Online Certificate Series: Social Media Strategies in Health Care

New! This course is now available on-demand through the end of 2024.

Social media trends, tools and rules change quickly in health care. Consumer preferences differ greatly among each social platform, requiring health care marketers and communicators to stay up to date on the latest trends that will engage their audience. Join us for SHSMD’s annual Health Care Social Media Certificate Series as we dive into the hottest topics in health care social media and learn best practices (as well as what to avoid) from your peers.  

Format & Additional Resources: Along with seven live webinars, registrants will have access to over 15 webinar recordings from last year’s SHSMD conference as well from the 2023 and 2022 social media series. Access to all recordings will be available through the end of the year. Scroll down to view webinar titles and descriptions. 

Plus, this course will provide helpful tools and resources, while giving you a platform to engage in discussion with you peers where you can share strategies, innovative ideas and helpful tools around content development and strategy.

Digital Badge: Upon completing the course requirements, you will be awarded a digital certificate you can share on your social platforms, including LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

10% registration discount available for groups of 3 or more. Contact SHSMD@aha.org for the group rate.

Format & Additional Resources: 

Seven On-Demand Webinars 
All webinar recordings are available on-demand through end of the year:

1. Monday, September 9: Video, Vampires & Vagabonds: The recipe for quality storytelling in video format
2. Wednesday, September 11: Tapping into Gen Z: Harnessing Social Media to Engage the Next Generation of Health Care Consumers
3. Friday, September 13: What We Learned from Our TikTok "Icks" Crisis
4. Monday, September 16: #Let'sGetSocial: What is the Risk of Social?
5. Wednesday, September 18: Your Doctors Are The Only Influencers You Need. Here's How To Activate Them — and Get Them Excited — About Your Short-Form Video
6. Friday, September 20: Minding the Minefield: Navigating Online Hostility and Fostering Mental Resilience
7. Tuesday, September 24: Podcast Marketing Made Simple: How to Elevate your Brand through Video/Audio Podcasts

Webinar Information:

Video, Vampires & Vagabonds: The Recipe for Quality Storytelling in Video Format

With YouTube, Tiktok, Facebook and other social media platforms being consumed daily by droves, the opportunity to leverage video storytelling has increased, but the quality of what we are seeing may not cut the muster for health care. Our stories must be told well. 

In this session, we will discuss the recipe for quality storytelling in video format. What is needed, what not to do and how best to share your created content for the most ROI. Whether you use Facebook “live” or a purchased service for creating content, the recipe is the same. We will show you how to get the most from your video storytelling and how to get stakeholders involved. Wouldn’t you like to see your providers, senior leaders and front line staff involved in storytelling - not to mention your patients? 

Let us answer the question “How do we get buy in?” We will show you how and help you position yourself as an expert at video storytelling. We will also discuss the "10 Videos Every Hospital Needs to Make" and provide you will a book of storyboards to help you tell your hospital's story! 

Do you dream of a strong video presence both internally and externally? Do you want to take your internal communication to the next level? Do you want people talking about the content you are sharing? Come prepared to learn how to make the most of your video storytelling without dealing with Vampires and Vagabonds!

Learning Objectives:

1. Participants will be able to leverage video content more effectively for storytelling and demonstrate strong ROI for time spent developing and leveraging video storytelling in both patient acquisition and employee retention.
2. Participants will be able to identify "Vampires" and "Vagabonds" and engage them in the story telling process.
3. Participants will understand the to 10 videos every hospital needs to make, and leave equipped with a storyboard book to help them implement immediately.

Speakers:
Laurie Labishak, Market Director of Marketing & Communications, Trinity Health System
Mark Mongell, Executive Director, Health System Sales, Cryano Video

Tapping into Gen Z: Harnessing Social Media to Engage the Next Generation of Health Care Consumers

Today’s health care consumers are digitally-driven, turning to platforms like social media and online reviews to find health information and make care decisions. This is especially true for Gen Z, who have lived their entire lives online. In our survey and interview-based study, we examine how this tech-savvy generation consumes health content on social media, from symptom searches to self-diagnosis and beyond. With 93% of Gen Zers using social media multiple times per day, these platforms provide immense opportunity for health systems. 

We will discuss strategies and best practices for establishing an engaging social presence, disseminating credible and accessible health information, directly interacting with the next generation of prospective patients, tracking trends in consumer behavior, and combating misinformation. 

