In this presentation we discuss social media definition, social media landscape, social media facts and statistics in 2013, professional use of social media, use of Social Media in research and strategies for putting social media in practice, and lastly challenges, guidelines & regulations. Prepared by Yazan Kherallah
3. Outline
• Social Media Definition
• Social Media Landscape
• Social Media Facts and Statistics: 2013
• Professional Use of Social Media
• Use of Social Media in Research
• Strategies for Putting Social Media in Practice
• Challenges, Guidelines & Regulations
4
4. What is Social Media?
“Media used for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable communication
techniques …
to turn communication into interactive dialogue.”
6
Princeton University Social Media Policies,
Princeton University Office of Communications
http://www.princeton.edu/communications/services/social-media/061611_Princeton_Social_Media_Policies.pdf
5. What is Social Media
Community Building
Message Amplification
Rapid Dissemination
Engagement..
10. Collaboration
Wikipedia – Prezi – Slideshare – Google-docs
connect people intellectually
share and evolve ideas
collaborative working tool
allows users to add and edit content
13. Blogging
WordPress – Tumblr – Blogger
online journal
regular, chronological updates
open for public comments
Enhance writing skills
Motivate users
Demonstrate content knowledge
Support
Reflection
Share information, ideas, and feelings
14.
15. 20
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables users to send and read
"tweets", which are text messages limited to 140 characters: What are people talking about?
Micro-blogging
Twitter
19. 26
look for a job, or hire
someone!
Networking
LinkedIn – Facebook – Google+
professional
occupations
endorse each
others
expertise
groups with
common interests
20. 27
• Over 2 Billion videos viewed per day
• YouTube Mobile 100 million views per day
• Over 72 hours of videos are uploaded per minute
• The base age demographic for YouTube is 18-54
Source: YouTube Statistics: 25 Jawdropping YouTube Facts, Figures & Statistics
http://www.reelseo.com/youtube-statistics/#ixzz1st3uFVMS
Video Sharing Platform
Channels- a curated list of videos posted by a specific
member/association/institution/journal
Patient education videos/animations
Video-sharing
Youtube
22. 29
"re-pin" images to
their own pinboards,
or "like" photos from
other pinboards
Image-sharing
Pinterest – Instagram – Picasa
pinboard-style photo-sharing
create and manage theme-
based image collections
Events
Interests
Hobbies
26. Doximity.com
Free for doctors on iPhone, Android and web.
Alumni groups.
33
Physicans Networking
Doximity – Yammer – Sermo
The Private Network for Physicians.
HIPAA-compliant.
27.
28. Physicians Networking
Sermo – Doximity – Yammer
improve global healthcare.
The largest online physician community
patient cases
discuss and debate topics
compete on clinical challenges
share their medical
expertise
37. Facebook: By The Numbers
50
Over 1B users, 552 M
daily active users
500M+ Likes per day
An average of 6.75
hours per month
An average Facebook user
has 229 friends
Embrace Disruption PR, January 2013
socialbakers, April 2013
38.
39.
40. Professional Use of Social Networking
Organizational, Physicians and Patients Perspectives
46. Major Associations on #HCSM
60
“the authentic voice for patients and healthcare professionals, building
relationships through the revolutionary power of social media.”
49. 63Diabetes Social Media Advocacy (DSMA) http://diabetessocmed.com/
Social Media for Chronic disease
• Awareness
• Support
• Education
50. Seeking Support on Facebook: A Content Analysis
of Breast Cancer Group
Bender JL, Jimenez-Marroquin MC, Jadad AR. Seeking support on facebook: a content analysis of breast cancer groups. J Med Internet Res. 2011;13:e16.
51. Seeking Support on Facebook: A Content Analysis
of Breast Cancer Group
277, 45%
236, 38%
61, 10%
46, 7%
Fundraising Awareness Promotion Support
Bender JL, Jimenez-Marroquin MC, Jadad AR. Seeking support on facebook: a content analysis of breast cancer groups. J Med Internet Res. 2011;13:e16.
