Health Service of Developing the Marketing Plan Order Instructions: Social Media Tools for Health Care Services Social media tools encourage people to share information, collaborate, and interact.
These tools reinforce and personalize health messages, reach new audiences, and build a communication infrastructure based on open information exchange.
—Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2012
How does a health care administrator determine which social media tool is most appropriate for an intended audience or health message? Using social media tools to communicate health messages offers many benefits including instantaneous feedback, establishing a networked community, and enhanced information dissemination. With these thoughts in mind, how might these benefits transcend into the marketing of a new health care service?
This Assignment, reflect on health service and target population that you would like to use as part of a marketing plan. The health service and target population you select will become the focus of your Final Project. Consider contemporary social media tools and other communication technology tools you might use for your marketing plan. Think about which tools might provide your marketing plan the greatest scope and which social media tools might be most appropriate for the health care service you chose. Then select two social media tools for your marketing plan.
ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS
The Assignment (1–2 pages)
1. Describe the health service for which you intend to develop a marketing plan, including an explanation of why this service is needed and the potential target audience for this service.
2. Describe the two social media tools you selected for your marketing plan. (The two social media tools selected social networking platforms and media-sharing sites)
3. Explain how the social media tools you selected are most appropriate for your intended audience and health service in your marketing plan.
USE THE FOLLOWING FOUR ARTICLES IN APA STYLE IN PARAGRAPH BELOW:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (n.d.). CDCynergyLite: Social marketing made simple: A guide for creating effective social marketing plans. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/healthcommunication/pdf/cdcynergylite.pdf
Social media is the message for occ health. (2011). Hospital Employee Health, 30(6), 63–65.
Anikeeva, O., & Bywood, P. (2013). Social media in primary health care: Opportunities to enhance education, communication, and collaboration among professionals in rural and remote locations. Australian Journal of Rural Health, 21(2), 132–134.
Eytan, T., Benabio, J., Golla, V., Parikh, R., & Stein, S. (2011). Social media and the health system. The Permanente Journal, 15(1), 71–74. Retrieved from http://www.thepermanentejournal.org/issues/2011/winter/445-social-media-and-the-health-system.html
APPLY THE APPLICATION ASSIGNMENT RUBRIC WHEN WRITING THE PAPER:
The paper should demonstrate an excellent understanding of all of the concepts and key points presented in the texts.
II. Paper provides significant detail including multiple relevant examples, evidence from the readings and other sources, and discerning ideas.
III. Paper should be well organized, uses scholarly tone, follows APA style, uses original writing and proper paraphrasing, contains very few or no writing and/or spelling errors, and is fully consistent with the doctoral level writing style.
IV. Paper should be mostly consistent with the doctoral level writing style.
Health Service of Developing the Marketing Plan Sample Answer
Health service of developing the marketing plan
The Sky Blue medical centre has recently become interested in participating in The California Telehealth Network (CTN). This healthcare facility will utilize the CTN services to give patients in this county with the new suite of telehealth clinical services. The main telehealth services that will be considered include the cardiovascular diseases. In support of the program, the telehealth marketing effort is designed to improve the awareness and visibility for the telehealth services internally and also within the community (Social Media, 2011).
The telehealth system and its components have been around for several years but have largely remained underutilized. The initial focus for a long period of time has been to prove to the healthcare stakeholders about the primary benefits and opportunities that are involved in the system. The telehealth system delivers convenient, personalised and quick delivery of services (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, n.d.).
The targeted audiences for the marketing efforts consists of the healthcare facility administration and staff whose main help is to support healthcare programs through advocacy, funding and other resources that will enable actual telehealth solutions. Referring providers will also be involved, who will be relied on to recommend patients to undergo telehealth services. These include clinicians and practice physicians working in local nursing homes and also in long term healthcare facilities. The other target group includes supporting organizations and patients (Etyan et al., 2011).
Health Service of Developing the Marketing Plan and Social media tools used for a marketing plan
The social media tools that will be used for developing the marketing plan include the media sharing sites and the social networking platforms. The social media networking platforms are useful when exchanging information within the virtual communities using the online tools. It is used by millions of people to connect and converse (Anikeeva & Bywood, 2013). Health and health care organizations are popular topics that are used in media conversations. Through social networking platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and blogs, the telehealth services information will penetrate to the society with ease, and making it easy for the target group to listen, consume and participate in a feedback system (Social Media, 2011).
Twitter social networking service can be used to send the product short notes commonly referred to as “tweets”. It is a good platform to communicate with potential target group by tweeting about the special offers and products that are available. It is also an important platform where the brand’s personality and give general idea of the topic trend. The second social marketing tool that will be used is the blog. A blog is an internet site that has a series of entries as well as posts about the product and how to get hold of the product (Social Media, 2011).
These social marketing tools are appropriate because they are a powerful fad. This is because it increases brand recognition as it increases the product visibility. These are the new channels for a brand’s content and voice, making it easier to be accessible by the target group, making the product more recognizable. Additionally, it has the capacity to improve the brand loyalty (Etyan et al., 2011). Report published by the Texas Tech University indicated that engaging in social media marketing makes the company enjoy higher customer loyalty, as it constantly connects them with the audience. Additionally, it creates more opportunities for converting more customers. If the product is able to develop a following, it simultaneously increases access to new customers and increases the chances to interact with them. Therefore, every blog post, video or image shared gives a chance for the targeted people to react, and each reaction leads to suite visit and eventual conversation. It makes it easy to retrieve customers and targeted group feedback (Anikeeva & Bywood, 2013).
Health Service of Developing the Marketing Plan References
Anikeeva, O., & Bywood, P. (2013). Social media in primary health care: Opportunities to enhance education, communication and collaboration among professionals in rural and remote locations. Australian Journal of Rural Health, 21(2), 132–134.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (n.d.). CDCynergyLite: Social marketing made simple: A guide for creating effective social marketing plans. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/healthcommunication/pdf/cdcynergylite.pdf
Eytan, T., Benabio, J., Golla, V., Parikh, R., & Stein, S. (2011). Social media and the health system. The Permanente Journal, 15(1), 71–74. Retrieved from http://www.thepermanentejournal.org/issues/2011/winter/445-social-media-and-the-health-system.html
Social media (2011). Social media is the message for occ health. Hospital Employee Health, 30(6), 63–65.
