This past week I came across some interesting new research that suggests that when it comes to online social networking, people are more likely to change health-affecting habits when encouraged to do so by online conversations with friends they already know well and with whom they are in close contact. In essence, the research suggests that the “redundancies and repetitiveness that characterizes interactions among close groups of friends is a central driving force behind encouraging people to change their health behaviors.”
This alights with word of mouth statistics showing that recommendations from a friend or family member are the most trusted sources of information. Similar to the impact of close personal relationships, local community businesses have the opportunity to utilize their proximity and relationship with their local community to serve a similar role.
With the number of local health facilities embarking into social media continuing to rise – which now boasts 825 facilities based on Ed Bennett’s Hospital Social Networking List – here are some ways that local healthcare facilities can utilize location-based social media to affect health behaviors.
Facebook Places: Facebook has shown promise as the go-to platform for many healthcare facilities – most notably hospitals.
- Places as Social Health Grader – With the launch of Places, these facilities can expect consumers to begin utilizing the commenting function to grade their experiences. Hospitals and other healthcare facilities should start looking at this tool as a grader of their service.
- Opportunities for Location-based Marketing– While there is currently no way to target Facebook ads to people who have checked in at a location, Facebook does allow you to target people who ‘Like’ your Place page if you have performed a Page to Place merge.
Foursquare: As Foursquare and other location-based social networks continue to gain mainstream traction, their uses for hospitals and other healthcare facilities is beginning to take shape.
- Awareness – With the launch of MTV’s Get Yourself Tested badge, we can expect other awareness initiatives will begin leveraging the platform. As cold and flu season approaches, the opportunity to drive vaccinations when consumers are on-site presents a great opportunity to reach a captive audience.
- Relationship Building Through Tips – A unique advantage of healthcare facilities is that they have a general understanding of why people are visiting…something health related. Whether that is a recurring visit due to a long-term illness, or a sports injury, they still have the advantage of being able to provide useful tips and recommendations based on their general sense of why consumers are at their location.
- Cross-platform Integration – According to Fox ePractice, Foursquare has confirmed that they are implementing the Facebook Places API to their service–allowing Foursquare check ins to be pushed to Facebook. This will allow hospitals to link their existing Facebook properties with the growing Foursquare user base (which just surpassed 3 million registrants last month).
There are just a few ideas on how Facebook Places and Foursquare could work for hospitals. How do you see location-based social networking impacting the healthcare industry?
Image courtesy theeyeworks.com
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