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Why Most Hospital Social Strategies Fall Flat (and What to Do Instead)
6 Plays3 months ago
Join Ashley as she speaks with Khrista Boster, Chief Marketing Officer at Woodlawn Health, on why so many hospital social media strategies fall flat and how rural hospitals can build trust through human, story-driven content. Together they unpack Khrista's "baby of the month" campaign, getting buy-in from leadership and frontline staff, and turning compliance-heavy environments into powerful engines for authentic patient connection.
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Transcript
Introduction to Anya Mike Podcast
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Welcome to the Anya Mike podcast, a podcast where we discuss the ins and outs of marketing, running a business and tips and tricks the industry may just not be telling you, but we will.
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If you're looking for inspiration on exactly how to grow your business with ambition, innovation and confidence while creating maximum impact to influence your clients like never before, you're in the right place.
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Grab your AirPods, pen, paper, or laptop, and let's get on your mic.
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Get set and grow.
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And now, here's your host on the mic, CEO Ashley Monk.
Introducing Krista Boster
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all right everyone well i am so excited for this interview it is one that is long overdue and going to be so timely i have christa with me today and i am just so excited christa that we're going to dive into why so many hospital social strategies fall flat so before we even get started i'm so excited to continue this conversation with you and would love all of our listeners to know more about you what you do
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your role at Woodlawn and congratulations again on the Rising Star Award for all the incredible work that you're doing.
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So we'd love for you to get the chance to introduce yourself.
Krista's Healthcare Journey
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Thanks so much, Ashley, for having me.
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I'm so thrilled to be on this podcast.
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So my name is Krista Boster, and I serve as the Chief Marketing Officer for Woodlawn Health.
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And if you're like, where's Woodlawn?
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That's not a bad question to ask.
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We are a rural hospital in the big town of Rochester, Indiana, and we are one of the few hospitals in the state of Indiana that is an independently run hospital in a rural setting.
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So we really are
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Priding ourselves on that, I have my marketing communications degree from Taylor University with a writing degree.
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Went on and got my healthcare admin masters in MBA.
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And throughout my career, I worked in healthcare.
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And then I took a four year break when I became a mom because I was really burnt out.
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And about into year two, my husband was like, please go back to healthcare.
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Would you please go back to healthcare?
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And I was like, you know what that looks like, right?
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Crazy hours, schedules.
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And he was like, we'll make it work.
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But you are way happier in health care.
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So I credit him a lot for my return, for his support, but also my return back because he was very influential in that, like, just find a job and go back to health care that isn't on
The Role of Marketing in Smaller Hospitals
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call.
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So that has been my career journey.
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I worked about over seven years in what's called post-acute or nursing home.
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as a liaison and then doing marketing for them as well which looks a little different and then spent four years in non-profit which really wasn't a total break from health care they are or were an mpo in ethiopia and they had a hospital and did some maternity care so i actually learned a lot from that and very very grateful for those four years i spent in that world i was very grateful to come back to health care so i've been at woodlawn for over three years on the personal side right because we
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We're all a full individual.
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I'm married.
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My college, not my high school, my college sweetheart, and we have one little eight-year-old boy.
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And so that keeps us very busy.
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So it's a little bit about me.
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Oh, I love that.
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I didn't know you were a Taylor alumni.
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Huge fan.
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Indiana Wesleyan over here.
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So I love it.
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But oh, my goodness.
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I actually went to Taylor, Fort Wayne.
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I forgot to say that.
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It no longer exists.
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Yeah, OK.
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Back in the day.
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Yes.
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Back in the day, I love it.
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And oh my goodness.
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And I relate to the, I don't know about you.
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I love, um, I love the work that we get to do, the marketing that we get to do.
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And I love my girls so much.
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And I feel like they get, I don't know about you.
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I feel like everybody gets a better side of me when I get to focus on things that I love that I'm passionate about too.
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So.
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Absolutely.
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I'm a way better mom now that I'm back in my niche area.
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Definitely.
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Otherwise, I feel like I hyper fixate on things and it's not always the best or the right.
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Right.
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Absolutely.
