Brand awareness and engagement: a case study in healthcare social media.

CLEVELAND CLINIC has embraced social media as an opportunity to innovate how it presents its brand and to engage patients and the community in learning about health. As many health systems have, Cleveland Clinic began with a basic presence on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Since then, the focus has moved to how to engage patients through these new technologies. As Thielst notes in her feature, the Clinic's journey started in early 2009 with the chief marketing officer's straightforward presentation to the board about the value and strategy of using social media. Cleveland Clinic developed a policy that cautions employees about improper social media use but also opens its social media channels to them and invites their participation. The social media committee included employees from a range of departments beyond marketing and communications, including education, research, and the medical library. From this foundation, the social media initiative flourished (Cooperstein 2011). Cleveland Clinic seeks to bring medical experts to followers through several Twitter postings per day. Daily health tips and weekly chats allow followers to hear from and interact with experts. News and links about important studies are posted regardless of whether those studies are led by the Clinic. Other regular topic areas include news about innovations and information about specific diseases and conditions. Through Twitter, Cleveland Clinic is proactive about complaints, responding to them within two hours. Continuous monitoring of mentions of Cleveland Clinic lets the staff catch complaints early, and tweeters are asked to contact the ombudsman to resolve their complaint quickly, offline. One follower marveled on Twitter afterward about how quickly an appointment problem was resolved; the follower didn't know that someone was actively listening. Such proactivity helps stave off the viral spread of negative word-of-mouth that some organizations have experienced in social media use (Shirley 2009). Listening is a key part of Cleveland Clinic's social media strategy. The organization surveys Twitter followers semiannually to gauge their topics of interest and learn what other healthcare organizations they follow. The top three topics in which followers consistently report interest are medical breakthroughs and innovations, disease- or condition-specific information, and wellness tips. Cleveland Clinic's Facebook presence lets the organization create a connection with patients and the community, humanizing the large organization through direct interaction. Facebook content consists of question and answers, "Did you know" segments about the Clinic's history, and health information from physicians. In semiannual surveys, Facebook followers share what they expect from an academic medical center's Facebook page. Their responses are similar to the Twitter users'; the Clinic's Facebook followers are twice as likely to share medical breakthroughs than patient stories. Cleveland Clinic started a YouTube channel in 2009, and in its first year 70 videos were posted and the channel received 60,000 views. Now the channel includes more than 800 videos and has received 700,000 views. To make the channel more search friendly, the Clinic focused on appropriate tagging of videos and use of search engine optimization. The strategy has paid off: YouTube is the Clinic's biggest social media success. Videos cover the same areas as the other social media profiles do: discoveries, disease information, health tips, and patient stories. SOCIAL MEDIA INNOVATIONS Let's Move It (www.letsmoveit.org) is a wellness initiative launched in 2010 that uses a dedicated website, videos, Twitter, videos, a mobile app, and the hospital's main Facebook page to encourage the community to move from inactivity to activity. The site's videos center on fitness questions answered by Cleveland Clinic physicians and general managers and players from major league sports teams, and the Lef s Move It theme music and videos are played at sporting events. …