A Strategic Imperative for Promoting Hospital Branding: Analysis of Outcome Indicators

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Abstract

Background

Optimizing the use of social media to promote hospital branding is important in the present digital era. In Taiwan, only 51.1% of hospitals have official Facebook fan pages. The numbers of likes for these hospitals are also relatively low.

Objective

Our objective was to establish a special branding team for social media operation, led by top administrators of our hospital. Here we present our strategic imperative for promoting hospital branding as well as an analysis of its effectiveness.

Methods

Led by top administrators, the branding team was formed by 11 divisions to create branding strategies. From 2016 to 2018, the team implemented action plans. All information unique to the hospital was posted on Facebook, as well as on the hospital’s official website. To determine the plans’ efficiencies, we obtained reference data from Google Analytics, and we compared Facebook Insights reports for 2016 with those for 2017 and 2018.

Results

One of the branding team’s main missions was to establish branding strategies and to integrate segmental branding messages. In each quarter we regularly monitored a total of 52 action plan indicators, including those for process and outcome, and discussed the results at team meetings. We selected 4 main performance outcome indicators to reflect the effectiveness of the branding efforts. Compared with 2016, the numbers of likes posted on the Facebook fan page increased by 61.2% in 2017 and 116.2% in 2018. Similarly, visits to the hospital website increased by 4.8% in 2017 and 33.1% in 2018. Most Facebook fan page and website viewers were in 2 age groups: 25 to 34 years, and 35 to 44 years. Women constituted 60.42% (14,160/23,436) of Facebook fans and 59.39% (778,992/1,311,605) of website viewers. According to the Facebook Insights reports, the number of likes and post sharing both increased in 2017 and 2018, relative to 2016. Comment messages also increased from 2016 to 2018 ( P=.02 for the trend). The most common theme of posts varied over time, from media reports in 2016, to innovative services in both 2017 and 2018. Likes for innovative services posts increased from 2016 through 2018 ( P=.045 for the trend). By the end of 2018, we recorded 23,436 cumulative likes for posts, the highest number among medical centers in Taiwan.

Conclusions

We achieved the largest number of Facebook fans among all medical centers in Taiwan. We would like to share our experience with other hospitals that might be interested in engaging in social media for future communications and interactions with their patients.

Related collections

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Author and article information

Contributors

Wayne Huey-Herng Sheu:

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8805-8340

Department of Top Hospital AdministrationTaichung Veterans General HospitalNo 1650, Section 4, Taiwan BoulevardTaichung, Taiwan886 4 2359 2525 ext 2005886 4 2359 2728whhsheu@vghtc.gov.tw

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Interact J Med Res

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Interact J Med Res

Journal ID (publisher-id): IJMR

Title: Interactive Journal of Medical Research

Publisher: JMIR Publications (Toronto, Canada )

ISSN (Electronic): 1929-073X

Publication date Collection: Jan-Mar 2020

Publication date (Electronic): 22 January 2020

Volume: 9

Issue: 1

Electronic Location Identifier: e14546

Affiliations

[1 ] Department of Top Hospital Administration Taichung Veterans General Hospital Taichung Taiwan

[2 ] Department of Medicine, School of Medicine National Yang-Ming University Taipei Taiwan

[3 ] School of Medicine National Defense Medical Center Taipei Taiwan

[4 ] Institute of Medical Technology, College of Life Science National Chung-Hsing University Taichung Taiwan

Author notes

Corresponding Author: Wayne Huey-Herng Sheu whhsheu@ 123456vghtc.gov.tw

Author information

Gow-Jen Shieh https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8565-2344

Shi-Liang Wu https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2560-476X

Che-Fu Tsai https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5736-4337

Chi-Sen Chang https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1192-030X

Tsung-Hung Chang https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6453-4931

Ping-Wing Lui https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2918-2413

Yuh Yao https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2789-2665

Wayne Huey-Herng Sheu https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8805-8340

Article

Publisher ID: v9i1e14546

DOI: 10.2196/14546

PMC ID: 7003120

PubMed ID: 32012047

SO-VID: b8648a74-acdb-4004-8d83-9e6d2f808e23

Copyright © ©Gow-Jen Shieh, Shi-Liang Wu, Che-Fu Tsai, Chi-Sen Chang, Tsung-Hung Chang, Ping-Wing Lui, Yuh Yao, Wayne Huey-Herng Sheu. Originally published in the Interactive Journal of Medical Research (http://www.i-jmr.org/), 22.01.2020.

License:

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in the Interactive Journal of Medical Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://www.i-jmr.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.

History

Date received : 3 May 2019

Date revision requested : 17 July 2019

Date revision received : 29 August 2019

Date accepted : 12 November 2019

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