Facebook Tip: Promote “See First”

July 27, 2015 Janet Kennedy 0 Comments

“You Don’t Ask – You Don’t Get”

Facebook has become one of the fastest evolving social media platforms which causes a lot of heartburn for small businesses. As a marketer and a social media professional I consume newsletters, get daily announcements, follow social media gurus and interact in Facebook daily to stay on top of the changes. I can’t keep up myself and it’s what I do. Imagine how the “Mom & Pop” retailer or the solo practice physician feels. I help both kinds of services and I’ll tell you – they’re frustrated. They are busy trying to make a living and keep up with their own industry. They don’t have time to keep up with the latest social media innovation.

“See First”

That said – Facebook recently launched a new feature that has been over-looked and could be a big help for small businesses. If they have created the kind of page that has raving fans they can use it to their advantage. As a Facebook user – the individual not the business page – you can select 30 people or Pages to “see first” in your news feed. That means we finally have the option to prioritize which 30 friends, family members or businesses whose updates we don’t want to miss. Thirty does not sound like a big number but when you think about who your “can’t miss” friends are, do you really have 30? It’s probably more like 10 or 20.

So here is the opportunity for a small business. Create an image that makes your page fans aware of this new option and request that your fans put you on the “see first” list. Will all your fans? Hardly. But it may be the ones who care the most about your business and are most likely to share your content. Therefore, it behooves you to create content that is worthy of being in someone’s “see first” list. What have you got to lose? Remember, “you don’t ask, you don’t get.”

Try it and let me know what happens.

Social Media Tips for Radiologists

September 26, 2014 Janet Kennedy 1 Comment

social media for healthcare It is a pleasure to welcome former Get Social Health podcast guest to the blogger’s seat today. Sara has provided an insightful article on social media tips for Radiologists however they are excellent and apply to any physician. Thanks for contributing Sara!

Working in radiology marketing for three years now, I’ve learned the in’s and out’s of the industry, become well-versed in radiology specific terminology, learned more about Toshiba and Hitachi technology than I can fathom and found out how to use various forms of marketing to attract patients and referring physicians. The biggest lesson I have learned though is how to bring the actual radiologists to the table for marketing success.

A joke in our niche industry is that radiologist physicians chose their specialty because they, in fact, don’t like patients and would rather sit in a dark room all day powering through their work than ever have to see a single patient. It makes sense; being that radiologists are compensated for the number of interpretations they get through, rather than their amount of daily positive patient interactions. As a result, the radiologist is not normally well known for exquisite bedside manner.

That being said, many imaging centers and radiology departments end up marketing their centers the same way. Using crutch-terms like “24-hour turnaround time” and “ACR accredited” plastered all over their advertisements and signs, doing nothing to stand out against their competition. By finding unique ways to actually market your radiologist, you can take the road less traveled in radiology.

So what can you do to market a physician that rarely interacts with patients and referring physicians?

Build an online persona for your physician through LinkedIn and Twitter
- Share posts and become a thought-leader in radiology by posting valuable content, studies and blog articles. As a marketing pro, you can help extend the radiologist’s reach through these two social mediums.
Patient-focused ghostwriting.
- Write original content for patients from the perspective of your radiologist, advising them on the differences between procedures, how to prepare and how to understand diagnoses.
Brand journalism for your radiologist.
- Take the ghostwriting a step further and reach out to local media and industry publications to explore whether they need an expert in radiology to consult on medical news and healthcare changes.
Video interviews and how-to’s
- If you’re lucky enough to have a radiologist that wants to get involved with your efforts and feels comfortable being filmed, you can package short videos of the doctor explaining their services. Video content is great for SEO and is much more manageable for patient education than long white papers and jargon-riddled blog posts.

To discuss some ways to transform your practice’s marketing, shoot me an email. I’d love to share my ideas! To reach me via email use: [email protected] or give me a call at 813-284-2002.

Are We Paying Enough Attention to Data Security in Digital Health?

August 4, 2014 Janet Kennedy 0 Comments

Get Social Health welcomes Digital Health Futurist Fard Johnmar as a guest blogger. We were pleased to have him as a guest on the podcast (Episode 10) and could not cover everything we wanted to discuss, particularly on the launch of his new program, Digital Health Illustrated. Congratulations to Fard and team on this new program. I know you’ll be interested in reading about it.

~ Janet Kennedy

social media for healthcare Earlier this year, health consumers, physicians, and others roundly criticized a program backed by the National Health Service to collect and centralize health data gathered by general practitioners from millions of patients across England. They were especially concerned that creating a centralized database of health records could put patients’ privacy at risk.

Are their concerns misplaced? Although data stewards take great care to secure electronic medical records, data breaches are common. In addition, we are collecting increasing amounts of sensitive health data from social media, mobile phones and now, wearable computers. Cybersecurity experts, writing in the New England Journal of Medicine and other publications warn that the health industry is woefully behind other sectors in terms of data security best practices.

In this installment of my new video blog series, Digital Health Illustrated, I focus on the dark side of the health data explosion and highlight consumers’ concerns about health data privacy and security. Click the image below to view.

Fard Johnmar is a digital health futurist and researcher focused on understanding how digital health technologies are used and perceived. He is also co-author of the global bestseller ePatient 2015: 15 Surprising Trends Changing Health Care.

Social Media’s Potential for Suicide Prevention

July 15, 2014 Janet Kennedy 2 Comments

The future is now. Sophisticated technology has made things possible that mental health is not ready to tackle. And maybe, in the case of suicide, that’s a good thing.

