To be clear, I’m not phobic when it comes to social media – I have an online profile myself with Facebook and Twitter.  I just think online socialites need to think things through and have a bit of a filter – especially if you’re a healthcare professional. 

Imagine that there was a technology that would allow the entire world access to what you think, see, and feel, but only when you let the world in.  Wouldn’t you want to maybe clean up your act a bit – at least when the door to the world was open?  I would. 

Amazingly, the technology exists, yet many refuse to acknowledge its power to crush even the most sturdy of reputations when used carelessly.  The technology is called Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and every other social media platform out there, and its right there for the taking – to either make or break you regardless of your economic status or social circle.

By all means, connect with friends online – connect with strangers.  Just know that anyone may be watching, including your employers, patients and community.

Here’s a good article from HealthLeadersMedia.com on some of the issues that can accompany social media use by hospital employees.

Social networking Web sites and modern communication media, such as text messaging, e-mail, and smartphones, are a part of our daily lives. Although such technologies have a place in society, they are taking a toll on the professional image of tomorrow’s physicians.

In fact, 60% of medical schools that responded to a recent survey reported incidents of students posting unprofessional content online, according to a study published this month in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Medical schools also reported finding frequent references to intoxication (39%) and sexually suggestive material (38%).

Medical students are not the only Gen Xers or Yers divulging too much information online. A 2008 study in the Journal of General Internal Medicine found that residents are also posting information that they may not have otherwise shared with patients.

A blog can be a powerful way to get a hospital’s message out to the public, says Mark Whitman, vice president of digital marketing at Ohio-based brand consulting firm Northlich. “A big advantage of blogs is that information can be shared quickly among all stakeholders,” he says. “Quick response and sharing of information can help stop misinformation and rumors that can be very damaging during times of crisis.”

via Hospital Blogs Can Help During Times of Controversy | www.healthleadersmedia.com

It all takes time – too much time some would say.  I disagree with the back end of that statement, but fully acknowledge that getting your social media engine up and running takes a bit of work.

This article from econsultancy.com lists a number of tips for keeping your social media strategy manageable.  They name starting small, setting goals, and allocating resources as a few pointers, and I’d add that an integration strategy is critical in order to prevent duplicating updates/posts on multiple sites just to engage your audience.

It’s all interconnected after all, we just need to tie the pieces together.  A couple of my favorite integrators are HootSuite, Ping.fm, and Twitterfeed.

One of them is making social media sustainable. As exciting as it can be to start using Facebook, Twitter and other popular social media websites, excitement usually wears off real fast and many businesses struggle to sustain their social media efforts.

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Tannus Quatre PT, MBA is a private practice consultant and principal with Vantage Clinical Solutions, Inc., a nationwide healthcare consulting and management firm located in Bend, OR and Denver, CO.  Tannus specializes in the areas of healthcare marketing, strategy, and finance, and can be reached through the Vantage Clinical Solutions website.

If so, check out this article from MGMA that does a great job of speaking to the medical practice administrator’s use of Twitter.

 If you’re asking yourself, “What’s the point of Twitter?” you’re not alone. Several medical practice administrators have asked us why they should participate in this form of electronic messaging. If you’re wondering, too, this guide is for you.

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Tannus Quatre PT, MBA is a private practice consultant and principal with Vantage Clinical Solutions, Inc., a nationwide healthcare consulting and management firm located in Bend, OR and Denver, CO.  Tannus specializes in the areas of healthcare marketing, strategy, and finance, and can be reached through the Vantage Clinical Solutions website.

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Tannus Quatre PT, MBA is a private practice consultant and principal with Vantage Clinical Solutions, Inc., a nationwide healthcare consulting and management firm located in Bend, OR and Denver, CO.  Tannus specializes in the areas of healthcare marketing, strategy, and finance, and can be reached through the Vantage Clinical Solutions website.

