THE SOCIAL SIDE OF HEALTH CAREContent Analysis of Competitor

Facebook Pages

Brooke Weatherford, Kwang Gunnaleka, Jiani QianCOM803 for Professor Serena Carpenter

INTRODUCTION AND SITUATION ANALYSIS

Sparrow Hospital has been experimented with its social media communication

through Facebook and Twitter. We took a particular interest on Facebook platform since

it seems to get more engagement and has more potential of becoming more successful.

Furthermore when we looked into other healthcare facebook pages, we started to see

that a national high ranking hospital communicate effectively with its customer online.

In our study, we focuses on finding relationship between the content posted on

facebook and positive engagement (like, comment, and share). Our clients report is

aimed to shed the light over types of content generate a more healthcare engagement

user drawing from the good practice of similar standard hospitals.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND HYPOTHESIS

RQ1 : Does the RIBS model fit our sample?

What impact does

remuneration/influence/belonging/significance

have on Facebook’s engagement?

H1: Facebook posts that fall into the RIBS categories are positively

correlated to Facebook engagement.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND HYPOTHESIS

RQ2: What impact does Corporate Social Responsibility have on

Facebook engagement?

H2: Corporate Social Responsibility is positively related to

Facebook engagement.

LITERATURE REVIEW - ENGAGEMENT• Definition of Engagement: “Meaningful connection, creation and communication

between one consumer and one or more other consumers, using brand or brand-

related language, images and meanings”

• Engagement on Facebook = Likes, Comments, and Shares

• To the brand, this translates to:

• increased awareness, brand associations, electronic and in person word of mouth, and a method of

communication for the hospital to keep the community updated on internal advancements and

medical knowledge

• Various content analysis studies have been done to group content into post types

and correlate with engagement in order to help create top level brand strategies

• Little of this research has been conducted with regards to hospital Facebook pages

LITERATURE REVIEW - RIBS

• RIBS is a core principle for a successful online community

• Remuneration or Reward

• Benefit toward customers : Either Valuable experience or prize offering

• Influence

• Member could voice their opinion and their voice is being heard

• Belonging

• Patient’s story

Significance

LITERATURE REVIEW - CSR

● Definition of Corporate Social Responsibility: “help non-profit orgs, give back to

communities, charitable contribution in business activities”

● CSR on Facebook = health/behavior advices/tips, information on recent

health/medical findings, offline events hosted by hospital, offline events in

community , and outside non-profit/charity organization.

● Types of CSR: relational, moral/ethical, discretionary

● Types of CSR communication strategies: informing, responding, involving

RESEARCH DESIGN

METHOD

Content Analysis

● concisely identify characteristics of variables

● systematically categorize variables into groups

● delve into the individual variables of RIBS, CSR and Facebook engagement

● to explore the degree of impact of variables

SAMPLING FRAME

● Sample:

9 hospitals from Top 34 Midwest Hospitals. Number of beds: 400 - 1100

9 hospital’s Facebook pages. Page likes: 4,000 - 14, 000.

● Time frame: November 2015, February 2016

● Codebook: divides variables into five types - page, content post, subject, post type,

visual

MEASURES

● Pilot coding: small sample of posts in March 2016, intercoder

reliability

● 34 variables, 631 posts

● Measure individual variables of major categories: Facebook

engagement, RIBS & CSR

DATA ANALYSIS

• Descriptive Statistics: Detail variables that helped describe the core of the post

message• Engagement, visual, channel, or message level variables

• Clear picture of what sample is doing most, least, and not at all within their organizations Facebook

pages

• Continuous (ratio) level variables: Determined relevant means, medians, modes, and skewness for

these variables

• Categorical (nominal) level variables: Allowed us to see which elements were used most frequently

• Correlation Statistics: Ran three multiple regression models on each of the RIBS

categories, in order to determine their correlation with likes, comments, and shares• Used to explore predictability of a set of independent variables on one dependent variable.

