Wendy i don't utilize internet marketing myself but the marketing course that I went to about a year ago really spoke to the popularity of internet advertising. Not only are the yuong using the internet to do research of helathcare so are the baby boomers and older. All age groups have become quite savvy with using the internet. I think another big thing is to make sure your HCO has a very user-friendly website. Future patients can gain alot of knowledge from the website. I think most improtantly is having great brochures has benefitted my service lines. I haven't had great luck with billboards and I don't have the PR money for TV time advertising. I have free seminars and screenings and that seems to help my service lines more than doing community health fairs. I would love to hear if anyone else has great ideas for internet advertising for low budget ideas!!

Yes we are using lots of web based interactions. Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube.- The key is know your audience and know your tool.

We are a physician MSO so our target is a bit different: physician groups and hospital CEOs. We have entered social media by getting set up on Twitter and Linked In. It is amazing to see the other healthcare entities also there and choosing to follow our site. We try to write a pertinent press release every month to get discussions going (for example, we did a feature on one of our EMS medical directors during EMS week last May). I was skeptical at first about how much this type of marketing woud pay off, but we are getting a lot of followers.

I still think tv advertising is the best bang for your buck in that youare able to capture the largest audience (maybe I'm old fashioned and resisting the Twitter movement).

Twitter users are the group of diverse, income above middle class, if hospital CEOs targeting this group of the people, Twitter must be an important advertize site.

We have recently created a presence on Facebook, and have begun to encourage our employees and community to seek us there. Although it's not a unique approach, we find it's very important for a HCO's website to be clean, easy-to-use, have ample whitespace, and generally be an entry portal into our organization for patients, consumers, and other stakeholders. It's also a nice place for exhibiting Quality performance data.

Using social networking sites, having an interactive website and ONE point of access is critical for patients, families and everyone making referrals into your system. Ease and Accessibility seem to be our buzz words these days. We are doing what we can to be the leaders in technology and innovation - providing seminars and services to our community and ensuring their experience is exceptional everytime to build loyalty and trust.