Challenges in Healthcare Marketing
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i love it well so excited for our listeners to hear more and to learn more about you and just all the incredible work that you're doing at woodland so would love to dive right into the topic so we had a great conversation offline a while back now it feels like because it's so crazy how fast time passes just about hospitals and especially smaller hospitals too just struggling to keep up with all this stuff there's so much regulation there's so much red tape there's so many variables and then too i know we were talking with um
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another hospital recently too, it's just where it's so hard with HIPAA and with requirements like to even get assets.
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And so it just becomes this conundrum of what do we do?
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What can we produce?
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What are we able to, how do we, with all of this regulation and restriction be human?
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And when you told me your story, I was just so empowered.
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So, but let's start there.
Social Media Strategies for Smaller Hospitals
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Why do you think like that's, that's probably one layer.
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Why do you feel like most smaller hospitals?
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Why do those social medias fall flat or in healthcare in general, why do those strategies fall flat?
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Well, let's talk about the smaller hospital first and then let's move on to the general overview.
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For the smaller hospital, not everybody values marketing and that to me is a disservice to their community because marketing helps to tell the story.
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Somebody one time said, you're not a chief marketing officer, you're a chief educator.
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And I really like that because there's a lot of, in healthcare, chief education, but a lot of times the marketing isn't up at the C-suite level.
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or, and you don't have to be at the C-suite level in a small hospital, but you need to definitely be working in tandem with the COO and the CEO.
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And then that seems to be working well.
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The people who do it well work within tandem and have access to that because you know you're helping to drive the revenue.
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And so many times within smaller organizations, it's not valued, unfortunately.
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And there's a lot more that marketing brings to a small organization such as strategy, crisis come, there's just so much it brings, but
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yet to have seen, not everybody sees the full value in that.
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So I think that's one of the things for a smaller role organization is most people, their teams aren't robust and they aren't, they're not helping to drive that strategy.
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Because at the end of the day, marketing is strategy.
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Whether, whatever you think, it's strategy, right?
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To help the organization reach their goals.
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And if marketing's not at the table with strategy, it's a disservice.
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We could do a whole podcast on that, but we'll move on.
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Yes.
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Agreed.
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We'll move on to organizations.
Building Trust through Social Media
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What I've noticed so much is that what we do is hard.
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We're taking care of people on their worst day, most likely.
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And we have to build that trust way before they ever enter the doors of the emergency department or way before they ever enter the doors of the doctor's office.
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And we have to be relatable and we have to be personable.
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And as you said, there's lots of ways that healthcare, it's hard to get that.
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But so many times I see with healthcare, social media strategy, we feel like we need to sell.
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We feel like we...
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It's not very personal.
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It's cold and sterile, which is kind of the environment that we're in, right?
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Because we need to be healthy and all that.
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But our marketing doesn't need to be that cold, sterile.
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It needs to be fun.
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It needs to be relatable.
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It needs to be personable.
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People need to be able to connect with people, especially in rural areas.
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So I grew up in a rural area, and I always tell the story of when I cut somebody off in the coffee shop and before I was driving back to Fort Wayne.
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My dad had called me before I crossed the state line in Ohio because everybody knew about it and they knew who my grandma was.
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And so they called my grandma, who called my dad.
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And you know, that was like within 40 minutes.
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So everybody knows everyone and those personal connections, I feel like are key across healthcare, but especially in those rural communities.
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That's so good.
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And I feel like that's the distinction that you made is so critical.
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Why do you think so many hospitals are focused on selling on social media as opposed to building that patient connection?
From Sales to Storytelling in Content
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I think so.
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We're always taught, and going back to our marketing education, right, we're taught to calls to action and sales.
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What we have to remember is that is not the platform.
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I mean, we have ads and billboards and all that that will do that, but the platform of social media is to tell a story.
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People are not getting on there to buy stuff, although we all do, right?
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People are getting on there to be entertained and to scroll.
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And so that's where our content has to be entertaining and relatable.
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It has to be something that grabs people's attention and it has to be something that people can interact with.
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A lot of times within my sphere, when we are looking at other people's social media, we notice or my team notices that there's not a lot of interaction.
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And that trust before they enter the emergency department is built on that interaction, especially with your like Facebook.
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Right now I feel like Facebook's the healthcare goal pot.
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So yeah, I felt like that's just key.
