Multicriteria Analysis Model of Social Media Engagement for the Healthcare Sector: Application to Spanish Hospitals' Instagram and LinkedIn Accounts

Abstract

In the digital era, the utilisation of social media strategies has become a common practice to achieve communication
and branding objectives across various organisations. This quantitative study, adopting an experimental methodology,
focuses on the hospital sector, where it has been observed that social media engagement is directly related to the quality
of patient experience, and the corporate reputation and brand recognition of hospitals. The purpose of this research is
to develop and validate a multi-criteria evaluation model of hospitals’ use of social media to discover the factors that
enhance patient engagement and, consequently, the corporate reputation of these entities. For this purpose, a
systematic literature review is conducted, an expert judgement assessment is carried out to validate the indicators used
in the proposed model, and a content analysis of 2758 posts from 10 Spanish hospitals on Instagram and LinkedIn
networks is performed. The results reveal that the indicators influencing engagement vary according to the platform.
On Instagram, the format and type of content, as well as the information provided are the most determinant factors.
On the other hand, on LinkedIn, the information and the number of followers are the aspects that most impact
participation. The robustness of this model contributes, both theoretically and practically, to the understanding of the
factors of the hospitals’ brand content that stimulate social media engagement. Furthermore, it provides guidelines for
communication and brand managers to efficiently manage the content marketing strategy on Instagram and LinkedIn.