By leveraging social media and crafting relevant digital experiences, health systems can become trusted partners along the consumer health journey and offering an opportunity to serve as health navigators. Our research reveals exactly how Gen Zers use platforms like TikTok and Instagram at various stages—from initially researching symptoms and deciding when to see a doctor to verifying the credibility of user-generated content. We will provide actionable recommendations on creating social content for digestible, conversational information. 

With mental health being a top concern, we will also explore effective messaging surrounding behavioral care. 

Beyond informational content, social media allows health systems to directly respond to consumer inquiries in real-time and humanize the organization. Attendees will learn strategies to understand Gen Z's heavy usage of and reliance on social media for health and medical information; establish and grow social media presence on Gen Z’s preferred platforms; leverage social listening insights to identify consumer needs and preferences; combat health misinformation spread on social platforms; and utilize digital platforms as touchpoints across the consumer journey to build trust and affinity.

Learning Objectives:

1. Identify best practices for social content, cadence and formatting based on Gen Z health information consumption behaviors.
2. Develop strategies to leverage social media platforms and digital touchpoints as a trusted resource along the consumer health care journey.
3. Apply recommendations to establish engaging social profiles and disseminate credible, accessible health content that caters to Gen Z preferences.

Speaker: Lauren Roncevic, Senior Director of Healthcare Research, Corporate Insight

What We Learned from Our TikTok "Icks" Crisis

In December 2022, Emory Healthcare's marketing team experienced our first crisis on TikTok when several labor and delivery nurses shared their "icks" about patients. It was overwhelming, consuming our team for days - and it taught us a lot about how to prepare for the next one. In this session, we'll discuss: 

• The early signs – what to look for & when to elevate concerning social content.
• Communicating to our leadership that this kind of negative attention can & will happen, and TikTok is particularly inflammatory and unpredictable. 
• An overview of our issue & how it progressed through a few different themes and national publications, plus our coordination with media relations and internal communications. 
• Things we learned, loose guidelines we’ve developed for how to react, ensuring team wellbeing. 
• How that all translated into subsequent crises in 2023 (label standards, reporting, going dark or not, statement or not, etc.). 
• Making a case for support to leadership, and how we use the voice of the customer data from social media in decision-making.
  
  Learning Objectives:

1. How to define a social crisis strategy.
2. The communication elements and reporting our leaders found most important.
3. How to use data to make a case for support & inform marketing team decisions.

Speakers:
Laura Kuechenmeister, Corporate Director, Content Marketing, Emory Healthcare
Tiera Johnson, Social Content Manager, Emory Healthcare

#Let'sGetSocial: What is the Risk of Social?

Patients are providing their prospective in real time during the height of their reactionary emotion of situations now more than ever. Health care Public Relations and marketing professionals experience challenges regarding the identification, management, and mitigation of these risky communications on social media. From promoting the organization in a positive light, to showing appreciation for a patient’s review, to putting the organization at risk by breaching privacy unintentionally -- what we communicate can have so many outcomes. 

This educational session will provide attendees tools to formulate responses in compliance with regulatory bodies, introduce the benefits of collaborative working relationship with Risk Management, identifying methods for conducting a social media risk assessment, identify successful mitigation strategies that maintains privacy and organizational security, and introduce attendees to elements of creating a social media policy based on best practices. Organizational social media policy examples will be shared along with sample posts and responses.

Learning Objectives:

1. Identify elements of social media policies and procedures that have been implemented into best practices in the industry and utilize the elements as tool to create an individualized Social Media policy in one’s own organization with both Public Relations/marketing and Risk Management involved.
2. Formulate appropriate responses to various patient posts online, including grievances, medical questions, and notes of appreciation.
3. Evaluate areas where implicit bias can impact responding to social media posts.

Speaker: Katie Donald, PR Specialist/ Risk Management, Punxsutawney Area Hospital

Your Doctors Are The Only Influencers You Need. Here's How To Activate Them — and Get Them Excited — About Your Short-Form Video

Who would you trust more: A wellness coach you saw on TikTok or a physician from a reputable health care system? The answer is obvious — but sometimes, how you leverage your organization’s experts to reach your target audience, spur engagement and drive conversion isn’t so. 

In this session, we’ll go behind the scenes with Northwell Health to explore how to turn your experts into trusted influencers online through an audience-driven short-form video strategy. Specifically, we’ll discuss how Northwell leveraged the strategy behind its award-winning editorial brand publication — The Well by Northwell Health — to grow relevance and expand to social media. We’ll discuss the launch strategy, growth tactics, and most importantly, how we’ve recruited and collaborated with physicians to continually share their expertise to drive trust and connection with Northwell’s audience.

