by Wendy Johnson

We've had a dialogue on Hospital Impact about the pros and cons of using social media to promote your organization and connect with your community. Turns out that although nine in ten hospitals and health systems use Social Media to some degree, few are going about it in an organized way to really harness its power.

Only about one-third of hospitals have some kind of formal social media plan in place, let alone a budget for "social media employees."

These results come, perhaps not surprisingly, from a web marketing firm that specializes in healthcare. Still, those who are interested in using Twitter, Facebook and other avenues as a means of outreach may be interested in the results, including that hospitals have found it difficult to turn their social media efforts into new patient revenue.

How about you? Has your hospital figured out a way to turn your Twitter feed into revenue? How do you measure your return on the time you've invested in it?

Wendy Johnson is the publisher of Hospital Impact and FierceHealthcare, which delivers five healthcare management and IT newsletters for healthcare industry executives.