What's the right social media channel for specific patient groups?

Nothing has had a greater impact on my view of social media more than the book Groundswell, specifically its Social Technographic Profile, a research tool helping brands to identify how its customers use social media technologies. So I became intrigued when I heard that imc² adapted Forrester’s technographic profile tool for healthcare.

The result is the below chart (here for full pov), which maps how patients in different disease categories use social media versus the patient’s investment in that community. The goal is to help healthcare brands determine which social media channels work best for engaging each therapeutic category.

From prior research, which is confirmed by this Pew Internet study, I knew that there are many more readers and listeners in social media than writers and creators. As such, it most surprised me that a large percentage of patient groups fall into the “critics” category. This means they are most likely to post ratings/reviews of products/services, comment on a blog, contribute to online forums or edit a wiki. See graph after the jump for more details on each audience category.

I wanted to put this to the test, so I conducted a quick digital audit of the migraine community and found the following: more than 500 Facebook groups devoted to discussing migraines; 430,000 blog and forum conversations in the past 30-days; and 71 tweets per hour on this topic.

So yes, migraine sufferers are “critics.” But just as important, they exhibit behaviors that also make them “joiners” and “spectators.”  For those who read Groundswell, this spillover makes sense as the authors explain that users tend to participate online in multiple ways.

So what does this mean for healthcare brands? A few things.  

It is important to consider tools like the healthcare technographic profile as a starting point. In fact, Groundswell author Josh Bernoff posted on his blog that his thinking was influenced by conversations with imc² researchers. But it doesn’t stop there.

A brand in the migraine space would also be well served to conduct a listening program across all digital media channels. Find out what patients are talking about and where the conversations are taking place. And since 71% of healthcare information seekers start at a search engine, this includes a scan of Google, Yahoo! and Bing to identify the top digital influencers within the migraine community.

And last, with a thorough understanding of migraine sufferer’s social media habits, implement a digital influencer program.  For example, how about partnering with The National Headache Foundation and creating a video for the group’s YouTube channel highlighting myths and facts related to migraines. Or better yet, create a migraine myth microsite and invite online influencers like MyMigraineConnection to post expert opinions that confirm or dispel myths. A content rating system can also let users vote on which news stories are most helpful.  Add a Facebook page and Twitter feed to leverage content from the microsite for engagement with migraine influencers using those channels (here for Twitter and here for Facebook).

These are only a few suggestions for one specific disease type, but knowing how different patient groups use social media will go a long way towards developing an effective engagement strategy later on.