Social Media working for you

I wanted to take a moment before our next tweetup (TBD), to find out a few things from everyone in SAHC.  First, how many of you tweet on a personal level and how many on a “corporate” level?  The same for facebook and other social media outlets.

I still don’t have the go ahead for the corporate tweet account, but I believe it will be soon.  But as I await the go ahead, I decided to try to put together ideas of how I can make social media work for my hospital.  I’d like to start a list and continue it during our next tweetup, since our whole reason for forming is to learn from one another.

I would say the number one use of social media is for advertising, but advertising what?  Job openings. Services. Classes/Seminars. What else do you plan on “Advertising”?

As a Community Relations Coordinator, I also would like to use it for PSA’s and other helpful information.

Do you think it will ever be used as a communication tool for patients in terms of updating appointment times, etc?

I know there are a ton of other uses, but I wanted to just start the conversation and we can discuss more at the tweet up.

June SAHC Tweet Up

I just got back from San Antonio Healthcare (#sahc) Tweet up #2. Thank you @BrasseriePavil for the meeting space (not to mention delicious food) and thanks to @ecrh aka @MomonMars aka Debi and @Lane24 aka Dale for putting the tweet up together. And last, but certainly not least a big thank you to @Paul_Berry and @JohnHancock61 from USAA for speaking to us about corporate social media.

As some of you all know, I twitter only on a personal level. And I like to throw my disclaimer out there “my thoughts are completely my own and do not represent those of my employer”…but as I learn more about social media and it’s potential, I find myself wanting to add to my job description. I want more work! Please utilize Twitter and Facebook to market and recruit. Yes, I am asking to add to my workload. Why? Because this is where we’re going…and, um, it’s FREE!

As I anxiously await the ok from corporate, I will try to recap our very enlightening discussion at lunch.

First things first, get a handle!Even if you are awaiting corporate approval (like myself), get the account. I’ve already done this on Facebook. The hospital may never okay me to go forward and use it as a marketing tool, but it’s there if we need it and I have the name I want.

Find your audience!Start following those people or groups YOU want to follow you! Look for physicians, medical news, non-profit organizations (i.e. AHA), health care marketers, hospitals, etc. Also follow your local news and media (especially if you are a healthcare marketer/public relations person). I personally follow a lot of healthcare marketers, medical news and public relations tweeters and I havelearned so much. I serve on the hospital’s emergency management disaster team, so I made sure to follow the CDC during the swine flu. Bottom line, most people will follow you back, so if your goal is to recruit nurses you better start following as many nurses as you can!

They like me; they really, really like me. How do we handle complaints? My philosophy, people are going to complain about a company via twitter whether that company tweets or not, so don’t use the fear of receiving complaints as a reason not to tweet. With that said, John and Paul handle complaints (or as I like to refer to them, “concerns”) differently depending on the severity. Is this a concern that another follower tweets back and it gets resolved? Or is this a concern that a blanket reply to all would handle, or it may even warrant a direct message. How ever you decide to address “concerns”, you should make sure to check with your corporate lawyers and/or risk management team before stepping into a sticky situation. And keep your “personal” feelings out of it as not to heighten any harsh feelings.

There was so much more we talked about during today’s tweet up, but hopefully this will provide everyone with a jumping off point. As Debi said, this blog is a collaborative effort, so if you are interested in adding to it, please let us know. We will get the handles and names of those who attended on the site ASAP, and I will post some names of people I follow in the healthcare industry and some helpful websites, too.

And, as always, all views stated in this blog are purely those of myself and not my employer! Unless they’re totally awesome and in return my employer thinks I’m a rock star, then I’ll take credit!

Follow me at @charris74….thanks, Carole