DON'T WRITE ANYTHING IN THIS FIELD

Increased Organic Facebook Traffic by 28%

with a patient-driven content strategy

Executive Summary

Geisinger Health System (Geisinger) faced challenges in trying to achieve their content goals. Obstacles included unengaging content, not enough content to drive traffic to the right pages and no strategy for repurposing content.

After a content strategy workshop and digital writing training led by Aha Media Group (Aha Media), Geisinger’s Facebook traffic soared to 28%, page engagement skyrocketed by 314% and weekly total reach rose by 45%.

Stats

Social Media Channel Growth

%

Facebook

%

LinkedIn

%

Instagram

%

All

The Challenge

Geisinger had a robust content team with a journalistic bent that knew how to produce strong content. However, without a strategy, different parts of the team created content that wasn’t on message or targeted to their audiences. Geisinger engaged Aha Media to develop a content strategy and train the writing, social and marketing teams.

Aha Media’s Approach

After discovery, which included stakeholder interviews and a competitive gap analysis, we uncovered several challenges, including audience definition, a “content by committee” approach that slowed content production and a lack of a strategic editorial definition. During a 2-day workshop with Geisinger, we:

Developed a Core Strategy Statement

A guiding principle, or North Star – for the content team that would drive a fresh patient-experience content strategy.

Developed a Framework

Created an editorial toolkit, which defined target audiences and provided a framework for the Geisinger brand in the context of consumer content, a messaging architecture, and voice and tone guidelines.

Applied Business Objectives

Focused on applying business objectives to the content strategy and learned new ways of writing and creating content

Working with Aha Media transformed our content operations. Through training and content strategy, we publish and distribute content more efficiently and with results.

Wendy Wilson

Vice President, Media & Digital Content Strategy

The Results

Armed with a clearly defined content strategy, the team worked to address their challenges.

Content not resonating on social media

We solved this by following the content strategy and writing specifically for the personas we created. The chart shows how channel engagement grew substantially, particularly on Instagram, a new channel of opportunity for the health system. These results came from organic traffic, not sponsored content. The team also saw patient engagement soar substantially by 314%.

Lack of content for their wellness content program

We solved this problem by repurposing content and writing in the brand voice and tone to create a stronger relationship with audiences. After applying the content strategy, traffic to the wellness section grew by 519%.

Seeking efficiency in content creation process

By learning to break up and repurpose their content by channels, Geisinger was more efficient in their content creation process. Before creating a piece of content, the team would ask how the content could be used across different channels, setting the stage for an efficient production process. For example, a story on Lyme disease was used across media outlets, social media and on the website, with accompanying articles, videos and pictures.

Lessons Learned

Teams need editorial toolkits that answer the main questions: Who is the audience? Who is the brand vis a vis the content? What are the messages? What is the voice and tone we should use while creating the content?
Organic engagement will rise if content teams know their audiences and write directly for them.
When content teams think about repurposing content before they create it, they can greatly increase their efficiency and standardize their workflow.