Top Healthcare Social Media News - week of October 2

This week was filled with a lot of good information - both healthcare specific and more general social media information (it's good to look for best practices in other industries).

As you build out your social media strategy, please reference the following MUST READS - and a BOOK REPORT:

MUST READS 

How New Facebook Features will Impact Healthcare

Dean's Commentary:

Very interesting concept!  I've periodically seen people use Facebook as a means of sharing updates regarding a medical condition, but this brings to concept to the forefront.

Do you think that people will share their medical conditions just as they've started to share their locations?

This could lead to some very interesting personal health opportunities.

Dean Radian6: Hospitals, Social Media and Emergency Preparedness

Dean's Commentary:

I know that the author's intent was to use the set-up question to make a point (which was done very nicely), but I had to chuckle when I read it. It's one of those questions that we all see that points out the fact that the social media channels were set up without a strategy.

Enough of that, let's get to the point of the article. 

Excellent examples of how social media can be used in cases of emergency.  Social Media isn't just about marketing, it has a variety of other benefits in almost every aspect of providing quality healthcare service.

Social Media: What's the ROI?

Dean's Commentary:

Great infographic on Social Media ROI!  It also supports what we're seeing in Healthcare - social media has so many different benefits - not just financial.  To measure the true return, you must consider financial return and non-financial return.

BOOK REPORT 

focus: by Leo Babauta

Russell's Review:

Leo Babauta is the author of the blog, Zen Habits.

His underlying tenet is that all of our productivity habits – multi-tasking, goal-setting, list-making with checking off boxes, and always doing more-more-more – are in fact counter-productive. According to Mr. Babauta, these activities simply raise our level of stress, and reduce our productivity, and our happiness.

He speaks from great experience. His blog posts are based on the steps that he himself undertook in order to quit smoking, start running, start eating a healthy diet, become more organized, and focus on the things that are important in his life.

These themes – simplify, minimize, and focus – are now concentrated into a FREE eBook. This is a masterwork from the master of Zen Habits, Leo Babauta.

If you like his free eBook, you will likely appreciate the paid version that contains much more, including interviews with other organization and focus gurus (Seth Godin and many others), how-to videos, and bonus guides on how to change your life for the better.

With Leo’s permission, we make available his book, Focus, here for download.

If you haven’t already, also check out his blog, http://zenhabits.net/

Top Healthcare Social Media News - week of September 25

This week was filled with a lot of good information - both healthcare specific and more general social media information (it's good to look for best practices in other industries).

As you build out your social media strategy, please reference the following MUST READS:

MUST READS 

Doctors, Patients, Not using same Social Spaces

Dean's Commentary:

Although a large percentage of physicians are using social media for personal and professional use, only 3% are visiting / participating in patient communities that focus on specific health issues.

They cite lack of time and lack of awareness.  Are there other reasons?

Healthtap's social network of 5,000 doctors is ready to give free advice

Dean's Commentary:

If you've yet to check into HealthTap, I'd recommend it.  I've heard many positive reviews from participating physicians.  It's good for the patient, it's good for the physician.

In 20 short weeks they've grown to 5,000 physicians.

How to Measure your Social Media Lead Generation Efforts

Dean's Commentary:

Great example of how social media metrics show a portion of what is necessary to calculate ROI on social media.

Top Healthcare Social Media News - week of September 18

This week was filled with a lot of good information - both healthcare specific and more general social media information (it's good to look for best practices in other industries).

As you build out your social media strategy, please reference the following MUST READS:

MUST READS 

If Content is King and Design is Queen, How do you Divide the Throne?

Dean's Commentary:

 The ideal online property (website, Facebook page, YouTube channel, etc.) has both great, credible content and appealing design.

How do you deliver both with limited resources?

In my opinion, solid content is still King. The design can be improved over time, but it takes a long time to recover from delivering poor content.

Please share any best practices for striking the balance.

Healthcare Social Media by the Numbers

Dean's Commentary:

 Very interesting infographic showing 'who' is participating in 'which' health condition discussions.

The best free social media tracking tools that you should know about

Dean's Commentary:

 This is a great post that lists a number of the social media measurement tools. The challenge may be to figure out which ones to use - but that needs to be decided after your social media objectives are defined and you are clear on 'what' metrics represent progress towards your objectives.

Top Healthcare Social Media News - week of September 11

This week was filled with a lot of good information - both healthcare specific and more general social media information (it's good to look for best practices in other industries).

As you build out your social media strategy, please reference the following:

• MUST READS
• Interesting Infographic
• NEW Survey Data

MUST READS 

Tracking the KPI's of Social Media

Dean's Commentary:

Great article! Outlines the challenges associated with trying to tie various social media channels to direct purchases (or new patients in the healthcare world). Not only are they used more in the 'research' phase of the funnel but they also 'share' the credit for bringing awareness to a potential new customer or patient.

The latter portion of the post does a great job of highlighting some of the many measurement tools that are on the market.  I'd love to see applications that start to collate and tie all the various metrics together - does anyone know of such tools?

Managing a Social Media Crisis

Dean's Commentary:

Daniel Ghinn has done a great job in this article of summarizing the preparation and planning that should be done to minimize the effects of a social media crisis in healthcare.

They will happen, so how do you minimize the impact.

What does your 'forest fire' look like?

Health Posts: What to Write About

Dean's Commentary:

We often hear, "What can I write about that will not cross HIPAA or privacy boundaries?".  Our answer, "You probably answer 5-10 patient questions each and every day that are related to general health information.".

This simple, but effective, post provides some guidelines to those that may be facing writer's block.

Interesting Infographic

Infographic: The ROI of Social Media

Dean's Commentary:

Although this is a general social media infographic, many trends can be understood and leveraged from a healthcare perspective.

96% of CMO's looking at benefits beyond revenue growth. Same in healthcare - many benefits exist beyond attracting new patients.

Only 50% of CMO's use Revenue as a metric to measure social media activity.

Youtube is expected the largest social media platform of investment. This has great application in healthcare.

Social Media is a great tool for recruiting. Same in healthcare - the ability to attract top notch physicians is a key benefit to using social media.

New Survey Data

Most Health IT Pro's use Social Media

Dean's Commentary:

Many wrote about the new survey released from Frost & Sullivan this week. I don't want to get overly excited about the high numbers (75% of healthcare professionals use social media for professional purposes within their institutions), as it's hard to decipher the overall scope of the survey. This is neither good or bad, just an unknown. I suspect that the full survey is available somewhere, I just haven't seen it.

However, there are many interesting tidbits to pull from the summary.

One third of participating institutions do NOT allow social media access by their employees.

Most participants use social media for marketing and branding.

"Utilizing outdated IT management processes and tools results in unfulfilled expectations. Review the benefits of IT automation."

I couldn't agree more. The implementation of social media is moving so quickly that new tools are emerging every day. It's important to stay on top of the latest technology and to build an 'assembly' of tools that strives to automate as much of the process as possible.