Abstract:

Social media tools for healthcare institutions have begun to form the main element of the marketing mix as the institution is almost the physical environment. While social media and patients easily reach the questions and issues that interest them, hospitals also ensure that news, content and innovations are instantly accessible to the target group. Since healthcare enterprises' social communication in the social media is an element that renews, changes and strengthens their brand management and corporate image, healthcare enterprises providing functional and quality services in social media in the face of patient expectations, wishes and problems are gaining success. Hospitals can also increase their national and international competitiveness by effectively using social media, which is the fastest means of accessing an economic and wider audience. In this study; it was aimed to systematically analyze the social media tools and social media applications that were used by 260 hospitals in the Webometrics order according to the corporate web pages and determine the effective usage of social media tools and the differences according to the hospital types. As a result of the analysis, it was determined that the majority of the hospitals included in the study use social media tools, Facebook is the most used social media tool, usage differs in related social media tools in public and private hospitals but its usage is not sufficient and effective.

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