Total of
1,090,397
members
957,289
members
620 breast cancer groups on Facebook
52. Potential Physician Use of Social Media
66
Establish, Manage and
Protect professional
reputation
Market practice and
recruit patients
Promote public
health & education
Learn and share
medical information
and knowledge
Connect with patients and
practice
Recruit research
subjects
Perform research
56. The patient-doctor relationship and online social networks:
results of a national survey
2.30%
3.90%
15.50%
1.20%
7.80%
35.50%
0.00%
5.00%
10.00%
15.00%
20.00%
25.00%
30.00%
35.00%
40.00%
Students Residents Practionners
Total of 3012 Response (16%)
Visitied Patient's Profile Received Friend Request from Patient
Bosslet GT et al. J Gen Intern Med. 2011 Oct;26(10):1168-74. doi: 10.1007/s11606-011-1761-2.
57. The patient-doctor relationship and online social networks:
results of a national survey
Bosslet GT et al. J Gen Intern Med. 2011 Oct;26(10):1168-74. doi: 10.1007/s11606-011-1761-2.
68.0%
48.7%
79.0%
0.0%
10.0%
20.0%
30.0%
40.0%
50.0%
60.0%
70.0%
80.0%
90.0%
Not ethically acceptable to interact with patients
Pessimistic about the potential for OSNs to improve patient-doctor communication
Concerns about maintaining patient confidentiality
58. Patient Medical Use of Social Media
73
Lifestyle and health maintenance support
Diet plans
Track exercise …
Caregiver social support groups
Caregivers for elderly,
family members with
chronic disease
Find support groups for chronic disease and other
health issues:
Awareness, support, education
Find health information - 80% of
internet users gather health
information online
Find a local doctor, read and write
reviews of doctors
http://vitals.com
http://healthgrades.com
Social media is the new
word-of-mouth
59.
60.
61. Peer-to-peer Healthcare
Fox, Suzannah. Peer-to-peer Healthcare. Pew Internet Survey Results.
http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/P2PHealthcare.aspx
23.0%
15.0%
CHRONIC DISEASES NO CHRONIC DISEASES
Percentage of Patients Finding Others with Similar
Problems Online
65. Sharing Health Data for Better Outcomes on
PatientsLikeMe
57.0%
37.0%
27.0%
25.0%
22.0%
12.0%
0.0%
10.0%
20.0%
30.0%
40.0%
50.0%
60.0%
Better
understanding of
side effects
Start Medication Change
Medication
Change Dosage Stop Medication Change Physician
1323 Response (19%)
Massagli M et al. Sharing health data for better outcomes on PatientsLikeMe. J Med Internet Res. 2010;12:e19
71. Use of Social Media in Research
Research Perspectives
72.
73.
74.
75. In this study, we demonstrate how actual data from Facebook conversations can be used to study
doctor-related humor. In addition to serving as an example, this study highlights some of the practical
considerations regarding the analysis of data from social networking sites.
76.
77. Detecting influenza epidemics using search engine
query data
Ginsberg J. et al. Nature. 2009 Feb 19;457(7232):1012-4. doi: 10.1038/nature07634.
78. Accelerated Clinical Discovery Using Self-reported Patient Data
Collected Online and a Patient-matching Algorithm.
Wicks P, et al. J. Nat Biotechnol. 2011;29:411–414.
Use of Lithium for ALS
80. Accelerated Clinical Discovery Using Self-reported Patient Data
Collected Online and a Patient-matching Algorithm.
Wicks P, et al. J. Nat Biotechnol. 2011;29:411–414.
81. Social Media at Work
Strategies for Putting Social Media in Practice
83. Business:
Manage online reputation
Increase patient load
Improve office efficiency
Connect with your patients
Education:
Patient engagement and health
awareness
Physician (health care workers)
engagement and education
Research:
Recruit patient or volunteers in
projects
Collaborate among centers in
research projects
Social:
Connect with friends and family
Reputation management
Have fun
2. Define Your Goals & Objectives
86. 4. Define your Social Media Connection Network
Integrate your social media efforts across all of your
marketing channels
87. 5. Establish Guidelines for Content Management
• Determine your message: Ask
yourself: what are you doing?