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Oh, it's so good.
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Now, how do you create, and then I can't wait to have you tell your story because I think everyone's going to be so inspired by the campaign that you ran.
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How do you go about creating that buy-in and shifting that perspective?
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Because that's so hard and you're right when with the inception, we have to remember social media is only about 15 years old.
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It's not been around that long.
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And you're spot on to where as marketers, I think when HubSpot introduced inbound marketing, this
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pressure to everything has to create.
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And we've almost forgotten that social media was designed to be social.
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It's created around life updates, around connection, around community.
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And it's somewhere along the way, we intertwine this social element with marketing where everything has to have a return and it does, but we just create so much pressure and I, to, to track everything.
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And what it's so hard to remember and remind ourselves is that
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it while it can be measured, we don't have to transactionalize everything.
Creating Buy-In for Social Media
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So how you've done it so well and I can't wait to talk about how how do you initially, though, create buy in with people that may not see that perspective?
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Oh, so when I first got here, social media was not a thing.
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And
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At all.
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And credit and a shout out to our CEO.
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He bought in before everyone else and was willing to let me try things.
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And he was like, we'll just try it.
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But I had a lot of pushback with some of our medical professionals and rightfully so.
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They were scared that people would try to contact us on social media and we wouldn't be able to answer, even though we talked about automated responses.
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You know, there was a lot of things.
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And I basically said, let us try it.
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OK, six months.
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Give me six months.
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And then, you know, you pray like, please let that work.
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Right.
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Six months.
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And so what we did is we just really started using our own people.
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And we started that within our campaign, but using our own people and then creating that trust.
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Marketing is a lot in this area about creating trust within the departments and teaching and showing them that like when our team is featured,
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It would do really well.
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And so part of the, one of the people who told me, you know, social media is going to, you're going to hurt somebody on social media, which was, I never wanted to, that was never my goal.
00:11:06
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Um, ended up one day we were redoing a website.
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And if you've ever done that, that is a very arduous task.
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And I,
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I needed content for that day and I literally didn't know what to do and I was like, oh, I have this, I have a doctor's or physician's bio and I have a picture.
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Let's just, it's Monday, we're just gonna hit Meet the Team Monday.
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We're just gonna throw it up there and you know, like I kept my algorithm running for the day.
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And it went viral.
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Which was hilarious.
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It's fantastic.
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It went viral to the point like whatever was on for the next
Viral Success of 'Meet the Team Monday'
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week, it didn't matter.
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And it's probably still the best post.
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But then that became a thing for us because I was like, oh, wait, that worked.
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Yes.
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And, you know, at the time and period, we were having to get over 20 nurse practitioners or physician assistants or nurses.
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physicians' bios and pictures and like it was a whole project we were working on.
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And so we had all the content.
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So that gave us 20 some weeks of content.
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And then we just created a Google form and we had other people.
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And as we created content, people look for content.
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We recently featured three generations have worked for our hospital, which is such a neat story.
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Four people, three generations.
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have worked here, some have retired, but the niece and granddaughter is working in the lab.
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But one of our
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our patient experience directors helps with shout outs.
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And he saw this in her interview form that he was gonna put up on our internal news loop.
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And so he sent it over and said, hey, wouldn't this be a great story?
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So I think it's teaching our team to be the advocates for stories and making those relationships and partnerships.
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But also making sure that social media is a huge value to your organization.
00:12:57
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I think if you would ask
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or C-suite, they would tell you that they put a lot of stock now in social media.
00:13:04
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And it took that, I'm sure, took that video.
00:13:06
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What about for, and then I want to hear this story, for hospitals that may not have the luck of winning the lottery to get a viral video.
00:13:15
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The one that, because I'm sure that when that launched, that created a lot of trust, a lot of validation.
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And while it is possible, sometimes we all know it is sometimes like playing the lottery when you're putting content online.
00:13:26
Speaker
How do you create that buy-in when maybe that might not be the result for everyone, though we would love it to
Featuring Frontline Workers on Social Media
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be?
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Right, I think consistency.
00:13:33
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Honestly, you know, we don't have every Monday because now we're struggling to find people we haven't used before, but we're getting ready to roll it out again.
