Key Insights from Healthcare B2B Social Marketing Strategies #HITMC Twitter Chat

I previously posted the topics for the first #HITMC Twitter chat that was supported by @billians and @porterresearch. Billian put together a recap of the Twitter chat using storify which is worth checking out. My partner in Influential Networks, Shahid Shah (The Healthcare Guy), took notes during the Twitter chat and put together this really great discussion summary for the 5 questions.

Topic 1: How can healthcare B2B marketers use social selling to their advantage?

  • Most healthcare sales are “local” and selling is inherently social; using social to identify trends and implications is great start. #HITMC
  • When selling socially, audience development is key; use local topics/trends to draw community attention before discussing solutions. #HITMC
  • When selling socially, don’t try to broadcast messages applicable nationally – focus locally on what matters to specific audiences. #HITMC
  • When discussing products, draw clear lines from real customer problems to your solutions including how to operationalize. #HITMC
  • When describing solutions, figure out what kind of audience participation around objections and clarifications is necessary. #HITMC

Topic 2: What suggestions do you have for healthcare B2B marketers beginning on social?

  • Imagine creating an event and consider what kind of audience you’d like to talk with; develop messaging around that audience. #HITMC
  • In the imagined event think about why people would come to your event (social is about “events” and “audience”). #HITMC
  • Craft a simple marketing messaging document that considers audience participation and what you’d like to hear from them. #HITMC
  • Don’t just figure out what you want tell the audience, that’s not social. Community participation is social. #HITMC
  • Once you know your audience and how you’d like them to participate then choose medium – FB, LinkedIn, Twitter, Blogs, etc. #HITMC
  • Don’t choose medium first, create audience development and community participation plan, topics, trends, etc. first #HITMC

Topic 3: How can Facebook be of use to healthcare B2B marketing strategies?

  • FB is best used for B2C (patient) as opposed to B2B but is useful in certain B2B circles when dealing with healthcare staff. #HITMC
  • To reach healthcare company staff, FB is great to start audience-specific discussions around specific jobs and problems. #HITMC
  • B2B is still a person to person sale but the person you’re selling has an organizational responsibility to be considered. #HITMC
  • Once you know the organizational responsibilities and purchasing decision, budgeting, then use that to inform FaceBook content. #HITMC

Topic 4: How can healthcare B2B marketers ensure the success of content on social?

  • News & views content is less useful and not as evergreen as actionable advice or content meant to teach something. #HITMC
  • In B2B, focus on content that is meant to help someone get their job done, not entertain or enlighten to just give news. #HITMC
  • Successful content will saved, e-mailed, or shared in some way. If your content isn’t saved or shared consider it a failure. #HITMC
  • If you know your audience, their roles, their responsibilities, etc. you can teach them something or lighten their research load. #HITMC
  • All of us have jobs to do during the day; the content that helps eliminate some research we have to do or finish a job wins. #HITMC

Topic 5: Why is social listening an important factor in successful B2B marketing?

  • There is no such thing as social marketing or social selling without listening.  #HITMC
  • If you don’t listen, you’re talking. Usually when you talk without listening you focus on the wrong person (yourself). #HITMC
  • Listening allows you to demonstrate authenticity, which builds confidence in your brand, which makes you believable. #HITMC
  • People, especially B2B, only buys from you when you’re authentic and believable because mission critical jobs are at stake. #HITMC
  • Recognize that nobody cares about you or your company. Not listening confirms people’s suspicions about your inauthenticity. #HITMC
  • Listening allows you to develop a better audience and find out their problems; you can solve issues or provide better content. #HITMC
  • Listening allows audiences to inform your marketing calendar, event participation, tell you about problems, solutions sought, etc. #HITMC

Thanks to everyone who participated in the chat and contributed to the conversation. I was excited that the chat produced 279 tweets and almost 1.4 million impressions. You can find the full transcript of the chat here. If you have other comments on these subjects, please add them to the comments of this post.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

   

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