My ah-ha-moments from Social Media Day 2014

Monday marked the 5^th annual celebration of Social Media Day, a global event that brings together – live and in person – people who typically only interact online. It also gives everyone the opportunity to reflect on the impact social media has made in our world.

This year I had the pleasure of celebrating Social Media Day with the best and the brightest in San Diego. Looking back through my notes, I see a few ‘ah-ha moments’ worth sharing.

10 Ah-Ha-Moments from Social Media Day San Diego

1. Content is King, but engagement is Queen and she rules the house… Courtesy of Mari Smith.

2. Zach King told us… The Internet is a battle for people’s attention. So tell stories that capture, surprise, teach or entertain.

3. Work for yourself, but don’t work by yourself… This also came from Zach, who did admit to finding the quote on the wall of a Starbucks.

4. Leverage video on LinkedIn, it’s not done often (at the moment), but it’s powerful… Thanks Ron Nash.

5. Jenn Herman opened up the world of Instagram, telling us… use organic or native images, not image that look like ads.

6. The use of video came up again, with Jenn also suggesting we leverage video, this time on Instagram.

7. Martin Shervington closed the day with a talk on Google+. He certainly got a lot of people thinking differently about the platform when he said G+ is a social layer across all of Google’s products and services.

8. Podcasting is an intimate way to connect and build your audience. The panel shared some tips…

Find a small community of like-minded people and create a podcast support team, help each other be successful podcasters.
Be strategic; define how podcasting can benefit your business. If it can’t, don’t do it.
Create your avatar, that one perfect listener. Know your avatar and use it to guide your business decisions.

9. A common theme highlighted by several of the speakers… create a visual content strategy.

10. Be a fan of the platform you’re using, this makes you a better, more engaged user.

How did you celebrate Social Media Day? What were you ah-ha-moments? I’d love to hear what you learned and took back to ‘the office’.

To Friend or Not to Friend… Your Physician on Facebook

For better or worse, social media is part of today’s world and plays an important role in the way many of us communicate and share information. Look through a few Facebook statistics and you quickly realize the magnitude of social media communications in our daily lives.

Total number of Facebook users: 1.26 billion
Average time spent on Facebook per day: 20 billion minutes total
Total number of Facebook friend connections: 150 billion
Number of Facebook messages sent daily: 10 billion

Based on these stats, it’s easy to assume that sharing photos and life events with family and friends via Facebook is pretty commonplace. Does that same ‘comfort in sharing’ apply to the more personal areas of our lives, like our healthcare?

As a healthcare professional I’m always curious about the answer to that question, so I participated in research that asked 100 random US health consumers their thoughts on friending their personal physician on Facebook.

Health consumers were asked… Would you ‘friend’ your personal physician on Facebook? Feel free to tell us why or why not in the comment section.

27% ‘liked’ the idea of friending you physician on Facebook, while 73% gave it a thumbs down.

Interesting results when you think of the volume of personal information already being shared on Facebook. Yes and no responses aside, the real insights can be found in the comments. There were privacy concerns and big brother issues, input on other social media options and feedback from those who think friending their doc could be helpful.

Would you friend your physician on Facebook?
Health Consumer Comments…

Just don’t want to the chance of any personal info ending up on FB for all to see! Why chance it!

I have some health issues that I DO NOT want on Facebook.

Not comfortable using social media in my health dialogue, emails are ok but not public things like Facebook.

Sure, maybe I’ll get a little more attention.

I think friending your personal physician on Facebook would be beneficial for the purpose of building stronger relationship. In addition, you could also get information related to your medical situation from a good source especially if the physician likes to engage on social networks.

Good way to get more personalized attention.

Connecting on Facebook does not mean sharing personal data, it simply means connecting and hopefully improving communication.

Social communications are the future & I want to be ‘talking’ to my health circle!

Is my doctor even on Facebook? I can’t email the office for anything (phone only) so hard to believe he is on Facebook.

Perhaps but not sure I would want him to see everything I do.

Wonder what insurance implications might be?

Difficult question, will my insurance company see this? Will my doc use what he sees there against me?

I’d be worried my insurance company or employer would see my personal health info.

No but I would follow him on Twitter.

I’d rather friend him on G+. I like the platform and dialogue on G+ much better than FB.

What are your thoughts? Would you friend your physician on Facebook? Drop us a line and let us know how you feel about Facebook and social media use in health care.