00:13:40
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But building that consistency that every Monday that somebody was going to show up from our team on social media and created a lot of trust to the point that the pizza shop was imitating us and the hardware was imitating us.
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So it showed me that, like, you know, we showed up all the time and some of them did great.
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And some of them didn't, but we've really refocused this past few months on redoing those as well.
00:14:04
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So I think it's really great.
00:14:05
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And what I found interesting is it's not your high level directors or your C-suite.
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People really go crazy over our frontline team.
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And it makes sense if you think about it, because those are the people they're seeing at the doctor's appointments.
00:14:18
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Those are the people that they're seeing
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when they're getting hurt and those are the people who are caring for them.
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So, you know, the frontline nurses, the frontline receptionist, those are normally the people who go really, the posts that go really well because they've already interacted with our community.
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And so our community just gets to do that on a digital platform.
00:14:38
Speaker
Oh, it's so good.
00:14:39
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And you're so right.
00:14:40
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I'm thinking about that too.
00:14:41
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Every time that I go and when I had both of my girls, it's my OBGYN that I'm connected to that was there with me and the nurses to your point that were there helping and you recognize them versus some of the stock and some of the imagery that we're pulling from.
00:14:58
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Yeah, it's just amazing.
00:14:59
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It's that personal connection that just gets you so excited and gets that buy-in and that natural social proof of, oh my goodness, I'm so grateful for this person, for all that they did.
Introduction to Woodlawn's Baby Campaign
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Speaker
I want to talk about your baby campaign because that story, Krista, it was just when I heard that story, I'm like,
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This is incredible.
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It was just genius.
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I mean, first and foremost, because you created and found a way to do what most hospitals struggle to do.
00:15:26
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And that's get patient buy in and find a way that's compliant to be able to feature them.
00:15:30
Speaker
So please tell that story about let's start with where that idea came from.
00:15:35
Speaker
And then I can ask questions about how it all unfolded.
00:15:37
Speaker
Right.
00:15:38
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So brilliant.
00:15:39
Speaker
So we have one of the few rural OBs within this area.
00:15:44
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A lot of them, I believe over four, have closed within the last five years.
00:15:48
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And so the rumor that we were closing was never... It always would make sense to me why we would have that rumor because other people had closed as well.
00:15:58
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But we weren't closed.
00:15:59
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And so in order to be a good marketer and chase it down for about two years...
00:16:03
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We could take out bunches of ad space and we would, you know, have ads for OB to show that we were still here.
00:16:09
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We do some things on social media to show we were still here.
00:16:12
Speaker
But it constantly felt like we were chasing our tails.
00:16:14
Speaker
And so I had a friend in Ohio.
00:16:16
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Shout out to Sarah Myers.
00:16:18
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She was already doing baby pictures.
00:16:21
Speaker
And so I asked her, how did you get this to work?
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Because, you know, she's showing babies born in her OB.
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on social media, which is by far a hard thing to do.
00:16:31
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So she shared with me how she did it.
00:16:34
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And so I approached her OB director who we had had some leadership changes at the time and she was new and I said, hey, would you be willing to try this with me?
00:16:42
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And I thought she would say no.
00:16:43
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Like I just thought she would say no because I would understand, just
Executing the Baby Campaign
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for our audience to understand within the rules of HIPAA, every patient that we have has to have a photo release.
00:16:55
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point blank period.
00:16:56
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And with babies, not only do we have to have a photo release, we have to have a birth announcement release.
00:16:59
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So two forms that her team was going to be possibly responsible for filling out.
00:17:04
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And so her and I talked about it and she said, well, let me ask my team.
00:17:08
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And so she explained everything, what we thought we could make work.
00:17:13
Speaker
And her team came back and the idea was we just wanted one picture once a month.
00:17:16
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Like I would be happy for that.
00:17:18
Speaker
And her team said, well, we want to do more.
00:17:21
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more than that because I had showed them what this hospital in Ohio was doing and I and so we came back and was like okay well that's a little bit different than what we had planned so how do we make this work and so the nursing team we got them a camera so that they're able because they've already built that trust with the family compared to my team coming in who they don't know that's kind of awkward and strange especially if you've ever given birth right
00:17:44
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And right, just honestly, yes.
