Establishing and Demonstrating US Hospital Brands Through Facebook

Abstract

Medical treatment, patient satisfaction, and hospital brand equity are positively related to three communication contexts: interpersonal, internal, and corporate. To integrate those contexts and expand that line of research, visceral analysis suggests that social media are transforming the impact of institutional communications conducted by hospitals. Specifically, questions continue to need answered to fill gaps in, clarify and reinforce previous research. To that end, this article analyzes the strategic impact of social media networks in spreading the brand architecture of hospitals. To this end, the Facebook profiles of 400 hospitals in the United States were analyzed. Each profile was examined to determine whether it utilized 10 indicators related to brand architecture. The results indicate that regarding the leading hospitals in the United States 94% of the surveyed hospitals have an active profile on Facebook but one that only utilized 3 to 5 of the recommended indicators. The professional management of this social media, the more widespread use of corporate video and a strategic orientation toward results have become cornerstones for the effective dissemination of hospital brands through Facebook.However, these organizations face a number of contextual factors that hinder the implementation of such communications, including the legal framework, the poor communicative tradition of hospitals and the difficulty of disseminating scientific content. This article discusses the strategic importance of spreading a hospital's brand architecture through social media. Thus, first, a review of literature is offered on hospital branding, brand architecture and brand dissemination through social media. Second, our method is introduced, and third, the results of a quantitative study on brand communication conducted on Facebook by 400 hospitals in the United States are presented. Fourth, the results of the study, its limitations and the business implications of this analysis are discussed. This paper shows those strategies of corporate communication 2.0 that hospitals should use to ensure a unique brand awareness by its stakeholders.

The Role of Mediation Barriers to Self-Efficacy in Improving Hospital Revisitation: Empirical Evidence in the Healthcare Industry in Indonesia

“…Therefore, those with loyalty share good things about the hospital with others. This research supports the results which stated that hospital brand image has a positive influence on repeat visits and is a strong factor in combating negative news, which sometimes circulates in the community [Steele et al, 2000;Abubakar et al, 2017;Abubakar et al, 2016;Kaiser et al, 2020;Medina et al, 2016;Eiff and Wilfried, 2019;Sciulli, at al., 2015;Awua-Ikha and Kalu, 2018;Sharma, 2010].…”

“…The results showed that the hospital's brand image positively affected patient repeat visits [Arici and Gucer, 2018; Kuipers et al, 2019;Awua-Ikhia and Kalu, 2018] and a substantial factor against negative news circulating in the community [Medina et al, 2016]. The establishment of brand image aims to increase public interest in visiting, influencing new consumers to select hospitals in seeking health services, and emotionally binding old patients, hence, they do not switch to competitors.…”

Are hospitals our friends? An exploratory study on the role of Facebook in hospital organizations’ dialogic communication

“…For hospital organizations, social media is an excellent resource for spreading advertising on their products and services, as well as to communicate their mission and institutional vision (Huang & Dunbar, 2013). Facebook, in particular, due to its high number of followers, is a free tool that has commonly been used by hospitals to disseminate brand architecture (Medina et al, 2016) and increase its visibility (Coustasse & Slack, 2013).…”

Will better performing health-care services have higher profiles and be more active on social media? A comparative study between hospitals from Colombia and Spain

“…Comparing the hospital Sant Joan de Dèu Hospital with the Clínica Universidad de Navarra (Spain), Costa-Sánchez and Míguez-González (2018) also confirmed that higher activity on social media does not imply higher levels of interaction with the public. In turn, Medina, Buil and Heath (2016) searched for the Facebook profiles of 300 hospitals in the United States (US) and observed that despite 282 of them maintaining an account, only 13 fulfilled at least 7 of the 10 indicators that were used to measure the quality of their activity on this platform. Huang and Dunbar (2013) detected that most of the profiles of US hospitals on Facebook and, above all, on Twitter instigated unidirectional communication.…”