Use of social media to engage membership of a state health-system pharmacy organization

The influence of targeted strategies implemented to increase member engagement on a social media page of a professional pharmacy organization was studied.

The Ohio Society of Health-System Pharmacists (OSHP) implemented posting strategies to increase member engagement with its social media page in late 2013. Data were collected retrospectively for a nine-month period in 2013 (preimplementation) and a matching nine-month period in 2014 (postimplementation). The primary endpoint was reach (as provided by the social media website). Data regarding reach were reported to OSHP page administrators on a weekly basis. Posts during the study period were characterized by the day of week, time of day, type of post, and corresponding reach. Continuous variables were represented using means and standard deviations or medians and interquartile ranges (IQRs); categorical data were represented by percentages.

The total reach of posts during the nine-month study period increased postimplementation, from 10,826 to 32,338. Further, the median reach per post on the OSHP Facebook page was higher postimplementation (214; IQR, 107-380) versus preimplementation (152; IQR, 89-224; p = 0.035). Evening posts had significantly greater reach compared with nonevening posts. The median reach for evening posts was 232 (IQR, 143-378) versus 131 (IQR, 77-200) for nonevening posts (p < 0.001). There was no significant difference in the median reach of weekday posts (179.5; IQR, 85.5-339.5) versus weekend posts (192; IQR, 113-252). Posts with photos or pictures had the highest reach of all post types.

Implementation of targeted strategies resulted in an increase in the number of users reached by a state health-system pharmacy organization's social media page.