00:17:48
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But the nurses, yeah, the nurses already been building that trust with them.
00:17:52
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And so they offered to do the photo release form for us.
00:17:58
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They offered to do the birth.
00:17:58
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They were already doing the birth announcement form.
00:18:02
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But that was a challenge to get it.
00:18:04
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So what they were doing is then we came up with a new system where they would email them down to me.
00:18:09
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And then that way I had them and we changed some processes to make that work.
00:18:12
Speaker
They had the camera and then we found out they had to put the baby's name there because they were taking for the beginning so many pictures.
00:18:18
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I was like, what babe is this like?
00:18:21
Speaker
And doing the birth announcements, we ran that by our health information.
00:18:25
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Management director and she okayed it and so we bought cute outfits and for many months and even now we just We have one coming up or we have one.
00:18:35
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Yeah, I believe we have one coming up they decorate that the nurses do and they Dress up the baby they take the pictures for us and then they just let us know that the pictures are on the camera We go up and get the camera we download the pictures.
00:18:49
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We check all the releases again just to make sure everything's good We file those away, which is what the policy states
00:18:55
Speaker
And then from there, we would put them out on social media.
Success Factors of the Baby Campaign
00:18:59
Speaker
The families really liked this.
00:19:01
Speaker
It became, sometimes we would have them work ahead.
00:19:04
Speaker
So we would give them stuff and then we would make sure we had a, we made them a poster that said, or not even a poster, a flyer that said, you know, congratulations, your baby's been selected to be baby of the month.
00:19:16
Speaker
This is what it entails.
00:19:17
Speaker
You'll be shouted out on social media.
00:19:19
Speaker
You could possibly be put on the billboard.
00:19:21
Speaker
We didn't promise because, you know, you don't promise.
00:19:24
Speaker
And then you could, and you know, we're just so excited.
00:19:28
Speaker
Please be aware that we work ahead with content.
00:19:32
Speaker
So it might be a few months, but I would get Instagram messages sometimes that said, Hey, are you going to put my baby out yet?
00:19:39
Speaker
You know, like the, the reindeer, he had a reindeer outfit on.
00:19:44
Speaker
So it definitely became a patient experience, satisfactor as well.
00:19:49
Speaker
And then, you know, it started and we trialed it with a friend of mine.
00:19:54
Speaker
She had a baby here and I asked her if she would let me trial it.
00:19:57
Speaker
And so it kind of felt a little bit low pressure for the first one.
00:20:01
Speaker
And so we put him on the billboard and everything because we knew the family.
00:20:04
Speaker
But yeah.
00:20:06
Speaker
Creating those partnerships with OB has been huge to the point, a while ago, we took a picture of them taking a picture of an employee's baby.
00:20:16
Speaker
And so the employee, it's not the picture of them taking a picture.
00:20:19
Speaker
And with permission, we used that and it went crazy.
00:20:22
Speaker
And we got great testimonials about our amazing OB nurses, the two that were in the picture, because one's trying to like, you know, get the baby to look up and the other one has her photo out.
00:20:31
Speaker
And they had the more, a bigger camera, right?
00:20:34
Speaker
And so, yeah, it just has been huge, that buy-in.
00:20:38
Speaker
But the buy-in between us and the OB and viewing them as a partner, right?
00:20:42
Speaker
We treat them as a partner.
00:20:45
Speaker
And I feel like that is key because they're really our content partners because we couldn't do it without them.
00:20:50
Speaker
I 100% couldn't do it without them and the trust they're already building with that family.
00:20:56
Speaker
So it's always fun when we get them.
00:20:57
Speaker
They've actually been so busy now.
00:20:58
Speaker
We haven't been able to get them as much.
00:21:00
Speaker
So I'm looking for some slower months when they have time to dress up babies and take pictures.
00:21:05
Speaker
I'm sure I can't wait to see those pictures too, especially as the holidays get closer.
00:21:10
Speaker
I can foresee some pumpkins, maybe some little turkeys or some baby Santas.
00:21:14
Speaker
I don't know.
00:21:15
Speaker
So, so sweet.
Fostering Cross-Departmental Marketing Buy-In
00:21:17
Speaker
That right there, though, the piece that you capitalize and what we talked about offline too, with everyone being on the marketing team and to your point, everyone on the front lines being involved in that, that takes time, that takes trust, that takes intentionality.
