Social media was what might have been considered a fad, is now here to stay. With Facebook and Twitter revolutionizing customer service, social media certainly should not be ignored.

I found this article titled "5 Basics for Any Hospital Social Media Plan", curious if the article would mention analytics. Sure enough, Step 5 is all about analytics. I'd like to take this a step further and talk about tools used to monitor social media platforms.

Hearing a bad review about a hospital from a friend is enough to make me go somewhere else. I would say that most people are the same. There are numerous options of where I can go when I'm sick, etc.

By monitoring your hospital's name in social media channels, you can combat negativity while nurturing the positive feedback you get. When I tweet about a company and they respond, I respect that. American Airlines does a great job of this. Perhaps they have a team dedicated to social media, but I know they are using monitoring tools to keep a close eye on their customers. Hospitals should be doing the exact same.