Crisis management in health communication: Social media usage practices of private hospitals during the pandemic period

With technological developments, social media has become extremely important for individuals and institutions. In the global environment crisis such as COVID-19, the communication activities of both public institutions and private institutions were provided by social media tools instead of traditional media. While the rapid and easy accessibility of social media is often considered an advantage, uncontrolled information sharing can lead to negative results in such crisis periods, with the effect of panic. For this reason, with the health communication processes of health professionals such as institutions and organizations affiliated to the Ministry of Health, university hospitals and private health institutions; For this reason, with the health communication processes of health professionals such as institutions and organizations affiliated to the Ministry of Health, university hospitals and private health institutions; It is aimed to keep communicating about health services to create public awareness and prevent information pollution. For this purpose in the research based on, the official social media shares (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) of private hospitals, which are among The Top 500 Companies in Turkey according by Capital Magazine in 2020, were analyzed by content analysis method.