Tweet or Retreat

“Passion always beats skill. Realize that it’s the passion in your subject matter that will engage,” Gary Vaynerchuk

My passion constantly finds me trying to educate physicians, RNs, allied professionals or hospital executives that a presence on the stage of medicine and social media stage would be in their, and their patients best interests. Seeing, and realizing the potential of twitter in healthcare and knowing social media would mainstream, I envisioned a global chat room of knowledgeable contributors, influencers, patients, and thoughts leaders— all interacting to improve the knowledge base of not only each other, but our world-wide followers as well. Sounds great, right?

Fast forward to the present day — as an interested observer, I love to see that this has become a reality for many. The data @chimoose recently presented at the Mayo Clinic was impressive!

Sadly, it has also become painfully clear that many are now present on the social stage without knowing why or what they are doing there. After seeing droves of physicians and groups jump onboard and simply not get it… is it time for them to retreat?

Simply stated, the issue is the driver behind the message and the context of that message. I use twitter quite actively as an inbound tool… and obviously as an outbound educational and interactive tool. My primary objective… education and curating knowledge. Meeting people far more intelligent than me… and soaking up and sharing what I have learned.

Why have I begun to believe that many physicians need to rethink their objectives of a presence on Twitter? This image says it all.

An inbound marketing tool pushing an outbound marketing tool … by a physician :-( What is the purpose of a message like this? First and foremost it displays a complete lack of understanding of the social, communicative, collaborative, and networking nature of twitter and other social platforms. Worse… it shows that this physician is not interested in educating his patients or interested observors… he’s interested in operating on them. Next… the hashtag stating “spinesurgeryworks” — well … depending on your diagnosis, actually that is factually incorrect.

To those who argue that social media… or twitter in particular is a waste of time… I would only agree if the aforementioned case is your premise. Too many physicians and hospitals are being led down the rosy path of the promise of financial reward by marketers — Beware, many of them do not understand how “social” works any more than you do. If you are on twitter as part of an overall marketing initiative… stop… save your money and come back when your passion for helping people becomes your primary driver. Centrifugal forces should guide those objectives…. not centripetal ones.

Is there a tangible ROI of a presence in social media as a physician or healthcare provider? Sure! Should your Social ROI be a more relevant measuring stick — yes.

Is it time to retreat? For many, yes. However, it should be temporary. You should define your persona and message, reach deep for that inner passion that got you to where you are today.. tap into it and let it be your guide as you execute a passion driven, carefully crafted presence on the medicine and social media stage.