Social Media

Multiphase Campaign Seeks to Increase COVID-19 Vaccinations Among Adolescents

Donna Teach, Nationwide Children's

// By Brian Griffin // Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Ohio is leading the way in vaccinating children against COVID-19 with a multichannel campaign targeted at parents, physicians, and even adolescents themselves. The move comes after the Food & Drug Administration granted emergency approval to vaccinate 12- to 15-year-olds. The campaign is taking on even more Read More

How Health Care Organizations Can Effectively Respond to Negative Online Patient Reviews and Social Media Feedback

Jenny Sundberg, senior marketing specialist and operations manager, Bryan Health

// By Brian Griffin // A proactive approach to responding to negative online comments is a winning service recovery strategy. Patients think it’s important for health care providers to answer negative reviews; when complaints are addressed, the rate of patient satisfaction roughly doubles, according to one survey. With more patients using online reviews and social Read More

Hip Hop Public Health Reaches Communities With Music, Not Talk of “Herd Immunity”

COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy has become the new challenge in conquering the pandemic. Getting vaccines into the arms of vulnerable populations, including underserved communities of color, is a priority despite systemic distrust of the medical field resulting from generations of disparities in health care. “Medical institutions really have to find a way to speak the language Read More

Building Vaccine Confidence in Communities That Need It Most

Helen Shelton, global chief diversity officer, Finn Partners

// By Marcia Simon, APR // Who wants to be part of a herd anyway? So why not call “herd immunity” “community immunity” instead? Hip Hop Public Health promotes Community Immunity as the ultimate act of love. Who doesn’t want more of that? COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy has become the new challenge in conquering the pandemic. Getting Read More

New Technology Helps Target Health Disinformation at the Source

Sarah Brandt, executive vice president of partnerships at NewsGuard

As marketers, we spend time and resources to take full advantage of the internet. We want our content to show up at the top of the search results page. We want our brand to be trusted. We want our physicians to be the ones patients find and choose. But as we’ve seen over the past Read More

New Campaign Features Health Care Workers Encouraging Mask Use

The coronavirus continues its rampage throughout the country, sickening people, taking lives, devastating the economy, and overwhelming our health systems. Even if we are not sick, COVID-19 wears down our will to keep fighting until vaccines are widely available. That includes abiding by public health guidance: avoiding large group gatherings, social distancing, handwashing, and wearing Read More

How To Convince Patients It’s Safe — and Smart — To Return

Lewis Clark, vice president of marketing/media/public relations, Deborah Heart and Lung Center

At the Deborah Heart and Lung Center in southern New Jersey, the task of letting patients know it was safe and even wise to return evolved into a multimedia effort. The campaign has been paying off with a substantial increase in patient visits. In Peter Hochstein’s new story, he explains how they’re doing it. Here’s Read More

Wearing Is Caring: Inspiring a National Movement to #MaskUp

#MaskUp

// By Jane Weber Brubaker // If marketing is about influencing people to change behaviors, then a new public service campaign launched just before the Thanksgiving holiday — #MaskUp — is marketing at its best. The coronavirus continues its rampage throughout the country as of this writing in early December, sickening people, taking lives, devastating Read More

Iceland Comes Together To Sell (and Sing) The Power of Staying Home

Peter Hochstein

“A group of musicians in Iceland demonstrated that promoting social distancing doesn’t have to sound like somber, top-down marching orders from an authoritarian central command,” says SHCM contributor and copywriter Peter Hochstein. “Instead, they tapped into something uplifting, communal, and perhaps instinctively primeval.” Here’s an excerpt from Hochstein’s new story: I feel sorry for the Read More

A Community Rallies Around Its Local Health System

Andy Lyons, corporate communications director at Roper St. Francis Healthcare

From Girl Scouts donating cookies they couldn’t sell, to chaplains bringing lollipops to nursing stations, to colleagues making posters and shout-outs to frontline staff, coronavirus isn’t spreading only an illness, but kindness and cheer as well. As hospitals and health care organizations seek much-needed personal protective equipment for staff, communities are responding by donating comfort Read More

How Health Systems Are Mobilizing Emergency Action Plans

Sara Vaezy, chief digital strategy and business development officer, Providence St. Joseph Health

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. health care facilities face a tsunami of rapid-fire change. Hospital marketing leaders, historically charged with promoting signature service lines, are rapidly transforming their role and their tactics to meet this unprecedented challenge. Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett, Washington, cared for the first confirmed COVID-19 patient in the U.S. on Read More

Spreading Kindness and Cheer to Caregivers

Wendy Stark Healy

// By Wendy Stark Healy // From Girl Scouts donating cookies they couldn’t sell, to chaplains bringing lollipops to nursing stations, to colleagues making posters and shout-outs to frontline staff, coronavirus isn’t spreading only an illness, but kindness and cheer as well. As hospitals and health care organizations seek much-needed personal protective equipment for staff, Read More

Marketing, Communication Experts Share Reflections from the Frontlines of the COVID-19 Pandemic

// By Kyle Hardner // Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. health care facilities face a tsunami of rapid-fire change. Hospital marketing leaders, historically charged with promoting signature service lines, are rapidly transforming their role and their tactics to meet this unprecedented challenge. The new key priorities for health care marketing leaders include providing up-to-the-minute, accurate Read More

Could a Celebrity Spokesperson Be an Advantage for Your Organization?

Sheri Scott, associate vice president of marketing and communications at Edward-Elmhurst Health

In 2014, Edward-Elmhurst Health, a newly merged two-hospital system in the Chicago suburbs, wanted to find a way to differentiate itself from the dozens of other hospitals in the area. “We are in a very crowded health care market. We knew it would be a challenge to break through all that clutter,” says Sheri Scott, Read More

Who Are You Trying To Reach Online – and Why?

Hospital marketers have to be active on social media and online review sites, right? We know the answer is ‘yes,’ but who is it for and how do you do it well? A recent national consumer survey conducted by Wax Custom Communications showed surprising results about who follows social media channels and to what extent Read More

Content + Swag Keeps Employees Engaged and Informed

Donna DeMarco, co-founder and vice president at Viddler, Inc.

If you’re a big, distributed health network with multiple locations and thousands of employees, how do you make sure your employees keep you top of mind when they’re out in the community? “We’re a large 10-hospital network — soon to be 12 — with over 15,500 employees,” says Mary Beth Golab, director of internal communications Read More