The Nexus of Social Media Marketing Activities and Content on Visiting Intentions in the Jordanian Healthcare Sector: A Mixed-Method Approach

This study investigates the role of social media marketing activities (SMMAs) and content shared by physicians’ in influencing patients’ intentions to visit clinics and healthcare facilities in Jordanian, through a sequential mixed-method approach placed within the Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) framework. This approach used to explore the motivations, and strategies adopted by physicians on social media, uncovering contextual factors that influence patient behavioural intentions, then integrate contribution constructs revealed qualitatively into the framework, finally validate the framework quantitatively. Through the qualitative phase, 25 semi-structured interviews with Jordanian physicians were conducted on MS Teams and analysed based on Starussian Grounded Theory using Nvivo software. Through axial and selective coding, several contextual factors were identified, however, three key constructs with their systematic relationships were integrated into the model. Content dialect was found to directly influence patient engagement, while perceived cost and insurance coverage moderated the relationships between patient trust, eWOM, and intention to visit clinics and healthcare facilities. Despite the increasing use of social media in healthcare, limited empirical research has examined these context-specific factors in Jordan. The findings indicate that content dialect could affect audience understanding and engagement, whereas insurance coverage and perceived cost influence patients’ financial accessibility and intentions to commit visits. Therefore, these constructs were integrated with constructs from prior literature to develop a comprehensive conceptual model. The subsequent quantitative phase aimed to test the relationships between variables and validate the model, a structured questionnaire was administered to 412 patients, and analysed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) via SmartPLS 4. Empirical findings showed that among SMMAs, customization was the only significant activity that enhanced healthcare brand awareness, where trendiness, informativeness, interaction and entertainment had no statistically significant effects, emphasizing that SMMAs generalizability were limited among various sectors in different contexts. Moreover, content dialect, social media platform and posting frequency significantly influenced patient engagement but content format did not. Additionally, healthcare brand awareness was found to affect significantly both eWOM and patient engagement which in turn significantly fostering patient trust and influence patients’ intentions to visit clinics and healthcare facilities. Unexpectedly, perceived cost didn’t moderate the relationships between eWOM/patient trust and intentions to visit clinics and healthcare facilities, suggesting the sensitivity, seriousness and priority of healthcare situations over financial concerns. However, insurance coverage demonstrated a dual moderating role by negatively moderating the patient trust-intention to visit relationship and positively moderating the eWOM-intention to visit relationship, emphasizing the interplay between social media influence and the access to healthcare. The study highly recommends physicians in Jordan to prioritise using plain and non-scientific language, customized tailoring content due to patients’ needs, frequent but balanced posting, platform alignment with content and patients’ preferences for enhancing healthcare brand awareness and patient engagement on social media. More attention should be paid to insurance coverage when designing content strategies that shape patients’ decision-making process.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

PhD

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

De Montfort University

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Al Rawabdeh, Hala Omar Abedalaziz

Licence

• https://dora.dmu.ac.uk/bitstreams/de2f9681-cbe2-4040-9268-a768ff15f085/download