According to a recent social media study by Michael Stelzner, an overwhelming majority (88%) of marketers say they are using some form of social media to market their business (Marketing Charts).

Survey respondents report that the top benefit of social media marketing is gaining attention for the business, and with 81% of all marketers indicating that their social media efforts have generated that exposure, those efforts appear to be paying off in a big way.

Improving traffic and growing marketing lists is the second major benefit, according to the study, followed by building new partnerships. The study also found more than half of participants reported that a major benefit of social media marketing is the resultant rise in search engine rankings that often comes with increased efforts.

Twitter, blogs, LinkedIn and Facebook

The top four social media tools being used by all marketers are Twitter, blogs, LinkedIn and Facebook, respectively. Twitter holds the top spot prominently with 86% of respondents saying they are using it.

Numbers for Twitter have not penetrated quite so far in the heath care marketing world, but a report from Ed Bennet says that there are 160 hospitals (out of 250 he is tracking) with Twitter accounts. The next most used social media tool  by hospitals is YouTube, then Facebook and blogs.

Bennett is the manager of web strategy at University of Maryland Medical System and maintains the “Hospital Social Network List” on his personal blog.

Iowa hospitals are also engaged in social media, Twitter

To our knowledge there are five hospitals in Iowa using at least one of the social media tools above, and four of whom are using Twitter.

Similar to Bennett’s list, we’ve developed our own for tracking Iowa hospitals using social media. This list can be used as a reference to see what others are doing in the space. If you’re doing this stuff and not on the list, please post in the comments below with links to your initiatives.

You can also follow the Iowa Hospital Association on Twitter as @iowahospital. We post links to relevant Iowa stories, share health care industry resources, communicate with other health care professionals and promote the people, places and achievements of Iowa hospitals.

If you have questions about any of the statistics above or about how your hospital can be leveraging social media in your communication strategy, feel free to send in your questions or add them as comments on this post.