Influencing Nursing: A Look Behind the Camera at SSM Health’s Social Media Strategy

If CNOs don't enter the social media conversation, they will be left behind, says this nurse leader.

In the last few years, the world of nursing has changed drastically in a number of ways.

With the increasing use of technology in healthcare, the communication methods between nurses and leadership have evolved to include social media. Now, CNOs need to stay ahead of the curve and insert their leadership voices into the conversation.

According to Caitlyn Obrock, system director of workforce strategy and scheduling at SSM Health, it's important to meet new generations of nurses where they’re at with communication.

"As much as we love our emails and communication boards at the hospitals and ministries, it's really important to know that our future generations as well as [the] current workforce are within the social media platforms," Obrock said. "If we're not having a presence or a space [on those platforms], we're missing a huge opportunity to not only share about our hospital and our brand, but also the overall nursing workforce."

Andrea Zimmerman, marketing program manager at SSM Health, explained that during the pandemic, there was a huge shift in how social media was used with the rise in popularity of short form video as clinicians began to share what it was like to work in healthcare. Many began to criticize nursing online, so much so that Gen Z nurses were not wanting to go into nursing, Zimmerman explained.

"We wanted to join the conversation and shine a positive light on nursing," Zimmerman said. "Of course, there's always room for improvement in every field, but there's a lot of positive things to be said about being in nursing, from the impact that nurses make on a daily basis to the purpose and passion that nurses have in their careers. We figured if we didn't join the conversation, the conversation was never going to change."

Enter nurse influencers.

Strategy breakdown

In 2023, SSM Health assembled a social media influencer team to recruit while telling the story of SSM Health and to communicate better with their workforce. At the time, social media influencers were beginning to have successful careers.

"We started with three nurse influencers, [and] that since has grown over the last two years," Obrock said. "Our goal was to identify individuals that were vastly different and connect with people."

The nurse influencers were chosen internally with the goal of balancing the organization's brand with being able to connect with individuals and creating engaging content. The key is building authentic relationships, Obrock explained, and the influencers were selected with some specific guiding principles in mind.

"Everything's at our fingertips right now to have the emotional and authentic connection that you're able to have nurse to nurse and be the most responsive, quickest individual to provide the option that I wanted," Obrock said. "So when we were designing our influencer program, we considered those that had sound operational knowledge to be able to do the recruitment as well as knowing our organization."

However, nursing isn't the only skill required to be a nurse influencer.

"There is an art to being an influencer," Obrock said. "You have to be comfortable getting out in front of the camera, which can be an interesting recruitment experience to find someone that has both of those skill sets."

According to Zimmerman, the majority of the content produced by the team is short form video spread across all the major social media platforms. The team has content pillars that strategically align with program goals, and they follow trends that help boost their content on the algorithm.

"We meet on a regular basis to discuss a variety of ideas, but a lot of the times the content that they get comes from building good solid relationships with people in our ministries, starting with the CNO, [and] getting direction from them as far as units to highlight," Zimmerman said. "Then, just having really good communication around what our purpose is [and] what our goal is with our content visits to make it as efficient and productive as possible."

The nurse reaction

According to Zimmerman, the nurses at SSM Health were hesitant and unsure about what the nurse influencers were trying to do.

"It's a different way to use social media, especially in the corporate world, to just let employees be themselves and to show what's actually happening within our walls," Zimmerman said. "Once they started to understand how they view social media with what they're consuming and what they enjoy going on the social media platforms for, they understood that in order to stand out, in order for our content to be seen, we had to follow suit with what we're seeing on social media."

There are more extroverted nurses who are willing to participate in content, but there are also some who are shy, Zimmerman pointed out. This is where creative content ideas come into play, and nurses can even choose to pitch a content idea without participating in it.

"We're very respectful of their comfort level but we also offer other opportunities," Zimmerman said. "We don't always have to show faces in our content."

For Obrock, the success of the program has pulled in more nurses who want to participate as influencers.

"I remember my early days, it felt like we were pulling people along, versus now, I love to see that people have more ideas and they're submitting those through our DMs on our different social media platforms, as well as coming up with their own videos and content," Obrock said.

The social media content has also inspired nurses to want to work in different units or in different areas of the health system.

"We're missing a huge opportunity as nursing leaders and organizations if we're not putting ourselves into those spaces," Obrock said. 

Obstacles and outcomes

The biggest roadblock at the beginning was developing the content process, Zimmerman explained. They had to figure out the most efficient way for the nurses to work on their phones collecting content, while understanding that they're not content creators. This process also included finding editing tools that are user friendly and going through an approval process to understand where the line is between entertaining content and representing the brand.

"We're trying to connect with the workforce differently, the digital town square is where people are having conversations, it's where people are going for information," Zimmerman said. "It's important that we're there, but also that we're providing content and information that [the nurses] find entertaining or valuable in some way."

Since the program began in 2023, Zimmerman said the platforms have grown organically to have over 80,000 followers. The team has also posted several pieces of viral content that have gotten lots of positive interaction online.

"We've also seen a really great engagement rate, which usually, on a healthcare recruitment social media page, you're not going to see anything over 0.5% and we're right under 3%," Zimmerman said.

For Obrock, the positive outcome is seeing how many people still want to become nurses and enjoy the positive content that the team is producing.

"For us to be able to inspire the future generations, it's hard to kind of wrap your mind around that we're helping mold what that looks like as we know a lot of our younger generations are actually choosing their career off of, say, a TikTok," Obrock said.

For CNOs who might want to take a similar approach, Obrock recommends just getting started. Obrock also emphasized not shying away from the hard things that organizations go through and recommended amplifying the important voices and stories coming out of healthcare organizations.

"The time is now,” Obrock said. “If you're not moving towards this direction of having involvement in social media, you're going to be left behind.”