• Develop a content and
platform plan of action
• Define content and posts
• Determine time commitment
• Define your role
• Create policies, procedures
and best practices for social
media
93. •Don’t Lie
•Don’t Pry
•Don’t Cheat
•Can’t Delete
•Don’t Steal
•Don’t Reveal
• Don’t endorse as a matter of course.
• Supervisors: Don’t initiate an employee friend
request at your own behest.
• Separate your circle of friends from patients you
mend.
• Corporate logo in your username is a no go.
• Adding a disclaimer is probably saner.
• Don’t practice on the Internet, regardless of your
good intent.
• Always surmise that HIPAA applies.
• Speak on your behalf, not that of staff.
• Anonymity is really gimmicky
• If you chat about your company, identify
abundantly
111
A 12-Word Social Media Policy
Dr. Farris Timimi, Medical Director of the Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media
http://socialmedia.mayoclinic.org/2012/04/05/a-twelve-word-social-media-policy/
95. 10. Analyze & Define New Strategy
• Does your social media strategy
drive growth
• Are you able to achieve your set
goals
• Define needs for change
• Change social tool as needed
98. Privacy Settings Issues
119
Set privacy levels, if
you know how
Set some privacy,
usually open, allow
or block comments
Set privacy, lock
tweets for friends
only, block people
Put people in
circles, set privacy
within circles
99. Dealing with Patient Reviews
Monitor patient
comments about you
Respond to comments
in compassionate,
thoughtful way
Calmly and
thoughtfully suggest
alternative points of
view
Consider opinions --
not dismiss them as
irrelevant/incorrect
Avoid online
confrontation – let
administrator contact
patient to deal with
concerns
120Campbell, KR. Doctors: Social media strategies to manage our identity online. August 2012.
www.kevinmd.com/blog/2012/08/doctors-social-media-strategies-manage-identity-online.html
100. Legal and Regulatory RisksRead the fineprint
121David Harlow. Health Care Social Media – How to Engage Online Without Getting into Trouble
(Part I) Jan 2012. http://bit.ly/tIpWaX
HIPAA
Federal Trade Commission
National LaborRelations Board
Federal and State laws
101. Federation of State Medical Boards – Guidelines for Appropriate Use
of Social Media… (April 2012)
122Available at http://www.fsmb.org/pdf/pub-social-media-guidelines.pdf
Federation of State Medical Boards. Model policy guidelines for the appropriate use of social media and social
networking in medical practice. April 2012.
Privacy/confidentiality – HIPAA –
written authorization from patients
Disclosure – reveal any
conflicts of interest
Professionalism…
Content
HIPAA compliant sites like Doximity.com
103. Medical Board Sanctions
• State medical boards can discipline physicians for:
Use of the Internet for unprofessional behavior
Online misrepresentation of credentials
Online violations of patient confidentiality
Failure to reveal conflicts of interest online
Online derogatory remarks regarding a patient
Online depiction of intoxication
Discriminatory language or practices online
• Actions range from letter of reprimand to revocation of license
124
Federation of State Medical Boards. Model policy guidelines for the appropriate use of
social media and social networking in medical practice. April 2012.
104. In Summary….
It is becoming part of your life..know how to use it
True
HIPAA
Inspiring
Necessary
Kind
The notion of disruptive innovation was popularized by Clayton Christensen [1, 2], and is described as change, usually technological, that causes upheaval of an entire industry sector.
[1] Christensen, C. (1997). The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail. Boston, MA. Harvard Business School Press.[2] Christensen, C. (2012). Disruptive Innovation, in Soegaard, M. and Dam, R., eds. Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction. Aarhus, Denmark. The Interaction-Design.org Foundation. http://www.interaction-design.org/encyclopedia/disruptive_innovation.html.
