The chatter among healthcare marketers with regard to social media often seems to be stuck on the mos 
t basic of questions (e.g., What is it? Why should we do it? What about adverse event reporting? How do we start?). Yet, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) has quietly been doing best-in-class new media marketing and education for some time.
The most recent example of this has been the rapid, comprehensive roll-out of H1N1 (swine flu) information. While the main CDC flu website and their social media tools site aren’t very pretty to look at, they cover all the most important online media tactics.
- Homepage —their main H1N1 webpage serves as a hub for information clear navigation is matched with robust features including subscribe via RSS or email, links to Twitter, and a strong search function.
- Search Engine Optimization —SEO is clearly not a priority at the CDC; their main flu site doesn’t even populate the keywords metatags. But being the CDC means you probably don’t have to. Their standard text page, rich in content, indexes well with Google and the number of inbound links to the CDC in general guarantees good ranking results. They are currently #2 behind Wikipedia for “H1N1 flu” and #1 for “swine flu” on Google.
- YouTube —YouTube now gets more search traffic than any other site except Google (source: ComScore) and delivers over 100 million (yes, 100 million ) videos per month. The CDC YouTube channel has 46 different videos with an H1N1 video getting almost a million views in the last two weeks alone.
- Twitter —the CDC maintains four different Twitter accounts including 2 different ones for the flu, which is a bit confusing. Their main account @CDCemergency has an impressive 170,000 followers.
- Facebook & MySpace —the CDC fan page on Facebook currently has 6,300 “fans” and their MySpace has 900 “friends”.
- Mobile —keenly aware of just how many people are now surfing the web from their phones, CDC also provides content optimized for mobile delivery at http://m.cdc.gov/.
- Flickr —the most widely used photo-sharing site, the CDC has uploaded 15 flu related images to Flickr which garnered over 2,200 views in less than 3 weeks.
- Podcasts —over 12 audio and video podcasts, in English and Spanish, can be found on iTunes.
- Widgets —the most innovative e-health marketing tactic the CDC uses is widgets which syndicates content across other websites. Currently you can paste the widget code into your own webpage or blog to offer a real-time map of confirmed cases in the USA, real-time pandemic flu news, and H1N1 tips.
While the H1N1 outbreak is a unique situation and the CDC brings unmatched credibility and authority as a source, there is no reason why any health marketer shouldn’t adopt these social media tactics. Whether you are selling a glucose meter, an RA drug, or promoting a hospital social media can be among the most cost-effective ways to connect with health consumers.
Where should you start? Make sure you have a strong website that is rich in content—content about health or your related disease state, NOT just about your product or service. Make sure you have a YouTube channel with appropriate videos, establish a Facebook page so fans can gather and keep in touch, and begin to participate in relevant communities and conversations on Twitter.
While there is no guarantee you’ll get a million views or 200,000 followers, you’ll certainly be reaching thousands of active health consumers and influencers in your market.
The chatter among healthcare marketers with regard to social media often seems to be stuck on the mos
t basic of questions (e.g., What is it? Why should we do it? What about adverse event reporting? How do we start?). Yet, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) has quietly been doing best-in-class new media marketing and education for some time.
The most recent example of this has been the rapid, comprehensive roll-out of H1N1 (swine flu) information. While the main CDC flu website and their social media tools site aren’t very pretty to look at, they cover all the most important online media tactics.
Where should you start? Make sure you have a strong website that is rich in content—content about health or your related disease state, NOT just about your product or service. Make sure you have a YouTube channel with appropriate videos, establish a Facebook page so fans can gather and keep in touch, and begin to participate in relevant communities and conversations on Twitter.
While there is no guarantee you’ll get a million views or 200,000 followers, you’ll certainly be reaching thousands of active health consumers and influencers in your market.