Essay Example on Benefits of Social Media Platform in Healthcare

Introduction

The emergence of mobile apps and different electronic devices is a crucial advancement in healthcare. WhatsApp is a common platform that allows diverse population groups to learn about different ways of preventing themselves from diseases. The platform is also helpful to busy professionals who, through WhatsApp, manage to provide peer-peer support and health care awareness to the general public (Gupta, Tyagi & Sharma, 2013). Numerous professionals in healthcare have taken up WhatsApp in their daily work operations as a way of doing follow-ups with their patients after treatment to make sure to prevent further progression of the disease and that they recover in line with the provided treatment and guidance. Moreover, through WhatsApp, professionals can provide reliable information on preventive measures of diseases, to avoid different myths and misconceptions that exist among the public.

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Best Practices for Social Media

Implementing a social media campaign calls for several practices to facilitate its effectiveness. One practice is to connect the dots. This means that a campaign requires the interprofessional collaboration of different medical departments. This helps to prevent conveying mixed messages from various departments. Secondly, it is essential to come up with a plan. It is advisable to come up with a multistakeholder approach of governance to formulate a social media strategy across different communities (Thielst, 2011). The goal in designing this plan should be to engage people rather than audiences. The third best practice is to tell a story. For a healthcare message to be effectively delivered to the public, it is crucial to start a conversation and start to consistently and gradually shape it with the community values. Lastly, it is essential to answer questions. The public may have different questions concerning different health aspects and preventive measures of various diseases. To make sure the campaign accomplishes its goal, the team should aim at answering these questions and giving them more insights on the matters at hand.

Potential Partnerships

Private and public partnerships with different entities would assist in the communication of crisis. Most people now obtain their news from social media, thus making it a social key platform to share information. Different private and agencies could significantly help to communicate with the public in the case of a crisis and help them prepare adequately and devise mitigation measures (Gupta, Tyagi & Sharma, 2013). Secondly, these partnerships could help create awareness. Different government and non-governmental agencies are mostly involved in educating the public on the various ways in which the public can stay away from disease infections in case of an outbreak and essential information on immunization and other standard healthy life practices to combat the spread of diseases. Lastly, having several reliable partnerships assists the campaigning team to curb the cases of misinformation to the public. Social media, by its nature, could have a lot of wrong healthcare information spreading all over the world. These partnerships with different entities could help provide trusted information as given by WHO and other health organizations.

Implementation Timeline

Within the three months in which the campaign will run. Several steps will be involved to obtain the projected results. The first step is defining the goal of the campaign by collaborating with the team members on the campaign's particulars. The goals will be noted down to help keep track of the progress. Secondly, decisions will be made on how the content will be promoted on each of the available social media channels. For instance, a Facebook post will require a banner image. The team will, therefore, come up with relevant visual content in support of the message to be delivered (Thielst, 2011). An activity calendar or schedule will then be designed to ensure that all activities are completed within the set time frame. Amid the campaign, there will be consistent monitoring and responding to different operations. One way in which this can be done is by setting phone alerts to be able to respond to any comments on social media platforms quickly. Lastly, follow-ups on the events and promotions will be done to make sure that the objectives were met and that the targeted audience received and understood the intended information.

How to Evaluate Effectiveness

In evaluating the effectiveness of the campaign, the goal is not only to prove its success but also to improve the value of the campaign with time. There are numerous changes taking place in social media, and it is, therefore, vital to run an updated campaign. With the help of tools like built-in analytics reports, it is easier to recognize the aspects that require improvement. Built-in analytics reports can be facilitated by digital marketing professionals who can spot the social media campaign aspects that need adjustments (Gupta, Tyagi & Sharma, 2013). Moreover, other metrics like volume, the share of voice, and influence may assist in defining the success of social media campaigns. Other tools, like sprout social and Hootsuite, also have to be implemented before operating any form of campaign.

Reflection on Future Nursing Practice

Social media campaigns facilitated by emerging technologies can be efficient in future nursing by keeping people informed in the case of a disaster or disease outbreak. For instance, the WHO utilized twitter in the case of an influenza epidemic, which enabled people to be prepared amid the crisis (Thielst, 2011). Moreover, social media continuously enables nurses in rural regions to link with other practitioners in the world in devising the upcoming innovations in healthcare. Social media campaigns may also assist in research operations in the future within the nursing field by partnering with different experts from all over the globe. Considering the current condition of unemployment, social media campaigns can assist nurses in finding vacant nursing positions. Most nursing agencies are committed to finding and offering jobs to nurses according to the requirements.

References

Gupta, A., Tyagi, M., & Sharma, D. (2013). Use of social media marketing in healthcare. Journal of Health Management, 15(2), 293-302.

Thielst, C. B. (2011). Social media: ubiquitous community and patient engagement. Frontiers of health services management, 28(2), 3-14.