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Social Media For Health Care Professionals

In case you have not noticed, Social Media is exploding. Smart companies are blogging, podcasting, and participating in Social Networking Sites to promote their companies. Health Care Companies are joining this trend in record numbers. Want to learn what is current in Health Care? Just read The Health Care Blog. Prefer to listen to a Health Care Podcast, all you need to do is subscribe to Health Care 411. Health Care 411 has a podcast series for Consumers and Clinicians.

Many Health Care Professionals now have profiles in Facebook, MySpace, and other Social Networking Sites. Business use of Social Networking Sites is increasing every day. Health Care Professionals are also using sites like YouTube and Twitter to gain greater exposure and stay ahead of the competition.

Let’s explore some of the ways Health Care Professionals are Using Social Media For Business.

  • Blogging - Blogging can help keep clients informed about your company and its products and services. Also, blogging is an excellent way to get honest feedback from your customers. Customers want the opportunity to tell you both what is good and what is bad. Blogging makes this possible in a unique and unthreatening way. Feedback from blogging is priceless.
  • Podcasting - Podcasting is a very credible way to correspond with your clients, prospects and professionals interested in your company. Podcasting allows you to share an audio file, sort of a talk radio style format, where you can speak directly to your audience or interview industry experts and allow people to listen to the interview at their convenience. Podcast can be listened to any time your audience wants and adds great credibility to your message. Feedback from Podcasting is very powerful as listeners feel safe and confidential when communicating. I have had feedback on my podcast show “Business Bits With Jim Farrell” that has been very positive and some very critical. I have made adjustments from the feedback to make my show better for my audience.
  • Social Networking Sites - Social Networking Sites like FaceBook, MySpace, Linkedin, and many others are becoming very popular for corporate marketing. All revolve around the friend, or trusted advisor theory, where you can ask friends for advise and guidance on almost anything. Joining or creating a social networking group is a key method of promoting your business and lets you network with like minded business people. Health Care Professionals are also using Social Networking Sites to create and promote seminars and events.
  • YouTube - YouTube allows you to upload and share videos. YouTube is a free service that lets you connect via Video to your audience. Video is very powerful and an important part of the Social Media Marketing Mix. I use YouTube to share a 60 second video introduction to the industry experts I am interviewing for my podcast show.
  • Twitter - Twitter allows users to post a quick and short message on “What are you doing now”. Done correctly, Twitter can be a powerful PR tool. Twitter messages, also called tweets, must be less than 140 characters; however this is more than enough to make people aware of your marketing messages. Tweets are great for making people aware of your other Social Marketing Efforts, listed above, and reveals a great sense of what people are really thinking, as it is difficult to mask what you are thinking in a 140 characters. If you want a feel to how powerful Twitter is, just take a look at the Presidential Campaign. Sarah Palin, John McCain, Barack Obama, Joe Biden all are using Twitter. Imagine a politician limited to 140 characters, no time to spin, so pay attention to these tweets.

The following are some real life examples of how Health Care Professionals are using Social Media for business.

26 Responses to “Social Media For Health Care Professionals”

  1. Bruce Kramer Says:

    Podcasting is a way for medical practices to enhance its website by inviting patients and potential patients to obtain trusted healthcare information. A practice can either link their website to selected programs from other legitimate medical websites or create their own podcast.

    In addition to FaceBook, MySpace and Linkedin, there are social networking sites for physicians, such as Sermo, iMedExchange, SocialMD, Within3 and Clinical Village. These sites enable physicians to share information in a safe and easy to use environment.

  2. Joe Worth Says:

    Jim is probably THE local expert in using social media to drive business. The specific examples he cited in this post are very powerful.

  3. Maureeen Stankowitz Says:

    Nice information, I will make sure to share with our health care members.

    Maureen Stankowitz
    Executive Director
    Lakewood Chamber of Commerce

  4. Guy Paredes Says:

    Hi Jim:
    I would be interested if you have a Social Media Seminar for Health Care. keep me posted. My company, Atlantic Horizon Benefits, LLC is fully engaged in the health care market. We are working with employers to have them understand how to control the costs of the most popular type of employee benefit, health insurance. Through plan design, defining classes of employees to properly tier plans, HRA plans, HSA plans, FSA’s and the variety of cost sharing plans on the market we continue to educate employers’ and HR professionals.

    Thanks,

    Guy Paredes, President
    Atlantic Horizon Benefits, LLC
    Atlantic Horizon Financial Group, LLC

  5. Christine Meyer, RN Says:

    Would like to be informed of the social media seminar.

  6. Dan Dunlop Says:

    Jim,

    Great post. There’s a ton of information here. I hope I can help direct more healthcare marketers to this post. We all need this information.

    Keep up the good work.

