Clickbait, Thanksgiving and the Patient Experience

Influencing the old-school way

By Pattie Cuen and Thomas Barbee 4-minute read

Does every marketing plan need to include Joe Rogan now?

Post-election buzz is that traditional media has been outflanked, outpaced and left to wither away by the persuasive power of “new” media – your TikToks, Xs, Truth Socials and Metas.

Maybe every 2025 marketing plan should include Call Her Daddy. Or maybe not.

In the wake of big media’s self-flagellation and campaign strategy second-guessing, even the most experienced MarCom leaders may fairly ask – or be asked by their C-suite colleagues – if their marketing and communication plans are keeping up with the times.

The answer? If your plan focuses on the experience of your customer, you’re in good shape.

While clickbait headlines and the algorithms that deliver them have created plenty of noise and confusion – scoring more eyeballs than The New York Times or Wall Street Journal – the personal touch still reigns supreme.

Because when trust is at a premium, it’s the personal that’s powerful.

The constant reshuffling of media/communications channels, as well as digital tools and other technologies involved in care delivery, is trumped (pun intended) by the customer experience and the conversations among friends and family.

As investor and editor Christina Farr wrote just this week responding to the collapse of Forward Health, “I get asked a lot by my peers for advice on where to get great medical care. Not once have I been asked for a doctor’s office with more tech.”

Four thoughts here from today’s communication landscape:

• Everyone is an influencer. That’s always been true. Today it’s only about reach. Now, instead of just reaching those gathered around your Thanksgiving table, you can get in front of millions. But even if you don’t, you’re still exerting an influence on those closest to you.
• Old media isn’t dead, the channels have changed. The New York Times just hit a record number of subscribers and turned a profit for one of its subsidiaries for the first time. People have more ways of consuming content from outlets. Perhaps it’s more the death of traditional channels than traditional media – you don’t have to read your favorite columnist because now you can listen to them on their paper’s podcast.
• We’ve lost context. This one is new. Content delivery has shifted to headlines, clickbait and, worse, rage-bait. Context doesn’t matter when you’re running on cost-per-click metrics, you just want the click. Whatever it takes. And all too often, something extreme or emotional supersedes context and truth.
• Information comes to us. The new channels are at the mercy of the algorithm. An underlying theme of communications observers throughout and after the election cycle has been how different people get completely different information. All of the information – from NPR and NYT to Fox News and NewsMax – might be on any given platform. But no one will actually see that full range. Everyone’s personal echo chamber builds itself: The more someone consumes a perspective, the more of that content they’ll see in their feeds.

So, what’s our advice for healthcare leaders and MarCom teams?

Prepare. Expect more clickbait headlines. One negative story will be pushed and boosted and built into a self-perpetuating informational edifice that “proves” inefficiency, negativity, incompetence. Remember how COVID stories of patients misdiagnosed with the virus became proof of a wide conspiracy of hospitals using the pandemic to make more money.

Know your strengths. Continue the steady work of amplifying and building a strong brand that emphasizes trust and transparency. Be present and highly visible in the community and with partner organizations on a daily basis, not just via ads but with ongoing community benefit work that touches people directly. Torpedoes will be fired, but your brand will endure if you’ve done the groundwork.

Focus on relationships. Your nurses, physicians and staff are an army of influencers as well. Check in with them. Ask what they’re hearing and what they’re experiencing. Identify your own vulnerabilities – areas where their trust may not be as high. We know from our latest nurse survey that caregivers are often skeptical of executive leaders. Dig into that weak point and push harder on the strategic work of engaging them. They’ll be sharing stories around the Thanksgiving table. Earn the trust for it to be a positive one. For health services organizations or where the relationship is B2B, spend time building those partner relationships. Furthermore, keep your finger on the pulse of the market in the same way a health system should keep track of doctor, nurse and patient sentiment.

Above all…Deliver an outstanding patient experience – especially in those precious moments when you have a chance to interact with people. In this, nothing has changed. Those personal moments are an incalculably powerful way to build trust and pass along vital information. Here, it’s not about marketing budget and spreadsheets. It’s about the people walking through the door. Similarly, technology and efficiency and convenience and new care models are important and worthwhile – digital transformation in healthcare a worthy, much-needed endeavor. But those things must be in service to patient experience, not ends in and of themselves.

This is certainly the hardest work. Relationships take the most time and the most attention. But their power makes that investment well worth it.

Take stock.  Want to get started on improving trust and communications? Here are a few brief questions to ask your leadership teams:

• Are we listening? Constantly?
• If not, why? And how do we activate better listening internally and externally?
• What are you hearing about our organization?
• What do we do with that information?
• Where are our gaps and potential pitfalls?

Contributors: David Jarrard, David Shifrin, Emme Nelson Baxter, Tricia Geraghty