Active Social Media Management: The Case of Health Care

Abstract

Given the demand for authentic personal interactions over social media, it is unclear how much firms should actively manage their social media presence. We study this question empirically in a healthcare setting. We show empirically that active social media management drives more user-generated content. However, we find that this is due to an increase in incremental user postings from an organization's employees rather than from its clients. This result holds when we explore exogenous variation in social media policies, employees and clients that are explained by medical marketing laws, medical malpractice laws and distortions in Medicare incentives. Further examination suggests that content being generated mainly by employees can be avoided if a firm's postings are entirely client-focused. However, empirically the majority of firm postings seem not to be specifically targeted to clients' interests, instead highlighting more general observations or achievements of the firm itself. We show that untargeted postings like this provoke activity by employees rather than clients. This may not be a bad thing, as employee-generated content may help with employee motivation, recruitment or retention, but it does suggest that social media should not be funded or managed exclusively as a marketing function of the firm.

Social Media Integration and E-Commerce Platform Performance: A Randomized Field Experiment

“…This study makes a pioneering effort in identifying the causal effects of social media integration in the form of Facebook comment system on users' shopping behavior and an e-commerce platform's financial performance. The findings of our study provide solid evidence for the ongoing debate about whether e-commerce platforms should embrace social media integration and offers valuable implications to firms on the optimal management of social media functions (Miller andTucker 2013, Huang et al 2017). …”

Health Information Exchange, System Size and Information Silos

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Customer and Firm Interactions on Social Media

“…These clusters are Quiet Follower, Casual likers, Deal seekers, unhappy customers, Negative Detractor, Cheerleaders, and Loyal Fans. Miller & Tucker (2013) argues that employees are one of the most active users of the firm's social media presence. In comparison to the firm's clients, employees have closer connections to the company and can better involve themselves in firm events (Miller & Tucker, 2013).…”

“…Miller & Tucker (2013) argues that employees are one of the most active users of the firm's social media presence. In comparison to the firm's clients, employees have closer connections to the company and can better involve themselves in firm events (Miller & Tucker, 2013). In a related study, community participations have been categorized as passive or active.…”