Should Healthcare Marketers Respond to the #deletefacebook Movement?
If you are like many healthcare marketers, any gains in maximizing your social media strategy have been hard-won in an industry highly sensitized to PHI and personal data security. So, it’s natural to consider pulling back on your Facebook spend when news like the Cambridge Analytica breach happens. Despite the #deletefacebook movement, here are 4 key reasons why we recommend keeping your Facebook and other social media campaigns running:
- The underlying problem is not only a Facebook issue. Like it or not (and most of us don’t) the tradeoff of losing some personal privacy in exchange for free apps and technology has become ubiquitous. Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica revelations are just bringing these problems clearly into focus—for the first time, for many.
- The Facebook brand is more resilient than you think. Facebook has been here before – and not that long ago. There are likely to be some people, like Elon Musk, who jump on the #deletefacebook trend. But many others will accept Facebook’s response {paraphrasing} that they can’t think of every nefarious way people will abuse their system or data. But when they do find a problem, they move aggressively to fix it.
- Cambridge Analytica didn’t do what it did with Facebook data alone. They used Facebook data, but also a lot of other data and analytics tools to create model audiences and craft the message that would best resonate with that audience.
- Your hospital/health system is not Cambridge Analytica. You’re probably already working to ensure that every paid and owned media strategy avoids even the appearance of a privacy issue. If you are using a media vendor – use the Facebook controversy as an opportunity to reset your brand’s expectations and reassure yourself that those expectations are being met across all platforms.
Has recent Facebook news changed your approach to social media paid promotions? What is your top concern coming out of the Cambridge Analytics revelations? Get in touch below.
Jason Brown
Jason is CEO & Chief Strategy Officer of Brown Parker & DeMarinis (BPD), an internationally-recognized advertising agency that is on a mission to make health systems and hospitals the most beloved brands in the world. A pioneer in hospital marketing, BPD works with clients to unlock the power of their Purpose inside and outside their organizations, resulting in highly engaged employees and physicians and dramatically higher brand preference and service-line volumes.