Learning Objectives:

1. Learn how to systematically brief and onboard experts at scale, illustrating how participation is easy and rewarding.
2. Understand how to leverage experts for content production, distribution and an as advocate for your efforts within the organization.
3. Get tips for guiding experts in content production to ensure their personal brand ties back to company values, messaging and identity.

Speakers:
Courtney Fowler, COO, Revmade
Genna Cozzolino, Senior Manager, Digital Channel Strategy, Northwell Health

Minding the Minefield: Navigating Online Hostility and Fostering Mental Resilience

As health care social media professionals, we're on the front lines of the digital battlefield. It's no wonder that our mental health can take a hit in such a hostile environment. One research study found that 82% of social media managers are at least occasionally affected by negative comments, and those who are frequently affected by negative comments have a nearly 3 point drop on a 10 point scale in their mental health. The longer a social media manager is in their role, the harder it is to manage negativity. Small teams, who may not have the opportunity to cycle offline, are more at risk. But there is hope! In this talk, we'll explore practical strategies for navigating online hostility and fostering mental resilience. 

By the end of this talk, you'll have the tools and resources you need to protect your mental health and continue doing your important work:

• Identify and mitigate the risks of online negativity. 
• Develop coping mechanisms for dealing with trolls and other online predators. 
• Create business processes and set healthy boundaries to protect your mental well-being. 
• Practice self-care strategies to stay calm and centered. 

Learning Objectives:

1. Participants will understand the impact of social media on mental health among those in the profession.
2. Participants will develop identify potential process improvements and resources to help reduce stress on small social media teams.
3. Participants will identify risks of burnout and other mental health concerns in team members and in themselves.

Speaker: Robbie Schneider, SMS, Manager of Social Media, Franciscan Health

Podcast Marketing Made Simple: How to Elevate your Brand through Video/Audio Podcasts

Learn how to leverage the power of podcasts, both in video and audio formats, to enhance brand visibility and social media engagement. The presentation provides straightforward strategies and practical tips for effectively using podcasts as a marketing tool. It addresses key aspects such as topic construction, social media promotion, and distribution channels including YouTube. 

Claudia Otero from Salinas Valley Health will share her experiences with podcasts including using podcasts to reach a Spanish audience. In addition, Marissa Damanhoury from Bryan Health, Nebraska will share her experiences with video and audio podcasts including planning, social media promotion and more. This guide is ideal for health care professionals looking to explore innovative ways to connect with their audience through social media and more.

Learning Objectives:

1. Participants will be able to drive engage through promotion on social media, website, email, YouTube and more.
2. Participants will be able to understand and develop their own audio and video podcast strategy including audience definition, topic construction and more.
3. Participants will be able to apply practical insights in podcast marketing through Implementing real-world podcast marketing strategies shared by Claudia and Marissa for stronger audience connections and brand development.

Speakers:
Bill Klaproth, Director of Marketing and Production, DoctorPodcasting
Marissa Damanhoury, Marketing Specialist/Advancement, Bryan Health
Claudia Otero, Community Outreach Lead, Salinas Valley Health

PLUS, ADDITIONAL RESOURCES & OVER 15 ADDITIONAL WEBINAR RECORDINGS!

Over 15 additional webinar recordings from past courses and SHSMD Connections annual conference plus recordings from the 2022 and 2023 Social Media Certificate Series.  

2023 Conference Recordings: 

Marketing in a HIPAA World: Balancing Promotion of Care with Patient Privacy

Health care marketers are charged with promoting access to care. To do that, marketers need to meet potential patients where they are. Like it or not, online searches and social media are how people learn about preventative medicine, new procedures, and possible cures.

This charge must be balanced with their other duty to protect patient privacy. Complying with rules like HIPAA helps keep patient personal health information out of the hands of someone who might use it in a negative way. But it also makes it more difficult for health care providers to accomplish their mission of improving access to health care for all. Join us to see how health care providers are successfully navigating this balance, and how they can effectively execute their mission without compromising patient privacy.

1.    How HIPAA impacts the data marketers need to be successful.
2.    Why tracking technologies from popular tools like Google Analytics, Facebook, and others creates risk for health care providers.
3.    What approaches health care marketers can take to keep those tools running while staying compliant.

Speaker: Ray Mina, Head of Marketing, Freshpaint

HIPAA, FTC, & State Laws – What you need to know NOW!