It is already possible, “today” to monitor social media for messages from people sharing their suicidal thoughts and feelings; to geo-locate those individuals, and then to send rescue to their door, within only minutes of their first suicidal message. IT professionals know this. It’s the mental health community that is just figuring this out. IT professionals are already developing this technology. When they “throw the switch” and begin to use it, mental health needs to be ready to respond effectively.

This is an interesting development for several reasons. First, most mental health professionals avoid even passing familiarity with the use of social media, let alone understanding the culture and nuances of interacting on various mainstream platforms, such as Twitter or Tumblr. Many in my field aren’t familiar with research that suggests that suicidal people may be more honest about their risk on social media (some research suggests people report a suicide at higher rates on social media than in real life).

Right now there is a “street nurse” in Toronto that finds people on Twitter who are suicidal and gets them local resources in real time (@RealTimeCrsisis). But for many in the mental health industry, the thought of doing this is anxiety provoking, and overwhelming. It is our community’s anxiety that is getting in the way of making a meaningful contribution at the intersection of mental health and social media.

Second, the IT industry has no “IRB” or mental health review process, and it’s not going to. People who can develop a code or technology will do it, whether they have thought through the mental health implications of it or not. It is up to the mental health community to become familiar with social media and IT and to initiate relationships with the IT community. This is the only way that we can increase the chance of technology and social media being used thoughtfully and effectively in mental health-related matters.

Can you imagine an IT developer “throwing the switch” on a program that quickly identifies and geolocates suicidal people via social media posts, only to find people in need of help with no idea how to go about helping them? While our mental health community is still debating the utility and security of encrypted email with patients (we’ve had that capability for years, patients want it, and yet few mental health providers use it), IT develops are rapidly expanding the capabilities and possibilities for communication with people who are suicidal. It is past time for our mental health community to begin to engage with IT and social media developers in meaningful ways about public health and safety.

Finally, this is interesting because IT and social media developers now have the tools to initiate social science experiments on a scale that was unimaginable only a few years ago, and they are already doing it. Facebook developers have demonstrated the ability to manipulate your mood. They performed an experiment on over 700,000 users with a speed and scale that is unimaginable to most social science and mental health researchers today.

Quite honestly, our mental health community isn’t sure how to react to this. Should we be impressed? Nervous? Indignant that we weren’t consulted and our safety review methods not used? Ashamed we didn’t anticipate this and prepare? Intrigued at what might be possible, and how to use that for the greatest good?

In the end, I think the only useful reaction is to replace fear with curiosity. Anxiety and avoidance is no substitute for thoughtful caution and curiosity. If our mental health community stands by our tradition of advocacy and compassion, then we have a duty to acknowledge and embrace the possibilities of social media for preventing suicide and improving mental health. Because if we don’t do it, then someone else who doesn’t understand mental health will.

When it comes to suicide prevention and mental health, technology is moving too fast for our field to wait until we are comfortable enough with social media to innovate. Instead, we must innovate until we are comfortable.

Social Media for Fletcher Allen Health Care

June 24, 2014 Janet Kennedy 1 Comment

Alexandra Tursi of Fletcher Allen Health Care was guest of Get Social Health podcast #005. It was a great conversation that ran so long we didn’t get to all the questions I wanted to ask. She was kind enough to put some time into answering them so I could share them with you.

Bonus questions!

Janet: Talk about working with the C-Suite on your digital and social media efforts – did you have to do some education about social or were they up to speed?

Alex: The C-Suite was open to social media originally. That said, we have done training and education and we also produce a quarterly report that shows ROI.

Janet: What do you see in healthcare social media among your peers – both in general and among other hospital systems?

Alex: I see incredible opportunity! I think Cleveland Clinic has a great strategy and they publish great content on a very frequent basis. We are definitely inspired by them. I think the great opportunity is in thought leadership and expertise. Health care consumers are desperate for information about medical topics. Our goal is to provide evidence-based expertise that people can use in their information-gathering and put into action. Yet, only 11% of healthcare professionals use social media for professional reasons. We need to increase the clinical voice in social media. That is our opportunity.

Janet: What would you say to other hospitals about the benefits of engaging in social media?

Alex: It’s where your healthcare consumers are – and where they will only continue to be in increasing numbers. Start now, build your foundation – it’s only going to get bigger. The benefits are incredible – we see our employees proud to share our social media content, we see patients sharing positive experiences. It is incredible for word-of-mouth.

Janet: What “words of wisdom” would you offer?

Alex: Start small, define your goals very specifically, make a plan for ongoing content creation, identify some preliminary metrics and a process for measuring them, identify and train your team.

Janet: The issues some hospitals deal with daily are ones that our society is still not comfortable talking about openly – suicide, STDs, mental health, chronic conditions and more. Do you think social media is opening a dialog about these issues?

Alex: Yes, as I mentioned it is critical to have an expert voice in these conversations. They are happening whether we participate or not.

Janet: How do you deal with such provocative issues in social media?

Alex: Carefully and strategically. It’s a team approach among our Marketing team and the involved Public Affairs and Clinical teams.

Janet: Have you ever had to deal with a privacy issue online? “TMI” or “Oversharing”?

Alex: No. But we have dealt with patients who have reported negative experiences.

Thanks to Alex for answering these additional questions. You can hear more about her work in podcast number 5.

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