The Role of PR in Healthcare Marketing

One of my associates, Rick Foy, passed along an email that included "10 Trends from the Holmes Report."

The second introductory paragraph struck me:

"But there are reasons to be optimistic about the prospects for public relations over the next 10 years. Increased transparency, demands from consumers and other stakeholders for greater authenticity, an emphasis on dialogue and conversation—all these trends play to the strengths of public relations and present an opportunity for the discipline to take on a wider role in corporations and other institutions, to finally contribute to something like the maximum of its ability."

Several of our clients have asked for help them figure out social media and what healthcare marketing's place is in it. It's tricky, because of all the legal and regulatory restrictions, but as we look more closely at social media we've come to believe that to some extent, this is a huge opportunity for the skills of experienced PR and strategic communications professionals.

Perhaps one of the tricks with PR in healthcare is that it isn't leverage PR's full potential, I think it is too often reserved for crisis communications and to some extent charitable giving, which are certainly necessary uses, but not the only applications of PR and healthcare.

If you are interested in social media, I recommend reading the whole report from the Holmes website.