How you feel about social media may be a factor of how old you are, according to Douglas Adams, the late author of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe. Special thanks to Alex Chessman for using this in his wonderful STFM PreDoc plenary in 2010.
Let’s start with some definitions of SM. The key words here are “user generated content” and Communication.
Before we go further, let’s quickly define what social media and social networks are.
This definition, used by permission, is contained in Princeton’s Social Media Policies, published by the Princeton University Office of Communications. The key here is social media’s purpose – interactive dialogue.
This image has become the iconic illustration of all the different types of social networking sites. There are thousands of sites that qualify as social networking sites. You will see this in almost all presentations that are introductory to social media and networking. We are not covering a tiny fraction of those.
Blogs and Wikis have been around a long time. As has the ability to have notices of content posting sent via RSS feed to either your Outlook or Gmail accounts. I have several blogs RSS fed to my Outlook, so I can look at them. You can also follow blog postings on your favorite sites using Twitter. …..I am so confused.
Microblogging – changing the world. The revolutions in the middle east have been fueled by citizens connected by Twitter. First responders at disasters resort to communicating via Twitter to overcome barriers of communications between agencies/jurisdictions.
Every morning, the news announcers tells me what is trending, and they are referring to Twitter feeds. What are people talking about?
I had no idea until compiling this workshop what people were saying in their Tweets, which looked like greek to me.
For docs interested in learning more about social media, be sure to check out #mdchat @MD_chat, the ‘tweetchat’ founded and principally moderated by @PhilBaumann. Tuesdays at 9 PM, ET
Online community for fans of a business, product, or celebrity
Provides a platform for comments, photos, videos, and other links.
The number of “likes” a page receives is the number of users who have added that page to their list of favorites.
“Check-ins” are the number of fans who have physically been present at the location of the business
Comments are any content that has been posted by a user onto the Facebook page.
“Shares” refer to any post that has been re-blogged from the Facebook page onto an individual’s own Facebook page.
The largest social media site was set up for individuals. For your clinic, you must have a personal account, then you create a page for your clinic. You don’t friend a Page, and generally, you open the page up to everyone. People can subscribe to the page, and Like the page. People can post messages to a page, and these can be set up to be moderated or not.
Image is linked to Linkedin.com.
This site is used mostly for professional resume sharing. If you are looking for a job, anticipate changing jobs, or hiring someone with real credentials to fill a job, this is the spot. Groups are starting to form with common interests and are creating discussions. People endorse each others expertise.
The reason they can’t find all the copyright violators themselves is because of the sheer number of videos posted on the site every hour.
YouTube Mobile alone gets over 100 million views per day. That is the app on my iPhone.
More than half the videos on YouTube have been rated or commented on by users.
The second largest social media site allows users to post videos. Viewers can rate and comment on those videos, the creation of curated lists of video clips called Channels. Educational institutions are posting videos to be used in classes. Copyright is out the window here. Youtube tries to purge copyrighted materials posted without permission, like the clip I am using a little later, but rely on users to alert them to these postings.
{Linked to Farris Timimi’s Pinterest page.}
The popularity of this relatively new site is growing exponentially. It may die out just as fast or find that the purpose, which was really at the start just to share media/pictures/videos, linked to content elsewhere, grouped by topic called “Boards”, has some use for educations, business, or healthcare. It is morphing as we speak into a content delivery as well as image delivery/sharing site.
MyPlate Recipes is a collaboration with Partnership for Healthier America, Let’s Move!, and USDA’s MyPlate.
Used for health and wellness, exercise and fitness, stress management.
Pinterest is best known TODAY for nutrition and fitness in the realm of consumer health.
The college has licensed Yammer to serve as our controlled access social media platform. This allows students and faculty to chat, post, create groups, just like Facebook or Twitter except that it is within the walls of the FSU CoM community only. You either have to have a CoM email account or be invited to join by someone with a CoM email. So clinical faculty can be added. We need to get anyone who wants to participate to give us their email account and we will invite them to join. If you remember, long ago, someone had to invite you to get a gmail account.
