Building health related social networking sites require much-needed features like online health communities.

Many illness sufferers are now participating in online illness specific communities, discussing their experiences. We all have sick friends and family members, and now thanks to e-mail, live health chat, health forums, medical blogs, video sharing and other online resources, we have become much more intimate and the supportive environments are helping those with serious illnesses and diseases.

Social networking sites may have such supportive environments, however without an online health community, health related social networking sites simply become another social networking site.

There are many challenges faced by most social networking sites and the most common is getting people back onto the site. How do we engage people in health care services and have them coming back to the social networking site on a regular basis that is not for a recreational means? One answer is ensuring the online health communities are active and relevant to the users of the site.

The second most common challenge is how to create synergies among the different services offered by the social networking sites and what are the differentiations between these sites to better compete in this niche market. One answer is ensuring the online health communities are offering meaningful information related to the illness sufferers and ensuring that the “big brothers” or advocates of the social networking sites are keeping the health content up to date and relevant for all users of the site, be it illness sufferers or family and friends of illness sufferers.

These online global health communities are emerging as a new medical domain and require illness sufferers to join to help keep the online global health communities afloat. These online health communities are open to all: illness sufferers, family, friends, professionals, and researchers. People seen within these communities are a valuable health resource to others suffering from the same illness or disease.

People within these health communities are strong advocates, making others aware of what it is they are suffering from and detailing their experiences. These people can be seen as “big brothers or big sisters” to others within their community. They frequently post content designed to help others, and to respond to the questions posted by others.

Quality of life improves when the illness sufferers are in control of their illness or disease, and the communities provide illness sufferers this support. The greater the community, the greater the support. All communities require growth, growth by visitors and growth by registered members participating in discussions.

A Social media marketing is not a mere marketing add-on. Neither is it a blogging experiment whose purpose remains forever unclear. It is not a justification for conversations, engagement, and whatever buzzwords generally find their way into a discussion about social media. More than anything, a social media program is neither simple nor easy. It is not what most people think.

A fully deployed social media program is a completely integrated communications mechanism that amplifies the impact of every function within an organization by leveraging the power of human networks via social networking platforms. It is complement to all other forms of tactical communications, nor a replacement for any of them.

Now tat we have touched on what SMM is, let’s discuss what a social media program does.

A SMP can provide organizations with detailed, virtually instant feedback from customers and valuable market intelligence. Used with specialized monitoring, measurement and analysis tools, it can amplify not only activities, but the acquisition and analysis of valuable data, from consumer insights to the calculation of ROI. A SMP also brings into heavily compartmentalized companies the potential for enhanced collaboration, increased departmental efficiency, cost reductions, and of course growth of business.

Forget about blogs, Facebook, Twitter and all the social media channels and platforms for a moment, and focus instead on what matters to your organization:Is lead generation an area of your business that could use some help? You can create a SMP that will help you acquire new leads. Are you losing customers to competitors? You can develop a SMP whose focus will be to help you enhance your customer retention activities. A SMP can plug into every type of business function you nerd it to and help you make it work better, smarter, and faster.

A fully developed SMM program can, for example, protect a brand in times of crisis, alert an organization’s decision makers to new trends in consumer interests and sentiment, influence hundreds of thousand of consumers discover a company, organization, or product at a fraction of the cost of other forms of “traditional” media.

Because mobile devices such as cellular telephones increasingly incorporate social media capabilities that go beyond simple texting, voice, and email digital social networks now live on mobile devices, not just personal computers. This matters because portability means both increased use and lower barriers of adoption. Because of this, the acceleration in global social media use is rewriting the way humans communicate, share ideas, recommend products, and connect with each other. Not being a part of this means not being a part of the world. Just as the telephone, email, and mobility could not be held at bay by companies reluctant to accept change, social media cannot be ignored either. The company that chooses to resist this latest step in the inexorable evolution of business will find itself having to work increasingly hard just to stay afloat. Conversely, the company that chooses to adapt and implements a business- focused SMP will have the opportunity to gain an advantage over its competition at very little cost and improve its position in the market.