This paper sets forth plans for the development, deployment, and marketing of a business Facebook page for a hospital. It provides examples of how Facebook business pages are used to improve business initiatives, and poses action points to host and market a Facebook page. The paper outlines promotional plans to ensure patients or patrons are aware of the page.
Management plans to host a Facebook page in order to: increase awareness of hospital activities and programs, further profile hospital staff, share health articles, and obtain customer feedback. Customer feedback represents a core objective of the hospital for establishing a Facebook page. (Black, 2011) writes, "Understanding what your customers think... can not only help you improve quality, but can also give you insights .so you can diversify your offerings." Management also intends that the Facebook page: acts as a micro-site, increases the hospital customer base, augments brand loyalty, and stimulates customer referrals (MarketCure, 2012).
Facebook Business Pages
Facebook business pages provide a channel for a business to collaborate and interact with its customers or clients. Many corporations host Facebook pages to increase exposure of their brand, services, or product. Facebook pages presents a plethora of ways "businesses interact with their customers and promote their company" such as: forum or community creation,-word of mouth marketing, business hours, press releases, employee recognition, announcements, coordinate special events, contests, and email newsletters (socialmediatoday, 2012).
2.2 Risk Management
As a first stage, the information system department can concentrate on simply emphasizing development and deployment of a Facebook page, prior to expending funds on additional system components. Besides, if the hospital finds that patrons visit the Facebook page frequently, then it may decide that a large hardware and telecommunication infrastructure would be extraneous to goals.
Moreover, decoupling the Facebook page from the hospital system could serve to mitigate risks. For instance, use of the hospital patient database to acquire or import consented information could simply open a channel for hacking the database, despite security or encryption, and risks the exposure of sensitive patient information.
3.0 Action Points
Planning includes the following actions:
-- Establish a Facebook page design with an appropriate business and hospital tone,
-- Perform market research to determine customer preferred Facebook design, and to survey patrons to acquire feedback on most desirable features to be incorporated,
-- Deploy and manage Facebook page,
-- Promote Facebook page according to measurable goals
4.0 Development & Deployment
4.1 Design
A vast number of hospitals have Facebook pages. Analysis of existing page designs can be used in the conceptual design phase. Social Media Examiner (2012) states, "To get a sense of what's possible for your own Facebook page, look at a variety of examples in your own industry and related industries ." For instance, CHOC Children's hospital, located in Orange CA, has 4,400+ fans and features 31 posted videos (AP Alert Presence, 2012). In further example, City of Hope, located in Duarte CA has 4600+ fans and seven photo albums (AP Alert Presence 2012).
4.2 Development & Deployment
The hospital's software or information technology group can develop the Facebook page, and the Facebook pages can be easily deployed. However, certain development corporations specialize in Facebook business pages and social campaigns. For example, Constant Contact (2012) supports Facebook page campaigning according to six steps: (1) Choose template (2) Customize pages (3) Send invitations (4) Schedule campaign for publishing (5) Share with social networks (6) Measure visits, fans, and shares.
The Facebook page must incorporate a means to provide customer feedback. Hence, the Facebook page will feature a feedback form. It will also accept messages so that customers have another channel to send administration suggestions and constructive comments.
5.0 Marketing
5.1 Benefits of Facebook Page
Facebook pages provide numerous benefits. For example, the Facebook platform supports UserVoice, an externally hosted feedback forum (Black, 2012). Black (2012) states, "Another approach to getting customer feedback on an ongoing basis is to use a hosted feedback forum such as UserVoice."
5.2 Costs
5.2.1 Development and Management Costs
Facebook does not charge a fee for the Facebook business page service. Furthermore, design, development, and deployment of a Facebook page social campaign is relatively inexpensive. For example, Constant Contact, a third party Facebook page developer, charges about $50 for a site with about 5,000 to 10,000 fans (Constant Contact, 2012).
5.2.2 Marketing Costs
Elaborate marketing costs can be delayed. However, the hospital Marketing department can allocate about $350 for promotional flyers. Furthermore, the hospital's it department can use free online viral tools to initially boost site visitation.
5.3 Promotion
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