So you’re a health care professional or organization interested in having a meaningful online digital presence?
Great! What? Where? How? When? Who to engage? Best practices? Risks? These are all the variables you need to consider.
There are many healthcare providers and institutions or start up platforms who are beginning to engage on the healthcare social media scene. Many more are lurking in the #hcsm chats … and hopefully they are learning why — from a patients perspective, physicians’ perspective, industry perspective and and institutional perspective — exactly why it is so very important that we have this conversation and continue to engage interested observers or participants….
HOWEVER…
Once the decision is made to engage… these same people will require real world, best practice examples on how to proceed, who to follow, who to learn from(and perhaps, who to hire)… BEWARE of self proclaimed social media *experts*!!
It is my hope that a new twitter hashtag … #thcsm , where the T=tactical will enable those of us with experience in the space to assist those looking to initiate the process. Feel free to reach out hjluks (at) gmail (dot) com
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Thoughts?
Bob and Meredith…. Thanks for your comments….
First… Meredith… you are 100% correct!!! A properly executed digital presence involves a fair amount of preparation and consideration. When I meet or talk with clients or colleagues I make that very clear. Some people are ready to “jump in” and get going!!! They need to be counseled that we need to start by defining who they are, what their message will be, who their audience is, what the enabling technology is and how to utilize it … etc…. Thanks for grounding me :-)
Bob… I am very happy to see you are as excited as I am about the #Thcsm concept… it’s time to really help those who are interested… yet they’re not quite sure what to do next. Once they past the formative steps that Meredith and I articulated… they will need a place or a hash tag (on Twitter) to follow… to show them how others are executing, engaging and “succeeding” in the space.
Thanks again for both of your comments… it’s a pleasure to serve on the Mayo Advisory Board with both of you!!!
Bob West
For “medical students”, at least, I think this is a great idea. We are in the process of facilitating their introduction to proper social media use, via several campus support initiatives. The #Thcsm initiative will complement our local efforts and simplify the training process. I’m psyched!
Meredith raises a good point, and one that we’ve covered here at Upstate Medical University. I’m sure others will need to consider the “why” as well as the “how”.
Meredith Gould
Frankly, Howard, I wish people would seek strategic guidance and get help thinking about WHY they want to use social media before they hunker down to learn the tactical deployment of those tools. But you know me — I’m forever wishing for a more sociologically sophisticated approach. I’m very grateful that I got to teach folks about this during the MCCSM Social Media Residency. Wish you’d been there!
Thanks Meredith…. I agree with you…. My thoughts were simply that I have seen enough docs/hospitals./patients/organizations trying to play on twitter, etc… yet they’re not executing well or perhaps fearful of diving in further. Some have finally passed the WHY stage… and I do not want to “lose them” because they become frustrated. Our other work pushes the why… I wanted a presence to be there to say …. “Great, you’ve decided to engage… let’s help you move forward”
thoughts?
Meredith Gould
I’d be saying: “Great, you’ve decided to engage…now let’s slow down a bit and talk about what you hope to accomplish and what you’re willing to invest in time and clearly defined types of efforts to move forward.” Having this discussion will help mitigate bloopers and fear.
Most people, especially those trained in the “hard” sciences have not learned the social science that must be understood to use social media wisely and well.