Branding hospitals on social media through health professionals

Date

2019

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Equinox Publishing Ltd

Abstract

Hospitals are facing a constantly changing context in which patients are becoming more demanding, public health education initiatives are regarded as increasingly important and hospital business models have to take account of constantly developing medical technologies. In order to better interact with internal and external stakeholders, hospitals try to reinforce their corporate communication strategies as well as their brand reputation by means that include using social media platforms. This literature review paper aims to better understand why health professionals have the potential to play a key role in hospitals’ branding initiatives through social media. First, I report the findings from studies of concepts related to corporate communication, branding and the connection between social media and personal branding; and, second, I propose a communication model – what I call the PMA branding model – to help hospitals build a brand reputation based on health professionals’ participation in corporate communication initiatives led by hospitals on social media. The paper concludes by showing that the PMA branding model consists of organisational tools based on a rigorous methodology that will help health professionals participate in branding initiatives led by the hospital through these platforms. Copyright © 2020 Equinox Publishing Ltd.

Description

This article is not available at CUD collection. The version of scholarly record of this Article is published in Communication and Medicine (2019), available online at: https://doi.org/10.1558/cam.38819

Keywords

Brand, Corporate communication, Health professionals, Hospital, Social media, adult, article, education, human, medical technology, public health, social media

Citation

Aguerrebere, P. M. (2019). Branding hospitals on social media through health professionals: Towards a communication model. Communication and Medicine, 16(3), 238–250. https://doi.org/10.1558/cam.38819

DOI