It’s exciting to see more and more healthcare organizations talking about social media marketing over the past year. Social media marketing is a wonderful way to connect with members of your target market (including your customers, referral sources, patients, and their families and caregivers). I’m pleased to see that healthcare organizations are beginning to adapt their marketing plans to include a social strategy that extends beyond the traditional ‘face-to-face’ and old-school collaterals.

Having experience working with many healthcare clients, the trend that we’ve seen in speaking with these various organizations is that many are struggling to get things off the ground. Whether it’s red tape like writing how-to clauses and social media policies, handling HIPAA guidelines, or just superiors reluctant to invest time and money in this ‘new medicine,’ the pushback has been a common problem.

While time will force these issues to go away, there are many advantages to being an early adopter as a healthcare organization. After extensive research, we have found that many healthcare companies fail when it comes to the use (or misuse) of social media.

Here are some of the reasons why healthcare organizations shouldn’t wait any longer when it comes to running a social media marketing campaign:

1. Facebook isn’t just for Starbucks. With its millions of active users (and I stress the word “active”), Facebook has a sea of ​​people you can interact with from your healthcare organization. These people consume information across all categories, not just mega-brands. Everyone has their space on Facebook. Even better, with Facebook Pages you can categorize your entire organization and set up locations and other valuable information for your target audience. Whether your business is local, national, or international, Facebook has the power to create real connections, support customer-patient communications, and help you inform your audience about any event or exclusive information with just a few clicks.

2. Your audience (and competition) is on Twitter. The medical and healthcare community isn’t just on Twitter…they’re active! Doctors, medical companies, hospitals and many more offer daily updates, event news, guidelines and much more. Another massive and active community, Twitter is a hot spot for information sharing and you need to be in the mix!

3. There is a LinkedIn group that suits your needs… or 50! Simply adding your hospital or company to LinkedIn is a wonderful and important step… but what if you could also add an additional audience from 50,000 to 1 million or more? With LinkedIn Groups, you can interact with potential clients/patients based on topic and location and get in front of them on a daily basis. Now that’s coverage!

4. YouTube is tea promotion portal. The use of video as a promotional tool is essential in the health industry. Having the ability to illustrate what your company is capable of in addition to the skill of your team or products is imperative. Now imagine having the ability to get this video on the second largest search engine out there: YouTube. Fully branded and packed with information, this vehicle does nothing but build your profile, credibility, and positive sentiment.

5. Act now or you will be left behind. As there are many organizations that are understaffed or unable to dedicate adequate time for social media or even pitching a campaign idea to the CEO… organizations are just coming in little by little. But this speed will start to increase at an ever faster rate. By being an early adopter, you can gain a greater advantage in the marketplace and stand out as one of the first organizations in your area to have a wonderful Facebook page, an active Twitter account, a linked LinkedIn account, and a of YouTube sharp and elegant.

I like to end with number 5, as there are many healthcare professionals who have received a lot of pushback on social media from their organizations. But for every one, there are many others who get their campaigns approved and launch effective social media marketing campaigns and claim their social ownership. My advice is to come up with your plan quickly so you don’t miss the train!