Think your company is too big, bureaucratic, and important to dabble in social media? That increased accessibility from customers poses too much of a risk to justify the potential rewards?
Think again.
The US government is using social media to improve operations and provide greater transparency. In fact, according to BizReport, 66% of US Government agencies are using social networking tools. Last year, Mark Drapeau (Director of Innovative Social Engagement at Microsoft U.S. Public Sector) started an ongoing column at Mashable talking about the federal government and social media. In outlining a theory of social media use for the federal government, he explained the ultimate goal should be to make it easier for agencies within the government to communicate.
This internal use of social media is exactly what your big, bureaucratic, and reactive business should consider as well.
We spend a lot of time talking about social media as a marketing, branding, and advertising tool but often don’t acknowledge the benefits of using social media platforms to improve internal operations. That’s because today, social media is hard enough sell when you’re talking about visible increases to the bottom line in the form of sales; its harder to specifically quantify the benefits to an organization thanks to internal social media tools.
Amy Mengel at Mengel Musings wrote about a recent event in Albany where the New York State Senate’s CIO office explained how it is using social media to “pull the state government out of the DOS-ages”. (Love that description!) They focused on external uses of social media, which are also very important in the public sector: transparency, participation, and collaboration. New York State, like the White House itself, is even using open-source software so, as Mengal said, citizens can access information about their government whatever way works best for them.
But consider the example highlighted in a Harvard Business Review article last week of using social media internally. In one example, a company used it to revise a classroom training program more efficiently and effectively. The article mentioned micoblogging specifically, but the tips it contained, and those generated by the comments, are useful in the adoption of any social media tool:
- Have specific goals,
- Lead by example (ie, get the top executives involved),
- Provide training.
Bottom line here: If the Department of Defense can handle social media, so can your business. So, get educated on what tools are available, develop a plan, and start small.
Twitter is cracking down on spam. (Check out the awesome graph in this ReadWriteWeb article!) Twitter reported a week ago that the percentage of spam tweets per day is currently 1% or less. That’s great news for anyone trying to search Twitter for information or marketing leads.
Facebook also announced stricter rules for its two-year-old advertising service. The company is now using a “part human, part automated” system of assessing its engagement ads. Viewers can now approve or disapprove of the ad and say why. The system will reject ads that use “arbitrary profile-based copy” or false incentives to attract clicks.
This has two effects:
For the business- Click through rates are going to drop. CPM’s for mid-sized companies trying to get some headway are going to obviously suffer- at least in the short term.
For the consumer- Good news. You’ll get less of those spammy “try viagra”, ”flatten those abs” ads targeted towards you because of age or gender.
Remember in the early days of SEO when companies gamed the Google search algorithims by stuff their site full of keywords, tags, and metatags? Google smartened up and changed their search algorithims. Facebook is now smartening up too after seeing their ad platform get abused by spammers. This time they’re letting technology and the users help redefine appropriate advertisements.
So, this makes me want to throw out three statements for general consumption:
- What will spammers target next- will it be FourSquare or Flickr?
- Since Facebook’s 400 million plus members have the ability to rate/assess advertisements, will Google try to do the same thing with Buzz or something similar?
- Will the newly empowered users of the social media universe be able to eradicate spam all together?!!
It’s still a great time to talk about healthcare and social media.
Just like every other industry, healthcare has changed dramatically in the last 15 years with the abundance of information available to patients beyond their physician. Docs might not like it, but patients are going to continue to come in with questions about something they read online. More importantly, they might be reluctant to ask doctors at all, instead relying on “experts” on the Web.
Doctors need to accept the fact that patients are going to the Web first for information on their health just like information on big purchases, entertainment, and so much else. They’ll start with Google and their network of friends and families. Then they’ll sift through the most effectively search-engine optimized sites for those they trust the most. The best way to combat misinformation from these resource is first to have an online presence and second to embrace in two-way conversation with patients.
The conversation is going to take place with or without you. A physician should adopt social media to communicate with patients more effectively and publish reliable information their patients can use in their independent online research. Right now in healthcare, the most widely used tool is email -A doctor or nurse can answer questions and dispense advice by replying to emails to give patients immediate, actionable information. But the future can be so much more efficient. Hospitals could have a team online, acting like customer service representatives and chatting with patients to determine when a child’s fever warrants more concern than a cool wash cloth and Tylenol. Imagine if 10 hours spent online with patients can avoid 20 hours in the doctor’s office?
There are lots of tips and tricks out there, but Dr. Bryan Vartadedian from the Better Health blog network has it right when he says “90% of social media is just showing up”:
“I took a lot of heat when I posted this quote on Twitter a few months back,” he said in a post last week. “But I think there’s something to it. Everyone wants to believe that social success comes from deep, ‘meaningful’ relationships. These descriptors are relative in the virtual world. Social media isn’t rocket science and simple visibility has real value when you’re starting out. Find socially active doctors. Be present. Be real. See how things evolve.”
