, inform and communicate with existing and potential community members.

 

Silverbear is helping NHS trusts on a daily basis. For more information on Silverbear’s Community Involvement Solution for the NHS and the benefits of membership management software, visit their website: http://www.silverbearhealth.co.uk/

 

 

 

View all articles by Kate Oxton

Link to this article:

Code to copy:

<a href="http://www.dime-co.com/social-media/The-Use-of-Social-Media-within-the-NHS.shtml">The Use of Social Media within the NHS</a>

---

Search for articles: Advanced Search

Recommended Associates

Latest Articles in All Categories

Putting Up a Small Commercial Printing Business

So You Might Be Unemployed And Desire To Become A San Francisco Real Estate Investor Now

Meditation and Mindfulness: Dealing With Emotion

CPA Websites: Five Essential Ideas for Composing Convincing Articles

Set Goals In Order to Come Up With Your Action Plan

Is the Air in Your Home Safe to Breathe?

Coarse Fishing Tackle Review: The JW Young 13ft Trotter Rod

Section 1031 Exchanges For San Diego Real Estate Investors

Phoenix Real Estate Investing For Highest Possible Earnings

Legendary are the Volk Racing TE37 Wheels

Developing the Next Generation Wall Station (ChaseDesk™) for Healthcare - A Case Study

What are step down transformers?

Introducing Sharehype, the Revolutionary Tool for Online Marketers

Rewards To Shopping For Austin Real Estate On The Web

Hydroponics for Beginners

Do you write?

Would you like submit your articles and have them approved on a priority status? Find out more about how you can become a Priority author for pennies a day! Click here.

News Feed

Dime-co.com Home

Business (9328)

Computers & The Internet (5740)

Entertainment (1348)

Family (958)

Finance (1963)

Health (4246)

Home and Living (6670)

Marketing (6113)

Shopping & Product Reviews (2624)

Sports (694)

Travel and Vacations (1689)

Video Articles (1)

Editors Pick (1)