Mayo Clinic is the most sophisticated hospital on Twitter and YouTube, but Cleveland Clinic has the best presence on Facebook, according to MHA Degree.org's list of the "Top 50 Most Social Media Friendly Hospitals for 2013."
How the hospitals were ranked
To assess hospitals' social media use, MHA Degree.org—which advocates for health administration professionals—gathered social media statistics for all of the hospitals listed as "Nationally Ranked" in at least one adult specialty by U.S. News & World Report.
They then scored each facility's presence across seven social media platforms based on the number of followers and the amount of activity.
The highest possible cumulative social media score was 100, with 21 points for Facebook, 17 for Twitter, 18 for YouTube, 18 for LinkedIn, 12 for Google Plus, eight for Pinterest, and six for Flickr.
The top five hospitals for social media were:
- 1.Mayo Clinic (Rochester, Minn.). Mayo had an overall score of 96.1. It claimed the top rankings for Twitter, YouTube, Google Plus, and Pinterest.
2. Cleveland Clinic. It had an overall score of 93.5. Cleveland Clinic claimed the top rankings for Facebook and LinkedIn.
3. University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center (Houston). It had an overall score of 93.
4. Mount Sinai Medical Center (New York City). It had an overall score of 88.
5. University of Michigan Hospitals and Health Centers (Ann Arbor, Mich.). It had an overall score of 86.7.
The most popular Twitter account—Mayo's—had 567,998 followers and had posted 11,392 tweets. Meanwhile, the most popular Facebook account—Cleveland Clinic's—had 508,031 "likes," 35,304 "talking abouts," and 66,648 "were heres" (MHA Degree.org, 7/22).