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Social Media Takes Inpatient Management, Inc. by Storm

When Inpatient Management, Inc. came to Black Twig looking for an innovative way to boost business and brand image, we knew that implementing a social media campaign would be key. We wanted people to know that IMI was a strong contender in the young world of hospitalist medicine.

Hospitalist medicine is an emerging practice that has come to the forefront of healthcare in the past 15 years. Hospitalists (doctors who specialize in the care of patients in the hospital only) relieve primary care physicians from having to travel back and forth from a private practice. Hospital medicine is highly cost-effective, saves roughly $1,700 per patient per stay and helps reduce your length of stay in the hospital.

Black Twig got to work building the IMI brand. After researching a number of online social media venues and blogging opportunities, Black Twig turned the focus to HCPro, a hospitalist and healthcare information company, and Twitter.

Black Twig secured a blogging opportunity for IMI’s CEO, Kirk Mathews on HCPro in which he would submit content for publication, as well as aggregation into the HCPro’s e-newsletter as the featured blogger. Mathews and Black Twig coordinate to develop content for the blogs; this includes a wide range of topics from physician recruiting to accountable care organizations.

Then, Black Twig implemented a social networking plan to help IMI build brand awareness and network with other professionals in the healthcare industry. With more than 12 million accounts on the Web, Black Twig saw Twitter as a strong marketing tool. We found it to be an effective communication tool for industry news aggregation and business development, especially in hospital medicine, an underdeveloped category on Twitter at the time of IMI’s social media inception.

Within months, Mathews became known as the Hospitalist_Pro. , and the Medical Group Management Association chose Mathews as one of the top 10 people in healthcare to follow on Twitter. His page went global and now picks up followers from the United Kingdom, Germany, India and Canada.

Black Twig also launched a monthly e-newsletter for IMI. Black Twig manages the content and distribution of the newsletter for internal communication and completes the necessary interviews and research to enlighten and connect IMI employees nationwide. The newsletter features several reoccurring departments, such as physician profiles, trade show announcements, a “What’s on Your Mind?” section that allows employee interaction as well as industry news and updates.

Black Twig has secured a number of media placements for IMI in the healthcare trade market. IMI has received coverage on local broadcast stations like KTVI Fox 2 News television and KFTK 97.1 talk radio. Print media placements have appeared in industry trade publications such as ACP Hospitalist, The Hospitalist, HealthLeaders, Medical Economics and Healthcare Finance News, showcasing the expertise of several IMI principals. Together, these placements and social media standards have set the pace for an aggressive marketing plan with an impressive ROI.