Active Social Media Management: The Case of Health Care.

Author List: Miller, Amalia R.; Tucker, Catherine;
Information Systems Research, 2013, Volume 24, Issue 1, Page 52-70.
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 health care setting. We show that active social media management drives more user-generated content. However, we find that this is due to an incremental increase in 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, most 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 these provoke activity by employees rather than clients. This may not be a bad thing because 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.
Keywords: business value of IT; computer-mediated communication and collaboration; social media
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#131 0.253 media social content user-generated ugc blogs study online traditional popularity suggest different discourse news making anonymity marketing videos choices page
#168 0.132 firms firm financial services firm's size examine new based result level including results industry important account does suggests characterize limited
#282 0.109 power perspective process study rational political perspectives politics theoretical longitudinal case social rationality formation construction shows multiple instead understanding fact
#220 0.082 research study different context findings types prior results focused studies empirical examine work previous little knowledge sources implications specifically provide
#196 0.073 health healthcare medical care patient patients hospital hospitals hit health-care telemedicine systems records clinical practices physician electronic physicians longitudinal outcomes
#47 0.070 outsourcing vendor client sourcing vendors clients relationship firms production mechanisms duration mode outsourced vendor's effort activities in-house managing technology domestic
#298 0.060 job employees satisfaction work role turnover employee organizations organizational information ambiguity characteristics personnel stress professionals conflict organization intention variables systems
#83 0.053 personal computers use lead order using users pcs innovativeness understanding professional help forces gained usage increase trends parallel introduced expressed
#288 0.051 customer customers crm relationship study loyalty marketing management profitability service offer retention it-enabled web-based interactions operations sales strategy channels set