During my marketing consulting projects I often get the (now) age-old question, “how can we turn our social media fans into paying customers? In my opinion it all starts with brand equity. And brand ambassadors can help. Let me explain using a hospital and Facebook as an example:

1.     Your potential patients use Facebook (you know this because you did some research on your target audiences Facebook usage). To boot, they are interested in connecting with businesses/brands on Facebook (this means that they might be interested in connecting with you too).

2.     Create your Facebook page (remember, Facebook Pages are brands/businesses). Keep your design and messages strongly related to your main brand’s core image and current campaign calendar. Social media is not a stand-alone marketing discipline – it is a tactic in your marketing mix just like PR, direct mail, and email marketing. Use it to promote your brand and campaigns to the segments of your target audience who like to be reached via that channel.

3.     If you build it, they will not automatically come. Promote your social media presence using IMC methods (add a link to your email newsletters, email signatures, your website, blog, press releases, etc.).

4.     If your main brand has strong brand equity, you will most likely get a fair amount of followers/fans. If you find that you are not getting the volume of fans as quickly as you hoped it could be: 1. Your fans are not using Facebook, or at least to connect with brands like yours. 2. You have not promoted our Facebook presence correctly. 3. There is a problem with your main brand and fans are choosing to not connect with you for brand equity reasons (either your brand is simply unknown or disliked).

5.     If you are gaining fans, the work now begins. Keep posting content, and keep it consistent to your main brand and campaigns. Make it interesting, and do not make it all about your brand. Put yourself in your fans shoes and give them information that they would truly be interested in and gain some type of value from reading. Be interactive, if you can. Yes, be fun!  Social media is supposed to be fun, not stressful. Hold contests (video, retweet, etc.), polls, blood drive tweetups (meetups organized in Twitter) or even events in Secondlife (Bono did it!).

6.     With Facebook, it really is about the content. That is why people go to Facebook 100 times a day. They want to know what is new, who did what, read the latest news, the latest trends, and look at funny pictures. For a hospital, Facebook could provide an opportunity to grow brand equity. Personally, I recommend using it strategically and including the use of 3^rd party ambassadors such as past patients that could influence others on Facebook to become new patients of your hospital.

7.     Happy patients will do this for free. They will post to their own Facebook wall about your hospital and their experiences. They will use the @sign to generate a link to your Facebook page – and then their own connections will become your fans. This is where brand equity starts to transform into revenue for you. Check it out:

a.     Your past patient posts a positive story about their experience at your hospital on their Facebook wall and all their connections see it.

b.     One of their connections finds himself or herself in the position of needing a hospital and they remember your brand name and a positive association to it. Even if they don’t remember exactly where they read about your hospital, they know there was a positive association to it from one of their trusted connections, which leads them to decide on choosing your hospital instead of other competition in the area.

c.      Now, what if these types of positive influential comments were posted not only on Facebook, but Twitter, Linkedin, blogs, open forum article comments, etc. by past patients who have large volumes of social media connections? It is product placement for social media and this strategy can increase the potential that your social media efforts will pay off in actual revenue.

8.     My thoughts are this – if you are going to social media, do it to meet one of your marketing objectives (brand equity, lead acquisition, retention), and go all the way. Give 110%.  Remember that in 2009 Nielsen conducted a survey and found that 90% of people trust recommendations from people they know (http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/global-advertising-consumers-trust-real-friends-and-virtual-strangers-the-most/). Use this information to your benefit!

9.     Now, you might ask how does one get brand ambassadors on board?  I say, just ask. social media is personal and direct in nature. So be just that. Get your patient touch points (nurses, doctors, secretaries) involved. Give incentive if you want/need, but choose among your happiest patients that have influence in social media spaces that you are/going to be engaging in. Then, keep in touch and be careful to not take advantage.

This is a short and brief example, but I hope it helps to at least get the ideas following. Best of luck.

1. Who is Elizabeth Kulin? - A marketer, forever student, with a background in strategic marketing to healthcare organizations
2. What is the objective of creating a professional personal brand? - To build a positive brand image for the brand name "Elizabeth Kulin"

Elizabeth Kulin
www.Twitter.com/Elizabethkulin
www.Elizabethkulinmarketing.com