THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN BUILDING HOSPITAL BRANDS BASED ON HUMAN VALUES: A PROPOSAL MODEL

Abstract

The professional management of social media as a corporate communication tool has become a priority for hospitals interested in building a reputed brand. These platforms let hospitals to dynamise their relationships with internal and external stakeholders. This paper aims to understand how to use these platforms for developing a hospital brand based on human values allowing the company to become a meaningful brand to its stakeholders. To do that, we carried out a research about corporate communication, branding and social media, and we proposed an online communication model focused on building reputed hospital brands based on a human approach (Human Branding Model for Hospital). We concluded that hospitals should implement a knowledge management system to analyse all information gathered from social media, use these social platforms only for public relations and public health initiatives, and increase their investments in research about stakeholders needs and expectations.