AMANDA SMITH PROJECT

Running head: Social Media Tools for Health Care Services 1

Social Media Tools for Health Care Services 2

INSTRUCTOR FEEDBACK

Hello. Good idea for the marketing plan,. In addition, both media platforms you selected are appropriate for this assignment. I'm looking forward to seeing how it develops. Thanks!

Social Media Tools for Health Care Services

The healthcare service that I want to create is a marketing plan for rehabilitation services for nicotine addicts. My interest in this topic is not about the thrill of creating awareness, but because nicotine addicts are among the most struggling drug addicts there is. Cigarettes’ smoking is a habit that has a high rate of addicts and a hard habit of quitting (Kemp et al., 2017). Therefore, such a service will help people of all demographics to get medical help to stop. One should note that not all smokers enjoy smoking; according to research, most smokers have testified to enjoy the relief they get from their nicotine withdrawal symptoms but immediately after they start feeling a negative mood change.

Statistically, 71% of smokers regret smoking, 21% do not know their regret status, and 8% outrightly say that they do not regret smoking (Leek et al., 2019). This service is essential for the more significant percentage that regrets and is unable to quit the habit. There are numerous benefits of quitting smoking; for instance, smokers' average life expectancy is reduced by ten years compared to nonsmokers (Leek et al., 2019). Smokers are also at a high risk of diabetes, lung and heart diseases, and a smoker that quits before 40 reduces the chances of dying from a smoking-related condition by about 90%. Besides, no human being wants to live with the fear that their life is shortened compared to the average person. The potential targets would be older adults of the age of 29-40.

Social media has brought a tremendous change in the health industry. Its use has increased because of its ability to get beyond geographic and physical barriers. The two social media tools that I'll use for the marketing plan is Facebook and Twitter. A Facebook presence is essential for a basic social media plan for any healthcare organization. The platform and its users are constantly developing for the better, making it a profitable business platform. There are many about 200 social networking sites; among them, Facebook is the leading with about 700 million registered users, including about half of the American population.

Facebook is the right choice for my marketing plan because of the high number of people on the site and the 1.79 billion daily active users. A survey conducted on the benefit of social media on healthcare by the National Research Corp, more than 40% of the respondents’ bank on interacting social sites for health updates, and almost all folks rely on Facebook for information. This means that using this platform for my marketing plan will ensure that I reach many people than any other social site (Martin & Birgit, 2020). Facebook may not be 100% reliable for all healthcare processes, but studies have proven that it is efficient for healthcare marketing.

Twitter is a real-time messaging service that can work over multiple networks and devices. In 2006 the site was launched as a free microblogging service where users can write and read short messages from numerous users. Users also receive message updates from authors they have chosen to follow (Martin & Birgit, 2020). This is an excellent site to ensure that healthcare marketing projects will work. The main aim of Twitter is to create a community of followers and provide information for passive research. Generally, people have increased in using technology, and social media sites have been a means to business as today, companies are done digitally. This makes Twitter one of the main platforms for marketing.

This site's importance is that as much as it does not drive so much traffic at a go, an advertiser is sure that the people following them are interested in the product or service. Therefore, Twitter is essential for the health marketing plan. Statistics show that there are one billion smokers in the world. This number indicates that there is a large number of smokers, about 3/4, are using social media.

Social media will generally be useful in my healthcare marketing project because little time in a week can go a long way in ensuring that the message is out to different people in different geographical areas. Statistics show that about 84% of marketers can generate traffic within six hours.

References:

Kemp, E., Bui, M., Krishen, A., Homer, P. M., & LaTour, M. S. (2017). Understanding the power of hope and empathy in healthcare marketing. Journal of Consumer Marketing. Retrieved from 

https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JCM-04-2016-1765/full/html?fullSc=1

Leek, S., Houghton, D., & Canning, L. (2019). Twitter and behavioral engagement in the healthcare sector: An examination of product and service companies. Industrial Marketing Management, 81, 115-129. Retrieved from 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0019850117301128

Martin, S., & Birgit, G. (2020). Intensive WOM-behavior in the healthcare sector–the case of an Austrian hospital’s Facebook site. International Review on Public and Non-Profit Marketing, 17(3), 331-352. Retrieved from 

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s12208-020-00250-7.pdf