    Dan Dunlop
    The Healthcare Marketing Blog
    http://healthcaremarketing.ning.com

  7. Tannus Quatre PT, MBA Says:

    Jim,

    I agree that social media/networking is playing an every increasing role in healthcare - both from promotional/networking and informational aspects.

    I’d be happy to speak with you about our experiences in regard to social networking for healthcare professionals if you are interested.

    Thanks for blogging with us at The Healthcare Entrepreneur Blog (http://www.thehealthcareentrepreneur.com).

    Tannus Quatre
    The Healthcare Entrepreneur Blog

  8. Katrina Says:

    Hi Jim,

    For hospitals and other healthcare providers, CarePages IS the way to participate in social networking. Hospitals license the service and in turn provide a hospital branded experience for members who use CarePages as a patient blog. Once licensed, all the hospitals need to do is promote it to the patients and families in their facility. Instant social network.

  9. Jim Says:

    Hello Katrina, just took a look at the CarePages site, looks like a great service.

    To all the Web site is http://www.carepages.com/
    I recommend taking a look at.

    Jim

  10. Peter Sabbagh Says:

    What about sms usage?

    Well produced sms content offerings such as novels’, short stories, motivational messages, reality show, sports, informational, Howard Stern style sms, and comics will increase interest in younger and older users. If your medical physician hasn’t offered to contact you by video, text or e chat, he may soon…

    resourceforsocialmedia.wordpress.com/

  11. Jamie Verkamp Says:

    Hi Jim,

    Thank you for bringing my attention to your blog posting and visiting The Practice Pros website. You’ve shared great information and you are right on the mark. It’s an education process to let physicians know what options they have when looking to promote their practices and many are embracing this new idea of social marketing. We will be sharing your post with our clients and looking forward to more information from you! Keep me in the loop!

    Great Job!
    Jamie

  12. Neal Linkon Says:

    Excellent summary. For an industry where the human connection is so critical, these tools should have as great an impact on healthcare as any other, if not more.

  13. Ben Garrett Says:

    Jim:

    Very useful post! There’s a lot of good information here. I have focused a lot on more organizational/institutional uses for social media in healthcare, but I like the fact that you are highlighting individual practitioners as well. I was astonished to see that Facebook is now over 120 million members, with 250,000 new members every day, 40% of whom are over 35. It’s a GROUNDSWELL (to borrow the title of a very good book on the phenomenon from Harvard Business Press). Keep me posted on your seminar (my daughter goes to Rutgers), so I may be in the area anyway. Nice work! Ben

  14. Sam Soprano Says:

    Jim,
    Once again you have hit the nail on the head. These sites are loaded with inportant information that most people want to know. The more we can learn about our health professionals the better choices we can make. Like everyone else health professionals need to promote themselves as well.

  15. David Taboada Says:

    Hi Jim,

    I got here via http://www.successful-blog.com/1/can-the-social-media-produce-world-changing-creativity/ following your comment there.

    Rather than adding more information, I would like to ask: Do you forsee a specialized destination for this industry? Like a healthcare-only social network? What problems facing the healthcare industry could find a solution in such a platform?

  16. Connie Bensen Says:

    Wow Jim, you’ve really put a lot of time into gathering resources.
    Here are some excellent resource people in the health field using social media.
    @AlbertMaruggi is from Minnesota
    and Phil Baumann @PhilBaumann - he has a blog

  17. Jim Farrell Says:

    Thanks for your reply David. There are already some social networking sites for health care professionals. Take a look at Sermo and Doctors Hangout:

    http://www.sermo.com/
    http://doctorshangout.com/

    There are some legal issues in health care social networking, like what is adivise and what is opinion. I have joined a group in Facebook called “Legal Issues Affecting Doctors” and will bring up your question in the group.

    I took a look at your Web site and found it very interesting. I just purchased the Rosetta Stone Tapes for learning spanish and hope to accomplish this over the next two years. Lets talk one day soon about what you do, perhaps I can assist by putting you in touch with some of my contacts.

    Jim Farrell
    732-451-0820

    Have a great day

  18. Michael Schaff Says:

    Before participating in Social Networking Sites, a healthcare professionals should be aware of (i) the Anti-Kick Back rules, which, simply stated, provide that they cannot receive or pay anything of value for referrals; and (ii) The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), which, in part, simply deals with patient privacy issues (not to disclose protected health information) .

  19. Jim Farrell Says:

    Thanks so much for responding to my question Mike. If you don’t mind I had one other questions that quite a few doctors had asked. The question is can a reply in a social media forum be construed as advise or just an opinion. This seem to be the main concern on correspondence to me from this post. Also, I had a request to e-mail you, if this is acceptable to you, please provide your e-mail in your response to my questions.

    Thank you so much for your participation in this discussion.

    Jim

  20. Michael Schaff Says:

    Yes, it is possible that a social reply may be considered a medical opinion. I recommend that any reply contain appropriate legal disclaimers. Your subscribers can reach me at mschaff@wilentz.com

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