Health plans use social media as tool for member recruitment, retention

Editor's note: The following is an excerpt from FierceHealthPayer's newly published eBook, Health Payer Innovations: Strategies for Recruiting & Retaining Members. You can download it for free. 

Health plans are beginning to use the vast social network, such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, to engage and reach out to members. 

“Social media gives us a chance to hear what our customers want and need and then respond,” says Cigna customer experience officer Ingrid Lindberg. “As we improve our customer’s experience, we build trust and by building trust we can help them improve their health and well-being.”  

Social media platforms often serve a dual purpose of allowing health payers to interact with their members while also helping them recruit or retain members. For example, Aetna’s HealthyFoodFight campaign included a Facebook Web site and Twitter feed where interested and like-minded members and nonmembers could interact with each other – and provided a subtle way for the company to refer people to various Aetna online destinations.   

Twitter has been a particularly successful social media platform for Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina. The payer uses its Twitter feed to casually engage members about their health, such as by offering healthy Super Bowl snack recipes that many followers retweeted, says John Roos, BCBSNC's chief sales and marketing officer. 

“It’s important to be part of the online dialogue,” he says. “More Americans are using new social media channels to have conversations about their lives. We want to be part of that conversation.”-- Read the entire article when you download FierceHealthPayer's FREE eBook: Health Payer Innovations: Stategies for Recruiting & Retaining Members.