As caretakers for themselves, their aging parents and their children, American women make 85% of all healthcare-related consumer purchases and spend an estimated $500 billion on healthcare. And where are women going for their healthcare information? Online.

According to a 2007 survey by Burst Media, women go online for health information more than men and more than 90% of women between the ages of 25 and 34 search for health information online. The online landscape has changed for healthcare marketers. Instead of taking their messages to sites that deal with a specific subject (i.e. breast cancer or diabetes), they are forced to look for those sites and social media networks where their message can become an actual part of the conversations happening between patients and consumers—a task that seems to leave some marketers frozen in social media fear.

There is definitely some reason for the social media hesitation. The FDA has been quite vague with their rules and regulations, but Peter Pitts, president of the Center for Medicine in the Public interest and partner/director of global healthcare for Porter Novelli, feels healthcare marketers are actually being irresponsible for not using social media to reach out and connect with patients and consumers. “It’s where the people are,” says Pitts. “It’s an opportunity to bring the right message to the right person in the right way. It is irresponsible to not move forward with a message that is of real utility to public health.”

Pitts calls this the social media Maginot Line which is the focus of his presentation for the upcoming M2W®-HC™…The Conference for Marketing Healthcare to Women to be held November 5 & 6 at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C. “Healthcare companies and brands think they will be safe if they just avoid social media,” says Pitts. “But, what they are actually doing is missing the opportunity to give patients and consumers real information from a trusted source.”

When it comes to healthcare, maybe more so than any other category, women seek information from sources they can trust. “Trust is the real currency in healthcare – earning it is done one detail at a time,” says conference speaker Mary Dean, president/chief creative officer, KickSkirt, Inc. “What you Tweet, post or put on a shelf-talker is as important as a Super Bowl spot.”

“We have moved way past the ‘Don Draper’ days of advertising,” says Pitts referencing the popular TV show ‘Mad Men’ which chronicles the life and times of an ad agency in the early 1960s. “Social media is the ‘wild west of communications’ and brands need to embrace it.” Toward that goal, Pitts himself has a successful blog, Drugwonks.com, that not only has allowed him to become part of the conversation, but learn from it. “It really keeps me in touch with my audience,” says Pitts. Tapping into—and being actively involved in—social media networks is one of the best ways healthcare marketers can keep up with what is really on the minds of today’s female consumers. “We are in changing times, with the economy, the war, and over 50% of the population not insured,” says conference speaker Dori Molitor, president & CEO of WomanWise. “With all this instability, we’re seeing big shifts in the female consumer’s mindset. They are changing their values and the way they’re living their lives and that has implications for every marketer, in every industry, including healthcare. Women are America’s Chief Health Officers.”

Patti Minglin is the editor of M2W® E-ssentials, www.m2w.biz.  Based in Chicago, Minglin can be reached at 630.209.2524 or pminglin@comcast.net.