Doximity.com: site only for doctors, Article: http://www.imedicalapps.com/2012/06/doximity-physician-social-networ/
Ozmosis: site only for doctors, this one helps you connect to others in the industry. You can get answers and opinions from your peers, and share insights of your own.
DoctorsLounge: Hang out with other doctors online. An awesome resource, and an interesting place to hang out. Research symptoms, get additionally opinions and connect with doctors who share your specialty.
This data changes daily.
Twitter has over 500 billion users, tweeting over 340 million tweets per day. Also reported 288 billion active users. Stats are difficult to nail down because they change so rapidly.
YouTube has monthly users based on viewership.
We could easily do a full 2 hour workshop on Facebook alone. How to use it to set up groups for private communication, Subscribed sites with and without allowing posts and comments, managing privacy settings, etc. We are not going to be able to do that now. Facebook is constantly adding features. If anyone is really interested in that level of session, let us know.
The 50-64 age group is the fasting growing over the last two years.
Once you Like a journal, you are shown any posts on their site. These include articles as well as quiz of the day questions with images like EKGs and photos, microscopic …. On Twitter, you can follow any of your favorite journals to get news and announcements of articles. On Youtube, they have educational videos.
Mayo has not only embraced SM, they have become leaders nationally in the SM movement in healthcare.
Here is a video of a doctor who suffers from and treats patients with RA, who created a social networking web site for patients with RA. (show about 1 minute of this).
http://diabetessocmed.com/
Diabetes Social Media Advocacy (DSMA) is involved with and promotes social media in all its forms to empower people affected by diabetes and to connect them with each other to foster support and education. In the Beginning: The Online Community Through platforms such as facebook, YouTube, podcasts, blogs, and online communities such as Diabetesdaily, TuDiabetes and dLife, people participate in the informal network known as the Diabetes Online Community (DOC). The virtual community is one of the first and largest to champion social media for chronic disease awareness, support, and education.
It mostly boils down professionally to these five-six practical uses of social media.
We will talk about each of these, one at a time.
This is the new yellow pages.
Claim your listing. Start by searching Google Places by your telephone number and then claim your listing(s) if you haven’t already. All you need for this is a Google account (simply sign up for a free Gmail account if you don’t already have one). Delete any duplicate listings as this may harm your rankings and do not use the same phone number for multiple locations.
Complete your listing. Fill out your profile as completely as possible. Add a link to your website and a description of your practice. Be sure to use keywords that relate to your practice or specialty. Your Google Places page will show your profile completion rate. Make sure it reaches 100 percent to be most effective.
Manage reviews. Google used to allow you to respond to reviews but no longer does. Reviews are now required to show name of reviewer, who must have a Google+ account. Business owners are not allowed to respond to reviews.
Google Maps are now most people’s white pages. Phone books are becoming things of the past. This is the white pages business section. One of the most valuable, free resources to marketing any practice is Google Maps/Places. When the information on a business comes up, it is not there by accident. Businesses manage what comes up in Google Places. You can market and at the same time, manage reviews.
Though it’s important to optimize your listings on every review site with a description of your business and a link to your website, perhaps the most beneficial review source of all is Google Places.
Google Places (the section of Google search results that lists local business and a corresponding map) not only combines all your reviews in one place, but it also allows you to directly respond to those reviews from Google users and plays a major part in your organic search results.
Amanda Kanaan is a healthcare marketing author, speaker, and consultant. She blogs at WhiteCoat Designs and can be reached on Twitter @whitecoatdesign.
By participating in free review websites such as Healthgrades, Vitals, and even Yelp, you can help maximize your website rankings and ultimately the number of patients visiting your site.
Crowd-sourcing surveillance of disease/conditions/drug side effects. This site is for-profit. However, it is designed to collect and share outcomes data on specific treatment experiences from patients as well as help patients with conditions share their experiences with other patients.
