For all their merits, healthcare organisations are not always known for their pioneering attitude towards new social media (or NSM, if you feel like there aren’t enough acronyms in your life). We can’t say we blame them. Healthcare is a vast and complex beast that doesn’t lend itself well to micro messages of 140 characters: gr8 news, xciting nu cancer research bt needs more data. Yep, doesn’t quite work.
Still, times are changing faster than you can say Quality, Improvement, Productivity and Prevention agenda, and healthcare organisations of all stripes are going to have to embrace new ways of communicating with their stakeholders if they want to stay ahead of the game.
Here are five handy tips to help you navigate this brave new world:
Use Twitter to trial a new idea or product before you invest significant resources in its development
Facebook and Twitter are not searchable on Google. Link them to a blog so that they get picked up in searches.
Stimulate the debate, don’t try to control it. Twitter followers can sniff out a corporate takeover a mile off.
Be open and responsive in the face of criticism. If one customer has a bad experience they could publicise it to 10, 100, 1000 people…
Tweet and re-tweet relevant news items, reports and events. These are the things that will drive followers to your site – not how amazing your new teapot is.
Good luck!
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