The legal landscape is constantly shifting in health care marketing. Rules tightened even more in 2022. Are you on top of the recent developments? Attend this session to understand what’s happening in health care marketing compliance. We promise it won’t be full of legal jargon! What can you track, what can’t you track, and why! We’ll offer examples, best practices, and ways for even non-tech-savvy marketers to see if their organization is handling patient data safely. 

1.    What changes happened in 2022 that impact how/what you can track?
2.    What questions you should be asking your internal and agency teams to ensure compliance.
3.    Best practices to track the patient journey online - what you can and can’t do.

Speaker: Jenny Bristow, CEO, Hedy & Hopp

Protecting Your Social Media Team’s Mental Health 

Researchers are just beginning to understand the effects of social media on mental health and well-being. And that’s for the general public. Social media can have potentially damaging consequences for employees faced with negative comments and extreme content every day. In this session, you will learn to identify process changes and tools to help protect your social media team’s mental health with the goal of reducing burnout.

1.    Equip attendees with a framework to evaluate and expand the role of the Marketing and Communications function to successfully meet workforce needs.
2.    Learn how to apply organizational data and insights to drive action to address the most pressing workforce challenges including recruitment marketing and employee engagement.
3.    Understand strategies to effectively prioritize, “pitch”, and secure resources for initiatives that drive measurable impact in candidate attraction, organizational culture, and employee experience.

Speaker: Robbie Schneider, SMS, Manager of Social Media, Franciscan Health

Bilingual Strategy Communications: Communicating With A Diverse Audience

Hispanics are one of the most influential, growing demographics in the country. Yet, reaching Hispanics effectively can be challenging. A bi-lingual strategy is critical for health care marketers and communicators who serve communities with a significant Hispanic population. Learn how Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System pivoted and changed the way it delivered timely and important health information to our community during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. This session will describe how our marketing team quickly produced our first Facebook Live presentation on COVID-19 and how an incredibly highly-watched Spanish version followed a week later. A couple of months later we made major changes to those presentations. We changed filming locations, spruced up graphics, hired a production team to film the live presentations, and started boosting our Facebook posts promoting the live virtual presentations. This session will share tips for how to keep audiences engaged through a variety of live and recorded events that are adjusted to meet the needs of both Spanish and English-speaking audiences.

Speaker: Claudia, Otero, Community Outreach Lead, Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System

Start a Revolution: Leveraging Social Media to Build Culture and Community Across your Organization

We live in turbulent times in which providers are called on to quickly address a wide range of issues and community questions. The topics, ranging from care for historically underserved populations to employee issues and environmental impact, are multifaceted. In this session, you’ll learn how Lehigh Valley Health Network approaches communications preparedness to ensure alignment across its wide range of stakeholders and position itself to respond quickly and cohesively. This includes how the organization developed its approach for responding to whatever may come their way while maintaining a strong connection with its community and internal stakeholders.

1. Participants will have a framework for auditing and evaluating societal issues to understand which are most pertinent for their organizations/communities to proactively develop communications.
2. Participants will have a roadmap for understanding if a national conversation connects to the communities they serve or other stakeholder groups, warranting preparedness efforts.
3. Participants will understand how to evaluate when and how to communicate the right information with the right audiences to build trust and protect reputation.

Speakers: 
Kristin Reed, Manager, Internal Communications and Engagement, Lehigh Valley Health Network
Pamela Riddell, Administrator, Strategic Communications, Lehigh Valley Health Network

Recordings from 2023 and 2022 Social Media Certificate Series:

2023 Social Media Certificate Series Webinar Recordings:
•    A Winning Social Strategy You Have the Resources to Start Now
•    Social Media Success Blueprint: Unlocking the Power of Strategic Content Strategies
•    What’s on the Menu? Creating a Delicious Social Strategy
•    Ochsner Health: Using Influencer Marketing to Amplify Ongoing Population Health Efforts
•    How to Leverage Your Personal Brand on LinkedIn to Amplify Your Organization
•    Hospitals That Do Podcast Marketing Right. What They Know

2022 Social Media Certificate Series Webinar Recordings:
•    The Power of Influencer Marketing in Health Care 
•    Hospital Podcast Marketing: Easy content creation direct from your doctors for your social media, website and more.
•    Case Study: Docs on Tik Tok: Mastering Clinical "Edu-tainment" 
•    Demand + Brand: A Paid Social Synergy to Grow Patient Volume (2 webinars)
•    Hospital Social Media Governance Survey Insights, Trends & Best Practices