00:21:31
Speaker
And how did you get that buy-in?
00:21:34
Speaker
Because I think so many organizations are so siloed, especially in healthcare, it's so busy.
00:21:38
Speaker
There's so much going on.
00:21:40
Speaker
How or what advice would you give to another hospital and how to start...
00:21:45
Speaker
creating that buy-in for everyone to do and create what you've created.
00:21:50
Speaker
So I believe marketing is a team sport.
00:21:51
Speaker
We do not play alone and we cannot play alone to get the content that we need.
00:21:55
Speaker
And because we can't be all places at all times, I think for the first part, it happens up at the top level.
00:22:02
Speaker
We've had immense support from the chief nursing officer, the CEO, the CNO, the COO.
00:22:10
Speaker
So we've had immense support.
00:22:13
Speaker
backing from them.
00:22:14
Speaker
And at times when we've needed things, they've kind of went to bat if needed.
00:22:18
Speaker
And so that is huge.
00:22:19
Speaker
But I also think this is just treating everyone with respect, right?
00:22:24
Speaker
Saying hi when we walk by.
00:22:25
Speaker
It's so simple.
00:22:27
Speaker
But also listening to people.
00:22:29
Speaker
Some people come up with really great marketing ideas and some don't.
00:22:32
Speaker
you know, and true transparency, but always listening to people and listening to them.
00:22:38
Speaker
I think when people see other people they know on social media and in the community as well, that's just huge.
00:22:45
Speaker
One of the campaigns, some of the past campaigns that we are running are,
00:22:49
Speaker
and the past of Rand is a local like you.
00:22:51
Speaker
We take people from their community, we put them on a billboard that's local like them.
00:22:55
Speaker
And then we had that Meet the Team Monday that I was talking
Key Healthcare Marketing Strategies
00:22:58
Speaker
about.
00:22:58
Speaker
They are featured on the Meet the Team Monday and then ads as well, because people relate to people.
00:23:03
Speaker
They don't relate to buildings or procedures.
00:23:05
Speaker
And most people don't care what your CMS rating is.
00:23:08
Speaker
I hate to break that to healthcare because we love those.
00:23:10
Speaker
Most people really want to know that they're going to be cared for in quality.
00:23:15
Speaker
when they get in the doors and that you know they're going to be able to know some of those people and trust those people in the door so i think building those partnerships across departments and just um always being able to help other people as well you know sometimes we probably do things that aren't in the marketing realm but we need to be a a team player as well if they help us with content we need to go help them with whatever they need oh you're spot on and i think about it i think it's easy for everyone probably listening to this as some um whether working in healthcare or not like you've been a patient
00:23:45
Speaker
some capacity in your life you have had that experience as a patient and that's exactly what we look for as patients we want to connect when you're when most people are looking for a doctor for an ob for whatever it's okay who do you know like who like you're asking for referral if you're moving who do you go see and and you are you're looking at like you want to connect with that person you want to know that you are a person not a number like you want to forge that connection and this campaign builds it so well because yeah it's not the stock photos it's not the
00:24:11
Speaker
Brissy, you're exactly right.
00:24:12
Speaker
It's the connection that you were able to have person to person, not everything that's put out there.
00:24:19
Speaker
So I just am so impressed by the work that you've done and continue to do.
00:24:24
Speaker
So I would love to know, Christopher, listeners that are thinking, okay, how could I even pull something off like
Top Advice for Healthcare Marketing
00:24:30
Speaker
this?
00:24:30
Speaker
Where do I even start?
00:24:32
Speaker
How, like, maybe we don't have that buy-in or we don't have the support or just even the consistency piece.
00:24:37
Speaker
What are, if you could distill it down to maybe the top three things that you have been able to do and why you've been successful, what would your advice be to someone listening that's wanting to pull something off like this?
00:24:48
Speaker
Number one, make friends with regulatory and the H.I.M.
00:24:51
Speaker
director and bring them in earlier rather than later.
00:24:54
Speaker
And there's been some times I've gone ahead and I went back and said, oh, wait, I think you should probably be in this conversation because at the end of the day, if we're going to play as a team, right, we need to make sure that we're not making their job harder.
