Q&A: Using Facebook Live to grow brand awareness

Hartford HealthCare, a $4.3 billion health system operating in 161 towns and cities, is well positioned as a market leader. But the Connecticut-based provider wanted to find new ways to grow its service lines. An older program of webchats with physicians wasn’t working in today’s social media-driven environment. Hartford’s refreshed campaign relies on a partnership with the Hartford Courant and Facebook Live events to engage consumers. The Facebook Live events, which touch on everything from weight loss to neurological conditions, reach anywhere from 34,000 to 130,000 people, depending on the topic. Rebecca Stewart, senior director of content at Hartford HealthCare, explains the goals behind the campaign.

MH: What was the goal behind your marketing plan?

Stewart: We are highly focused on growth and brand awareness. When we look at our marketing and our market share and we combine everything in an overall plan, we’re targeting very specific service lines and we’re doing this in a strategic way that looks at owned media, earned media, and then more traditional paid media.

These avenues are all happening at the same time. We are still doing amazing traditional marketing. But this is an integrated campaign that is broader and across the board to many different service lines. As we’re producing this content, we have very strategic audiences in mind. When you’re looking at, “What content are you producing?” I really believe the first questions are: Who is the audience? Where do you want it to go? How is it being distributed?

You know your strategic service lines, you know your strategic priorities; they are the constant. You’re trying to grow awareness, you’re trying to grow market share. That is the concept.

You have traditional people who are watching or reading in a traditional newspaper article. Then you also have your strategic social audience, which is a little bit different and delivered differently.

MH: When partnering with media outlets, how do you make sure that consumers don’t see it just as an ad; that they see it as valuable content?

Stewart: It’s a balancing act. Part of that is on us to ensure that what we’re producing is intelligent, informative, helpful and engaging. We see this all the time, that people are creating these great pieces of content, but if you don’t have the audience nailed down and that distribution nailed down, then who is seeing it?

MH: Talk about some of the elements of the campaign. It centers on a Facebook Live event, right?

Stewart: (We) have an article on the front page of the Hartford Courant Lifestyle section on Sundays. They write it. We deliver the expert and the patients and all throughout it is previewing the Facebook Live event, which is going to be Wednesday around noon—our strategic time period for the most eyes. But it lives on after that.

MH: Is that article labeled as sponsored?

Stewart: Yes. And then it is fed out through their social media channel and we cascade it through our social media channels.

MH: Did any of the segments surprise you in terms of the response?

Stewart: It was our first one that sort of said, you know what, we knew we wanted to do this, but our very first one was a topic that was sensitive and we didn’t think that women would feel comfortable talking about vaginal dryness in this very public setting. We created a special email so that they could email us anonymously. You’re asking people on Facebook. If they’re writing a question, it is for everyone they know to see. We were surprised at how open people were saying, “This helps me. The people need to know about it. You should look into it.”

The article profiled a woman who was menopausal, had trouble, had this procedure. Then, we had the talk with a doc. And this was a topic that had been shut down by other partners because they were uncomfortable with it on television. In the newspaper and social media format, it worked. It was a little bit less in-your-face, and that was OK. Within two weeks, we had 43 appointments because of this. That is pretty remarkable.

Healthcare Marketing Impact Awards - 2019