Our recent study on social media has generated a lot of buzz from healthcare bloggers. The high level of response is really encouraging, and Greystone.Net will continue to do this type of research in the future. There seems to be a tremendous demand from healthcare marketers for information on current industry topics.
The goal of our study was not to precisely calculate the percentage of hospitals involved in social media, but rather to learn about the behavior of hospitals related to social media. In case you missed our earlier announcement, our key findings were:
a. Hospitals are embracing social media
b. A large percentage of them are doing it without a real plan
I think it is important to clarify a few points, as there has been some misinformation floating around. First, our research showed that 9 out of 10 hospitals have either an active presence or are monitoring Social Media sites. We are not saying that 90% of hospitals have a Facebook or Twitter account. That number is actually closer to 60%.
Secondly, our sample is representative of the hospitals in our Greystone.Net research panel. These hospitals are not necessarily a good representation of all hospitals nationwide, but rather of those hospitals that are over 200 beds and have some level of internal Web culture. Our study participants tend to more Web 2.0 savvy than the smaller hospitals or non-Web focused organizations, so data may be skewed in that direction. However, it should be noted that Greystone.Net works with many different types of organizations, from small community hospitals to large academic medical centers. We are always looking to recruit new members to our research panel –
let us know if you would like to be involved.
Thanks to everyone who participated in our research, and all who have looked at and commented on the report. I look forward to sharing the results of our next survey, about the 2010 outlook for hospital/health system Web budgets.