00:25:06
Speaker
So, you know, I am dogmatic about releases for my team, even to the point if at the back of the head showing we still need a release.
00:25:13
Speaker
Like and that, I believe, has built trust with our
00:25:17
Speaker
health information team who for us is also our HIPAA compliance area that they're like okay if marketing is getting a picture they have a release so that gives us a lot more lead way and at times when I've had questions about releases I've went and I've asked I haven't just pushed the button and went
00:25:34
Speaker
Because in marketing, we like to go, go, go.
00:25:35
Speaker
But sometimes stopping and making friends with regulatory is huge.
00:25:39
Speaker
And gaining their trust, because once you have their trust, you're going to have a lot more lead way with that.
00:25:44
Speaker
And that just takes time, intentionality.
00:25:46
Speaker
It takes relationships.
00:25:47
Speaker
It takes when leaderships in those positions change, making a conscious effort to say, OK, I know you have your list of things that need to get done, and I have mine.
00:25:55
Speaker
How can we come in the middle together?
00:25:57
Speaker
and make that work.
00:25:59
Speaker
So I think that's huge and a key.
00:26:02
Speaker
Secondly, scheduler.
00:26:04
Speaker
So I have a, right now we are a two person department, but for many years I did this on my own, which is a big job at the time.
00:26:11
Speaker
It still is a big job, but I'm grateful for the helper I have.
00:26:16
Speaker
But having a scheduler, and we still use a scheduler, and we still content, actually at the end of this day, we're all me and we'll plan out our content for the whole month, and sometimes two months ahead, so that we have things ready and that we're intentional about what we're putting out.
00:26:29
Speaker
And things change.
00:26:30
Speaker
It's not a setting goals schedule.
00:26:33
Speaker
Things change, and we talk through things.
00:26:36
Speaker
creating that.
00:26:36
Speaker
And then I think three, that's where your consistency comes in, is just building those relationships across your department.
00:26:43
Speaker
And when somebody says something, say, oh, that'd be a good story.
00:26:46
Speaker
Can I feature that?
00:26:48
Speaker
And you might get no's and that's fine.
00:26:50
Speaker
But find the yeses and then those you find your wins.
00:26:53
Speaker
And sometimes it's just as easy as, you know, a bio from a doctor that was going on a website.
00:26:59
Speaker
Yeah, we needed to have that was throwing that on social and multi and within smaller teams, multi-purposing content, whatever you're throwing out on social media or a billboard.
00:27:10
Speaker
Like I mentioned that local like you, you know, we're also using that as social media content.
00:27:16
Speaker
So.
00:27:17
Speaker
As we build out this campaign, because we're getting ready to restart it, we said, you know, if we take your picture for the billboard, would you fill out this form for us?
00:27:23
Speaker
And then making it easy for people.
00:27:25
Speaker
A lot of times having like a Google form or we have a Microsoft form that people just fill out.
00:27:29
Speaker
So when people onboard on the physician or the NP or the PA side, we have them just fill out this form.
00:27:37
Speaker
And when we have new leadership, they just fill out the form and it makes it easier.
00:27:40
Speaker
And then we write the bios.
00:27:41
Speaker
So I do remember not everybody's a trained marketer, but we can give them a lot of the assets to help us get to that middle point where we're both, we're both benefiting from it.
00:27:50
Speaker
Oh, it's so good.
00:27:52
Speaker
Krista, this has just been such an incredible conversation.
00:27:56
Speaker
I hope for everyone listening, there's so many like, well, so many parallels.
00:28:00
Speaker
and so many creative opportunities.
00:28:02
Speaker
I think it boils down to, can we take the time to prioritize it and to do it, to put in the work, to build the relationships, to get the proof of account, to be consistent.
Persistence and Consistency in Marketing
00:28:12
Speaker
So as maybe one last word of encouragement, what would you offer to someone that's like, I want to do this.
00:28:18
Speaker
I don't know, is it worth the time?
00:28:19
Speaker
Like, is it worth the resources?
00:28:21
Speaker
Like, what is the encouragement that you'd give someone listening?
00:28:23
Speaker
That's like, should we like, how, like, what do we do?
