“Social Media as Marketing tool for E-Health solutions promotion”

New social media providing tools for various forms of online communication and interaction have rapidly changed social life and business environment. For customers, social media provide access to information on products from various sources, opportunities to share their opinions and experiences thus affecting purchasing decisions of other people, and to directly communicate with companies throughout the world. For organizations, social media provide opportunities for fast dissemination of information, receiving feedback and monitoring market situation. As social media become more and more widespread, its significance for marketers increases enormously. In Europe, almost half of the population are active social media users and their share is constantly growing (Kemp, 2016).
In this situation, companies cannot ignore social media in their marketing strategies and activities. Even if the company have no Facebook or Twitter account or its YouTube channel, social media affect its performance. Customers exchange information and discuss companies and products even when they are nor present and not distribute products electronically. Increasing interest of commercial firms, non-for-profit organizations, and governmental bodies is thus an inevitable step in developing their marketing systems.
Although increasing importance of social media marketing (SMM) is now widely recognized by both marketers and academic researchers, little is known of how social media are actually used by companies in different industries and sectors, and how effective these new tools are for promotional and other marketing purposes. A relevant task for a better understanding of the new channels of marketing communications is thus to study actual SMM practices in particular industries and market conditions.
One of new industries for which social media seem to be a natural choice for marketing is e-health, internally diverse industry developing new IT solutions for medical and healthcare tasks. Although e-health is by definition closely related to new information and communication technologies, and is deeply embedded in the virtual environment of the Internet, surprisingly little is known of how SMM is implemented by the companies working in this industry. The current study addresses this lack of evidence.

Table of figures 3
List of tables 4
List of abbreviations 5
1. Introduction 6
1.1 Problem Formulation 6
1.2 Objectives of the Study 7
2. E-Health solutions: An Industry Overview 8
2.1. Definitions of E-Health 8
2.2 E-Health Technologies 9
2.3 E-Health Advantages and Barriers 11
2.4 E-Health Policy and Regulatory Framework in EU 14
2.5 Global and European E-Health Markets: Size, Segmentation, Key trends 16
3. Social Media Marketing of E-Health Solutions 18
3.1 Social Media as a Tool for Marketing Promotion 18
3.2 Social Media Channels 20
3.3 Social Media Marketing of E-Health Solutions: A Literature Review 23
4. The Study of Social Media Use in E-Health Solution Promotion 25
4.1 Overview of the Study 25
4.2 Method 26
4.3 Results: Quantitative Analysis 27
4.4 Results: Case studies 36
5. Discussion 42
5.1 Using Social Media to Promote E-Health Solutions 42
5.2 Key Benefits and Challenges in Social Media Use for E-Health Solutions Promotion 48
5.3 Limitations and Further Research 51
References 54
Appendix A 58
Appendix B 59
 
Table of figures
Figure 1 Social media most frequently used by health app vendors (N20) 28
Figure 2 Facebook publication activity and social networking intensity 30
Figure 3 App vendors’ activity in Twitter 31
Figure 4 Comparison of Facebook and Twitter activity 32
Figure 5 Values of Cfb reflecting relative effectiveness of Facebook and Twitter promotional activity 34
Figure 6 SMM evaluational effectiveness of organizations using Twitter, likes per tweet 35
Figure 7 SMM networking effectiveness of organizations, followers per tweet 36

The present study has several important limitations which must be taking into account when interpreting the findings.
First, the sample included only 20 e-health organizations. The qualitative data obtained in the research is insufficient to make generalizations for the whole industry and to perform statistical analyses which could be used to study correlations between variables and impact of various moderating factors. Further researches can focus on broadening the scope of analysis and possible influence of mediating factors on social media activity. Among the most promising moderating factors are:
firm’s size;
type of organization;
regional presence;
business profile, i.e. types of e-health products and their importance for перу company’s business.
The second limitation is the focus on social media marketing activities on media channels controlled by organizations. Analysis of social media activity on companies’ official social media channels is just a part of SMM. Indeed, to maintain brand health and reputation, it is not sufficient to track and manage its perception on a company’s official Facebook or Twitter account. Social networks provide opportunities for customers to communicate with each other directly, using media channels which are not under organizational control. To manage brand-relevant information outside official channels is a much more difficult task needing significant efforts and skills. This part of SMM is a new important focus for further research.
The third limitation is a direct consequence of the methods used in the study. Simple qualitative statistics doesn’t provide detailed information on communication strategies used in each social media channel and the communicated content. Although elements of case study methodology helped to better understand SMM activity of e-health organizations, a deeper analysis of web-communication is needed to better understand promotional strategies and tactics used by organizations as well as customers’ behaviors and attitudes. Such methods as interviews with managers and customers’ surveys would help to better understand firms’ rationale for key SMM decisions and customers’ motivations and attitudes underlying their participation (or non-participation) in vendors’ social media activities.
Finally, the study was limited by the data gathered and analyzed. To better understand effectiveness of SMM, future research can include additional data, first of all, on firms’ financial and commercial performance.
Despite these important limitations, the present study provides first evidence on SMM promotional strategies actually used in one particular sector of e-health industry, health mobile apps. It showed that companies and organizations working in one industry take very different accounts on how to use social media to promote their products. Although social media is a must-have for marketers in current business environment, and especially in high-tech industries, its effective use is anything but a trivial thing. Both small and big organizations face difficulties in maintaining their presence in social media, and just a few can be treated as effective in dealing with them. The very notion of SMM effectiveness should be threated carefully: the present study showed preliminary evidence that there can be at least two distinct forms of social media effectiveness: evaluational and networking, the first being related to generating fast and positive feedback, and the second with establishing long-term relations.
Taking into account lack of evidence in this rapidly changing industry, the study can be considered as a first step toward a better understanding of e-health organizations’ use of social media for the promotion of their solutions.
 

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