Patients are very likely to share information about their hospital stay, medications, medical insurance company, and their doctors.
Here are some suggestions for using Facebook and Twitter for your practice or professionally.
San Francisco-based HealthTap (@HealthTap) has unveiled a major overhaul of its physician-patient social network with a new significant focus on mHealth. The update includes a suite of new apps for the iPhone, iPad, Android and the web.
Since its launch last year, HealthTap has raised $14 million from investors including Mayfield Fund, Mohr Davidow Ventures, Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors, Esther Dyson, and more. HealthTap was founded by Ron Gutman (@RonGutman), formerly the CEO of WellSphere, and curator of TEDx Silicon Valley.
HealthTap already offers its ePatient users access to a directory of 1 million physicians across the country, and has now launched a new Q&A service with 12,000 participating US-licensed physicians, which patients can use to securely send HIPAA compliant text messages to physicians with the option to include images, health records, and more.
The initial text costs $10 and each follow-up message costing $5/each after one freebie, which is certainly more than a typical SMS conversation, but also certainly less than an average office visit. Patients are also free of the hassles associated with office visits, such as wait-time, travel, etc.
Each of these 12,000 doctors has a built-in quality score associated with their name and profile the company bills as a sort of medical equivalent of a FICO Score, which incorporates both publicly available information and peer reviews from other doctors.
New features include:
■Up-to-date and personalized health information: Follow topics, doctors, and questions to stay current on the issues that matter most to you.
■ Transparent doctor-to-doctor ratings: View each physician’s “DocScore,” a FICO-like quality score for doctors that incorporates publicly available data and doctor-to-doctor peer review. Doctors also rank each other on expertise within specific topics.■Directory of over one million doctors: Use simple, everyday language to find the best doctors in the HealthTap network and in the world’s most comprehensive mobile doctor directory.
■In-person virtual appointments: Connect with doctors in person using in-app appointment requests, direct messaging and phone calls.
■Secure private digital health file: Have full control of your personal health records, available and transferable anytime, in a secure and private environment.
The new mobile application will also add new features to the HealthTap service, including:
■Private Health Conversations: Ask specific questions to the doctor of your choice in a HIPAA-secure environment from your iPhone, iPad, Android device, or PC
■Connect with a doctor of your choice instantaneously: See who’s “online now” and message them privately and securely
■Store and safely share rich health media: Share health records, photos, and documents with doctors securely and privately.
(a) The number of patients choosing to experiment with lithium carbonate peaked in the months after publication of a small clinical trial in Italy. Preliminary negative results from this patient-led study were announced before the first randomized control trial had started recruitment. (b) Aggregate view of FRS scores for all 348 patients analyzed in this study. These data were publicly available online during the study. (c) Illustration of disease progression curves of control individuals that are good and poor matches for a particular patient. Both control individuals would be considered comparable by traditional matching criteria. The PatientsLikeMe matching algorithm minimizes the area between the disease progression curves for a target patient and a control.
(a) Summary of pretreatment disease progression curves for 149 intent-to-treat patients matched by the PatientsLikeMe matching algorithm. Error bars are 1 s.e.m. in each direction. (b) Intent-to-treat analysis of 149 patients treated with lithium carbonate compared with controls fails to find any significant differences in progression (P > 0.05 at 12 months). Squares represent data from a previous trial7. Error bars are 1 s.e.m. in each direction. Dashed lines indicate the smallest detectable effect (α = 0.05, 80% power). (c) Full-course analysis of 78 patients treated with lithium carbonate compared with controls fails to find any significant differences in progression (P > 0.05 at 12 months). Dashed lines as in b.
Set your goal(s)
Having a deep online presence is literally the only means to manage your online reputation; the best defensive is a great offense; drive positive, accurate content to counteract the inevitable negative comments that will arise on sites such as HealthGrades, Vitals, and Yelp.
Set up a Google alert for your name.
This is one easy way to be on “patrol” for when your name or practice is mentioned on the web. Simply visit http://www.google.com/alerts.
