Summa researchers distributed a web-based survey on the hospital’s Facebook, Twitter and blog and received feedback from 156 respondents. The survey sought to map out the user characteristics of a hospital system’s social media structure and why users were using the hospital’s social media pages. The research looked for the gender, race, education and age of the respondents.
Notable findings include:
Demographics
• 95.5 percent were female; 4.5 percent were male
• 33.8 percent were aged 50 to 59; 26 percent were aged 40-49
• 93.6 percent were Caucasian
Social media platforms
• 53 individuals responded via Facebook
• 8 responded via Twitter
• 110 responded through the hospital’s women’s health blog
User information
• 71.5 percent reported using social media to seek personal health information
• 29 percent reported using social media to seek family health information
• 27 percent reported using social media to seek hospital programming
The researchers concluded these findings could help hospitals navigate opportunities to connect with patients about health issues through social media.
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