FINDINGS

DESCRIPTIVES SUMMARY• Most common post types were:

• The hospital being the subject of the post (50% of posts)• Mention of a service that the hospital provides• Mention of hospital caretakers (such as doctors and nurses) • Health and behavior tips

• Visual variables most present: • Presence of images, specifically images with human faces• Links• Hashtags• Graphic design elements

• No emoji’s were used in any of the coded posts• Only 2.2% of coded posts did not include any media, (e.g. status update only)• Most common linked channel: Non-traditional websites such as blogs and micro-

sites• Engagement Averages: 11 likes, 2.3 comments, and 6.8 shares• RIBS categorization variables, community was most frequent, followed by

Significance, Influence, and Reward

CORRELATIONS SUMMARY

• LIKES• Reward had the largest statistically significant impact on likes• Community and Significance also produced positive correlations with likes

• COMMENTS• Significance had the strongest correlation with comments• Community also produced a positive correlation• Reward and influence were not significant

• SHARES• Significance had the strongest correlation with shares• Community also produced a positive correlation• Reward and influence were not significant

DESCRIPTIVES

DESCRIPTIVES

DESCRIPTIVES

DESCRIPTIVES

DISCUSSION

• Overlap between Significance and Community: Most common industry strategy is

to focus the majority of posts either on the hospital itself, or the community it

interacts with.

• Significance positively correlates to comments: People often share their

congratulations, appreciation, or opinion on the honor or recognition being

mentioned.

• Significance was also positively correlated to shares: Result of user pride in their

local hospital or self assurance of a correct health care choice

• Reward correlates to likes: People “like” the idea of receiving something in return

for their interaction with brands

RECOMMENDATIONS

RECOMMENDATIONS

• Hashtags: Use hashtags to create communities• the same unique hashtag for various post types or event series

• For example, Health and Behavior Tips could be hashtagged #SparrowHealthTips, or posts related to

hospital caregivers tagged #SparrowCareTeam

• Use photographic images with faces to engage viewers• common industry practice

• Hospitals are a human, emotional industry, and therefore images of humans help bring that to the

page in a visual form

• Take advantage of the creative gap in the sample, and use emoji’s in Facebook

posts to stand out from competition across the midwest• Health Care is an emotional Industry

RECOMMENDATIONS• Make use of Micro-sites: Expand upon Sparrows internal blog to include other

forms of media and information apart from just news

• Offering rewards, either physical goods, services, discounts, or through recognition

are positively correlated with likes• Because of this we recommend seeking different ways to reward followers on Facebook in any ways

possible

• The nature of the healthcare industry isn't conducive to product giveaways or discounts, but seeking

engagement through campaigns like photo contests or story entries, and rewarding users with

acknowledgment and exposure, or small gestures such as gift cards to health stores, flower shops,

fitness clubs etc. will help spread awareness and boost likes.

• Tag organization's: Any time there is a relevant association. • Tags connect the content to more people, and perpetuate sharing

RECOMMENDATIONS• Boost the frequency of posts by highlighting Sparrow achievements, but in a way

that connects the community. • Introduce more of their recognized experts, highlighting more staff achievements, large and small, and

overall sharing of how the people at Sparrow are what make it such a great place for health care

• Boost engagement by sharing patient stories or health related community

happenings• Connect the organization with with people in the mid-Michigan area through personal connections

• Make the hospital feel more close to home, and more personally relevant

• KEY THEME: Emotion: See it behind the people in the community and Sparrow’s role in it in order to boost online community

• Very little of our sample successfully used influence to boost their engagement. • However, according to our literature, it can be a very valuable method for fostering online

community• Filter reviews on Sparrow Hospital’s Facebook page, and see if users made suggestions that Sparrow

hospital has recently altered. From there a great post would be to mention the user who suggested the problem, and display how Sparrow has listened to the advice and made a change.

THANK YOU