The most meaningful reason to establish a presence is that patients can find you and perhaps learn a bit more about your perspective, approach and rapport with your patient base.
Second would be your ability to replicate the content that you share with forty or more patients every day in your office
Needs to tie in with overall marketing objectives.
Establish a set a clearly articulated guidelines, Communicate to staff.
Determine how much time you plan on committing to SM, How much time you want your office manager to commit?
A personal commitment of an hour or two a week is usually all that’s necessary.
Know your role(s) Who is going to monitor the various platforms? How will you “frame” your message?
You need to define your message, develop your message, and know how to articulate your message — and most important, you need to stay on message.
Establish a foundation Given the multitude of platforms and tools available today, your core presence can be a website, a blog, a Facebook Page, or a robust profile page on one of the many Q&A based sites appearing these days. Always give attention to your main website!
Consider adding a blog to your main site.
How does this work? Does a good friend of yours email you the latest article he has read on some topic of interest to him, which he assumes you are dying to read? If he was 20 years younger, he might just click on one of these. What do they do? Share on Facebook would add a notice on your page that you read an article. You too could appear to be the most up to date, hipster, geek by posting the latest breaking news to your Twitter or Facebook accounts.
The Share icon shown pulls up a menu of social media sites to pick to share your reading or visiting this page on.
The Mayo Center for SM director has a fun set of rules. Which he tricks you into thinking is only 12 words long from the title, and is in actuality much longer…. He says:
Don’t lie: a good rule in general, it is particularly important online, where nothing is transient and everything is searchable.
Don’t pry: Do not seek out personal health care data or potential protected health information as a part of a social platform conversation.
Don’t cheat: We’ve all heard the old proverb that “Cheaters never prosper,” but some harbor lingering doubts about whether it’s true. In social media, cutting corners is much more likely to be discovered and exposed, and when the truth is revealed it won’t be pretty. Everyone makes mistakes; confess yours immediately. Intentionally “gaming” the system, however, will not reflect well on you or your organization.
Can’t delete: this is an important rule: if it’s still in Google’s cache, you can’t put it in the trash. The most effective tool to address this is a strategic pause before you post. Count to 3 and think:
1- To whom are you posting/Who is your audience?
2-Is this post appropriate for all ages?
3-Does my post add value to the ongoing conversation?
Don’t steal, : Give credit where it’s due, and acknowledge those who inspired you or provided information you’re passing along. In Twitter it’s as simple as a retweet or a mention, while in a blog you can share link love.
Don’t reveal: And if information is proprietary or confidential, don’t disclose it in social platforms.
Set your goal(s)
Having a deep online presence is literally the only means to manage your online reputation; the best defensive is a great offense; drive positive, accurate content to counteract the inevitable negative comments that will arise on sites such as HealthGrades, Vitals, and Yelp.
Set up a Google alert for your name.
This is one easy way to be on “patrol” for when your name or practice is mentioned on the web. Simply visit http://www.google.com/alerts.
The most meaningful reason to establish a presence is that patients can find you and perhaps learn a bit more about your perspective, approach and rapport with your patient base.
Second would be your ability to replicate the content that you share with forty or more patients every day in your office
Needs to tie in with overall marketing objectives.
Establish a set a clearly articulated guidelines, Communicate to staff.
Determine how much time you plan on committing to SM, How much time you want your office manager to commit?
A personal commitment of an hour or two a week is usually all that’s necessary.
Know your role(s) Who is going to monitor the various platforms? How will you “frame” your message?
You need to define your message, develop your message, and know how to articulate your message — and most important, you need to stay on message.
Establish a foundation Given the multitude of platforms and tools available today, your core presence can be a website, a blog, a Facebook Page, or a robust profile page on one of the many Q&A based sites appearing these days. Always give attention to your main website!
Consider adding a blog to your main site.