Your first result will be Dominos.com – as it should be.  Result two might be another legitimate Domino’s page (or sub-page from within their main company domain).  Result three (on my computer) is the following: “YouTube – Disgusting Dominos People.”  Hmmm…not great press, wonder what happened – let’s click to see. 

Looks like some Domino’s execs acted quickly to get the video removed, but not soon enough to prevent more than one million YouTube viewers witnessing a couple of Domino’s employees from N.C. doing the unthinkable to soon-to-be-delivered food items.  Yes, mucus was involved.

Come to find out, the food was never delivered – or so they say.  But guess what, the damage is done.  No matter what Domino’s does to unwind this mess created by a couple of immature, disgruntled, or malicious employees (whatever their reason), they can’t undo this.  Want to put a price tag on the incident?  I bet we’re talking millions.  Easily.

Though there are many lessons to be learned by this unfortunate incident – the main one is very simple, and very evident:  While social media can instantaneously build fame and fortune – it can destroy decades of reputation and loyalty in the same instant.  Understand it, train your staff, and put policies in place that clearly outline ground rules for use of social media for your company.

Oh, and Domino’s response to the incident…you can follow that on Twitter.

Social networking is for real.  In healthcare too.

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Tannus Quatre PT, MBA is a private practice consultant and principal with Vantage Clinical Solutions, Inc., a nationwide healthcare consulting and management firm located in Bend, OR and Denver, CO.  Tannus specializes in the areas of healthcare marketing, strategy, and finance, and can be reached through the Vantage Clinical Solutions website.

Well, when CNN embraced YouTube as a central cog to the 2008 Presidential election I think we all began to see a shift.  These sites are legit, and if you want to get the word out there about your medical practice, you’d better recognize this sooner than later.

Twitter is one of the latest social networking sites that offers users a way to stay connected with friends, and keep in touch with the businesses that are part of their lives.  At The Healthcare Entrepreneur you can be that we Twit (see original Twitter post here), and will continue to in the days ahead.

Here is an excellent article from HealthLeaders Media that showcases the way that hospitals and health systems are staying connected with their communities through Twitter – It’s a great read and I highly recommend it if you’ve never considered Twitter an “impact player” in the marketing strategy for your healthcare practice.

Backus Hospital, a community hospital in Norwich, CT, recently got me to click through to its site merely by mentioning it had posted pictures of its first baby of the New Year. Who doesn’t love babies? The photos are really sweet and also show the hospital in a warm, intimate, friendly, and caring light.

Some other ways the community hospital is using Twitter:

• Asking general questions to engage its audience. (If Sanjay Gupta becomes the U.S. Surgeon General, what would you ask him?)
• Posting safety tips (change those smoke alarm batteries).
• Posting health reminders (get those flu shots).
• Providing links to cross-promote other products (read our monthly health magazine).

As more people are moving to the web to find information about healthcare providers (read my posts about online physician ratings here and here), it pays for private practice owners to know what is being said about their practice in online news publications and throughout the blogosphere.  With more and more print publications simultaneously funneling their news stories online, web searches now provide a means by which to search local print media who may be publishing information about a practice from recent press releases, sponsorships or other local news stories.

Practice owners and managers don’t have the time to search the Internet daily for news stories or commentary about their practice, but they do have the time to take advantage of Google Alerts in order to have Google scour the web for them.  With Google Alerts, you simply enter the keywords you’d like searched, enter in a frequency of which you’d like the results sent to you by email, and you’re done.  You’ll soon be getting email in your inbox telling you exactly what is being said about your practice online – a great way to keep tabs on your practice’s brand in a way that is efficient, easy and effective.

This article from BizGrowthNews provides some more information about the benefits of this great tool.

I recommend putting in place a once-a-day Google Alert which you can then review at the start of each day.

Items that feature in the news, in blogs or on the web can be included in the alert.

A Harris Interactive poll commissioned by the California HealthCare Foundation found that although more than 80% of the state’s adults turn to the Internet for health-related information, less than one-quarter have looked at physician ratings sites. Only 2% of those surveyed made a change in physicians based on information posted on a rating site.