Dermatology World July 2011 : Page 23
allow users to schedule tweets and updates ahead of time. As such, he said, “A physician or sta member can sit down and have a planning period to decide what the practice’s message is going to be, how it will be de-livered, and when it will happen.” In addition to scheduling updates, schedule man-agement tools also allow the physician or practice man-ager to act as moderator. Many practices share Twitter, Facebook, or other social media responsibilities between a number of physicians or o ce employees and worry about inappropriate postings. These utilities allow the physician to approve or reject any outgoing message through either a computer or smartphone with a single click. Dr. Benabio likens establishing a social media presence to community-building. “If you can have someone — yourself or someone in your o ce — dedicate time to regular posting on the top social networking sites, then it’s a great way to interact with patients. You can advertise deals or SOCIAL MEDIA: THE TOP TOOLS Facebook: The world’s top social networking site, founded in 2004. It boasts more than 600 million registered users and an estimated 2010 revenue of more than $2 billion. It allows users to create a public profile and interact with friends and colleagues. It also allows for the creation of business pages; Facebook users who choose to follow a business will receive all posts from that business in their news feed when they use the site. Twitter: A service that allows users to broadcast 140-character messages (called Tweets) to other users. Allows for participation in multiple con-versations with friends, colleagues, and interest-ed parties. Posts can be given hashtags (#dermatology, for example) and sorted by discussion subject. Outside services allow for shortened URLs, which can be used to track user traffic to posts and links. Tools like HootSuite or TweetDeck allow users to create messages and schedule them ahead of time, allowing users to create a content plan in an afternoon and automate it to disseminate for the upcoming week. LinkedIn: A social network built around profes-sional connections. Users upload their education, professional history, and skills and connect with colleagues, classmates, and professional ac-quaintances. Users can introduce like-minded connections and write recommendations for present or past colleagues. Blogging (Blogger, Wordpress, etc.): Blogging allows users to create an online publication tailored to their specifications. There is no limit to word count or number of posts, but blogs require a fair amount of time to set up and maintain. Deal-of-the-Day (Groupon, Living Social): These sites allow your practice a great deal of advertising and word of mouth by offering a one-day deal on a service or services of your choice. Aside from deciding on the deal and price, there is little work required by the businesses offered. The site keeps a percentage of each sale in exchange for the publicity and increased traffic. Businesses that make use of this model must be careful to ensure that they’re fully equipped to deal with a large group of new customers redeeming the discount voucher in a rapid time frame. Businesses that run into fulfillment issues often find themselves with far more headaches and complaints than new relationships with the public. Check-in Applications (FourSquare, Facebook Places, Google Places): These services, ac-cessed through a GPS-enabled smartphone, allow users to perform “check-ins” at registered businesses, noting the date and time of the user’s visit and keeping a record of each visitor’s check-ins. Businesses can keep track of their most frequent customers, and often offer incentives to the most frequent visitors. Physician-only Networking (Sermo, SocialMD): These social-networking sites function much like Facebook, but restrict membership to licensed physicians. The tone of the dialogue, as a result, is more professionally-focused, though there are no content restrictions. DERMATOLOGY WORLD // July 2011 23
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