Facebook comes under fire quite often for changing the way it handles its privacy settings without notifying users about the true impact of these changes. Facebook privacy settings are complicated by the fact that different privacy settings exist for every interaction on the site.
For example, want to share your status updates with everyone, but keep your personal contact information limited to just a few people? Want to enable third party apps to access certain information within your profile, but keep out those annoying Facebook game requests? Each of these set-ups is possible, but both require specific configurations of an already confusing system. Get help.
But while it’s important to understand the specific settings each social networking site provides in order to manage your private information, it’s also important to use common sense when sharing information on these sites. Remember to stay up-to-date on any changes to social networking privacy policies, as these revisions may result in previously classified information your profiles from becoming public.
1. Start with a professional website. The website should serve as the hub of all of your online activities. It should be professionally designed with your specific clientele in mind. The site should link to your other online activities such as your Twitter feed, your LinkedIn profile, your blog and your professional Facebook page. The website should highlight what you want your patients and potential customers to know about you. My website is a good example.
2. Respond to comments. If comments are left on a blog or on a MD review website, try to respond in a compassionate thoughtful way. Suggest alternative points of view and possible solutions in a respectful, calm and thoughtful manner. Always take other opinions into consideration and do not just dismiss them as incorrect or irrelevant. Your responses give you a chance to present another side of the story without confrontation. If you are dealing with a patient complaint, try to identify the patient and have your practice administrator contact them through the practice privately in order to deal with their concerns. Often, patients and customers who do complain want recognition and to know that they matter and that we care.
3. Remain diverse and don’t get stale. When developing and managing an online reputation, diversity is key. Don’t just focus on one outlet such as Twitter or Facebook. Search engines such as Google are constantly updating how they “hit” and by spreading your presence over several social media networking outlets and frequently updating your website and blog you increase your visibility. Make sure you have an active presence on several different types of sites. Frequent updates are critical to success.
4. Engage in online communities. Participation in websites that are “patient communities” is very important. Your involvement in patient led forums and groups keeps you grounded and allows you to better understand what is important to patients with a particular disorder or disease. For me, involvement and participation in the “ICD Users Group” has been a wonderful learning experience and has helped me improve the way I approach ICD patients in my practice. In addition, participation in professional online communities can help to boost your online reputation and increase your recognition as an expert.
With all of these motivating factors, why are health care providers reticent, and slow to adopt the use of social media tools? There are numerous legal and regulatory issues triggered by the use of social media and some health care providers are put off by the perception of the risk involved. However, there are legal and regulatory risks (and attendant market and business risks) to the decision to remain uninvolved.
If not managed appropriately, it is clear that these issues may lead to significant liabilities, ranging from civil and administrative fines, to negative publicity, to private lawsuits predicated on HIPAA or state law violations. (Even though HIPAA does not provide for third-party liability some state laws do, and creative lawsuits may seek to bootstrap private liability on a HIPAA violation as well.)
Professionalism
To use social media and social networking sites professionally, physicians should also strive to adhere to the following general suggestions:
• Use separate personal and professional social networking sites. For example, use a personal rather than professional e-mail address for logging on to social networking websites for personal use. Others who view a professional e-mail attached to an online profile may misinterpret the physician’s actions as representing the medical profession or a particular institution.
• Report any unprofessional behavior that is witnessed to supervisory and/or regulatory authorities.
• Always adhere to the same principles of professionalism online as they would offline.
• Cyber-bullying by a physician towards any individual is inappropriate and unprofessional.
• Refer, as appropriate, to an employer’s social media or social networking policy for direction on the proper use of social media and social networking in relation to their employment.
This came out April 15, 2013 in Annals of Internal Medicine
State medical boards have the authority to discipline physicians for unprofessional behavior relating to the inappropriate use of social networking media, such as:
Inappropriate communication with patients online
Use of the Internet for unprofessional behavior
Online misrepresentation of credentials
Online violations of patient confidentiality
Failure to reveal conflicts of interest online
Online derogatory remarks regarding a patient
Online depiction of intoxication
Discriminatory language or practices online