Social media in healthcare marketing comparison
Today, I received a valuable piece of information to help create a comparison between the U.S. and the U.K. But, I'll come back to that. The United Kingdom's Department of Health oversees The National Health Service (NHS), which is a program that provides publicly-funded healthcare.
My hypothesis:Initially, I thought that NHS might change the landscape of healthcare marketing. Since I've been in London, I have not seen a single commercial or other advertisement for anything healthcare related. This got me to thinking, "is advertising for healthcare needed since everyone has healthcare available?"
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My researched hypothesis:After spending time with some great agencies, (We Are Social and Edelman, to name a few!) I received more insight from people who know quite a bit more than I do. According to Peter Fontana, Senior Analyst of We Are Social, NHS provides standard healthcare. Companies can also give its employees the option of purchasing additional benefits. Generally, this ensures a quicker turnover between scheduling and appointments. It also provides more options for services. Peter also said that the majority of social media would either be within the company or business-to-business. On my trip to Edelman, I found out that it is actually illegal for healthcare companies, such as drug companies, to market to the public. This is a large change from the U.S. as it's nearly impossible to go an hour watching TV without learning about the newest arthritis medicine.
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What's left:
With my remaining time on this project, I hope to go back to Edelman to interview an expert on social media in the healthcare industry. I also hope to research more about measuring the effectiveness of social media use in healthcare. The new information I have learned will greatly impact the comparative portion of this project because social media in healthcare can only be used in a business-to-business setting in the U.K. Stay tuned for more findings and my final presentation!