00:28:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:26
Speaker
What would you say?
00:28:27
Speaker
Well, it takes time.
00:28:28
Speaker
So please don't think like tomorrow I'm going to put up a few things and like it'll be wind situations.
00:28:34
Speaker
Right.
00:28:35
Speaker
I think just having the time, but also realizing that for social media is meant to be social, as you said.
00:28:41
Speaker
Correct.
00:28:42
Speaker
However.
00:28:44
Speaker
It also is a low cost entry point.
00:28:47
Speaker
Meaning even with our, you know, we don't spend a ton of money on a scheduler and staff time, which it does take some time.
00:28:54
Speaker
But if you're intentional and you're scheduling ahead, you can do it.
00:28:57
Speaker
So our content is way better now that we're a team of two.
00:29:00
Speaker
But when it was just me,
00:29:02
Speaker
On Friday afternoons, and most of the time, and Fridays are a little bit, people leave a little bit earlier because they've worked it over.
00:29:09
Speaker
So Friday afternoons is a little bit more quiet around the hospital, or at least in ours it is.
00:29:14
Speaker
And so on Friday afternoons, I would sit down, me and some chocolate, and we would go to town for a week or two doing social media to stay consistent.
00:29:23
Speaker
And so not always was it the best, but it was consistent.
00:29:26
Speaker
Algorithms and social media are key.
00:29:29
Speaker
Making sure you're consistent, the algorithm will keep pushing things up and making sure that people can comment.
00:29:35
Speaker
Something I didn't share, but it's such a key point.
00:29:38
Speaker
When you have those doctors or those providers or those frontline team, or if you're featuring anyone, right?
Impact of Social Media Recognition on Staff Morale
00:29:43
Speaker
make sure people are allowed to praise them and to shout them out and ask them to because that drives up your content which was really cool as our team gets to see one of our directors is not on social media and we featured him and he's the emergency director or emergency room director which I think is a hard job they deal with a lot and so we featured him and he has been in our emergency department for a long time before becoming a director
00:30:07
Speaker
And so when I read it, some of the comments back to him, I let him read them on my phone.
00:30:11
Speaker
He was almost crying one day.
00:30:13
Speaker
So and he was crying because how kind people were.
00:30:16
Speaker
But they were talking about how he has taken care of them.
00:30:19
Speaker
And so I just think the key benefits to it are not only for you to build your marketing, right, but for your team to get the recognition that sometimes they don't get.
00:30:28
Speaker
And for your community to be able to learn about people that they might see tomorrow when they go to the doctor's office.
00:30:35
Speaker
Krista, you couldn't have said it better.
Podcast Conclusion and Call to Action
00:30:37
Speaker
Oh, those stories and the ability to see that and for them to just be able to get that expression and get that appreciation that I'm sure when you're in the hospital, I mean, or especially for an emergency room director, I mean, obviously the patients that are coming in can't respond.
00:30:51
Speaker
And to be able to see the ripple and the impact that you've made just must be so special.
00:30:57
Speaker
And how...
00:30:58
Speaker
I can't think of a better note to end on.
00:31:00
Speaker
Krista, thank you so much for your time, for this conversation.
00:31:04
Speaker
I know for everyone listening, it's going to be so valuable.
00:31:07
Speaker
There's so many takeaways.
00:31:09
Speaker
I don't even know where to begin, but just am so appreciative of you taking the time to come and share these stories.
00:31:14
Speaker
I know that they're going to impact our listeners and hopefully we'll get to see some more incredible campaigns, not only from them, but from you as well.
00:31:21
Speaker
We can't wait to watch what else you're going to do.
00:31:24
Speaker
Thanks so much, Ashley.
00:31:25
Speaker
I've enjoyed this.
00:31:28
Speaker
Thanks for joining us this week on the Anya Mike podcast.
00:31:31
Speaker
We'd love to hear from you.
00:31:33
Speaker
Make sure to visit our website, anyamark.com, where you can subscribe and never miss a show.
00:31:39
Speaker
While you're at it, if you found value in this episode, be sure to drop us a five-star review on iTunes and share the show with a friend to help us to continue to influence more people to create maximum impact.
00:31:50
Speaker
Tune in for next week's episode, and we'll see you then.