The Influence of Social Media on Public Relations in the Health care System

First of all, let’s define the role of Public Relations in any organization. PR’s main role is to build and maintain the reputation of an organization. However, with the rapid growth of the Social media in today’s society, I feel that PR sort of losing their power of maintaining the reputation of any organization, especially in the Health care system.

Nothing is hidden anymore. People use social media to share their dissatisfaction and frustration. It seems that they feel that by voicing their opinions, disappointments, and so on , on Facebook for example, their voice is heard somehow. And most of the time, immediate feedback is given by fellow users.

Let’s say for instance, someone experiences a malpractice at a hospital, if this person is a faithful user of FB, chances are he or she will share that on FB; what that does, it immediately raise doubts in the mind of whoever reads about this disagreeable experience. Consequently, the reputation of this hospital is automatically affected.

Another crucial thing is that, people use Social media to find information that are related to their health issues. Not too long ago, a friend on my FB’s list posted that her 1 year old daughter had a cold, before the day was over, there were many comments on her page, each suggesting what she should do to solve the problem.
PR’s personnel, needs to be mindful of the existence of Social Media in today’s society and plan in accordance if they want to be successful in their jobs.