Social media and healthcare marketing

Social media and healthcare marketing

Introduction

There is great importance of healthcare to government and individuals; in addition to this the increasing cost of healthcare to the economy or society has created an important area of research for business scholars and other disciplines. It is found that information systems (IS) can play a vital role in managing and reducing cost of healthcare and also enhancing the quality of care (Kolonder et al., 2008). However, in recent years it is found that increasing number of healthcare organization is appearing on social media marketing. Social media is found to be a wonderful way in connecting organizations to its target markets. This includes referral sources, customers, patient and their families (Bacigalupe, 2011).

Discussion

In current era, digital media is present everywhere. It is found that teenagers and all age groups are increasingly interacting in virtual world. For their interaction, wide variety of hardware such as laptops, cell phones, e-reader, tablets and many other forms of digital hardware is widely available and is continuously being modified. With rise of social technologies, power of information is developed which leads to growth of information technology and digital technology. There are good examples of social media such as twitter and facebook which describes how social technology tools have evolved; these tools are not only the source of providing information but also a tool to shape information. With integration of social media and information communication technologies (ICTs) our professional and personal lives are redesigned. There are number of surveys on ICTs with constantly statistical analysis and deep qualitative opinion on how ICT is affecting our daily life of millions of people after its presence and also its effect on communities, organizations, and families.

Social network technologies are referred to the focus on community creation and collaboration and sometimes it is also known as social networking. Various popular social network sites are MySpace, Facebook, Linkedin, You Tube, Twitter, Ning and Blip.fm. It is defined as the services that are based on web or internet which enables individuals to develop a public or semi public profile that is in bounded system, express their feelings, ideas with other user with whom they have shared their connection and apparently view their connections in the list and other user that exists within the system (Ellison, 2007). It is also found that social technologies are readily and easily available to everyone via internet accessed ...