Social technology for health care: check out the imc² point of view

Amber Benson, a strategist at digital marketing agency imc², has also been researching use of social technologies in health care. Since her perspective comes from within the company that developed marketing programs including the groundbreaking alli circles campaign, it's well worth checking out.

You can download the imc² paper "Is Social Media Right For Your Healthcare Brand" from their site. We interviewed Amber and her team for our own pharma research, and her thinking influenced mine, as you'll see from reviewing the paper. We agree that carefully examining the conditions to be treated along dimensions of use and involvement is crucial. For instance, I like their criteria for evaluating the level of investment a community is likely to get from people with a given condition:

Outcome investment represents a patient’s relationship to a condition, a combination of several factors, which include severity of symptoms, visibility of symptoms, social impact of condition, and potential morbidity. Outcome investment answers two key questions:

• How much does someone have to gain by actively seeking a resolution to symptoms or a
treatment for the condition?

• Are the benefits of resolution greater than the potential downside for identifying with this
condition or brand?

Any health care company pursuing a social strategy should give these ideas a thorough review.

Comments

[Linda Ireland]

What a thought provoking post. If every "ideal" or target experience starts with a person who has a need they would value having solved, Amber's thinking shows that patient needs are NOT equal. In turn, "social technologies for health care" are really best considered by condition. You might also be interested in this: http://tinyurl.com/n6ewoj
and again - thanks. LCI