Tag: Facebook

Are Facebook, YouTube and Twitter Really Free?

Some Tweeters have taken issue with a slide I typically include in most of my presentations. It says:

Total cost for Mayo Clinic YouTube, Facebook and Twitter:

$0.00

They protest that it’s inaccurate, maybe even misleading to say “total cost” and that it should instead say “Barrier to Entry” or “Cost to Start.” “What about the staff needed to run these sites?” they ask.

I will grant that these platforms don’t automatically maintain themselves, but I’m not changing the wording or conceding the point. I believe that in the way most people would have understood the phrase for at least the last century, these tools are FREE.

And this little video explains why:

  • YouTube is a FREE television station that lets you broadcast to the world.
  • A Facebook “fan” page is (at least) a FREE multimedia “white pages” listing for your business.
  • Twitter is a FREE incoming/outgoing communication channel, like the toll-free phone service discussed above.

But unlike the fictional AT&T and Pitney Bowes examples I described in the video, these are 100 percent real, bona fide offers. They are better ways for your existing staff to communicate, with each other or with your customers or other key constituents.

So ask not how you’re going to afford to hire staff to use these tools. Ask how these powerful tools can make your staff more productive!

For answers, look in the advanced courses in the Facebook, Twitter and Blogging curriculum listings.

Rochester Area Quality Council Presentation

Here is the presentation I’m delivering this morning to the Rochester Area Quality Council, a local affiliate of the Minnesota Council for Quality.

Engaging Your Customers (and finding new ones) Through Social Media 

View more presentations from Lee Aase.

I look forward to a great discussion, as I understand the registration for the session (and therefore the interest in the topic) is strong. I will be tweeting about it using the #raqc hashtag. I invite you to follow the discussion there (although I’m not sure how much live-tweeting there will be), or share your comments and questions below.

My presentation is from 7:50 to 9 a.m. CDT, so your related tweets during that time would help to demonstrate the power of social media.

SMUG Extension: Applying Social Media in Election Administration

Below is the presentation I’m scheduled to deliver on Friday, May 29, at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, as part of the Innovations in Election Technology conference:

Web Tools for Election Administration 

View more presentations from Lee Aase.

Social Media Connections in Iowa

Yesterday was another of those days that seem to be getting more frequent, in which I met face-to-face someone with whom I had only interacted via social media.

I started the morning with a Tweet (which I also posted to my Facebook status via Tweetdeck), about my travel plans for the day:

lee-iowa-tweet

To my surprise, a few minutes later a comment showed up from Roy Kenagy, who works with the public library system in central Iowa:

roy-only

In fact, after a stop in Algona to interview one pair of patients, I was planning to be in Ankeny. So I replied via iPhone and he got me the address:

picture-5

Which led to us getting to meet for about 15 minutes just before 2, and so I took a picture of Roy and his colleagues (Roy is the one in the middle!)

roy-and-friends

Another demonstration of the power of social media, particularly Facebook, to make virtual connections real.

I was in Ankeny to meet Marlow and Frances Cowan, the delightful couple whose piano duet at Mayo Clinic has become a YouTube sensation:

cowan-still

You’ll be seeing more of the Cowans in coming days, at which time I’ll be posting some more video and telling the story of how their duet has gone from 1,000 views to more than 1.6 million in a little over a month.

Later last night I got to have a good conversation with some health system communicators in Davenport. I’m uploading those photos to the SMUG Facebook group.

All in all, I have to agree with this assessment from Matt Feyen:

picture-6

RAQ: Tips for Selling Hospital Leadership on Social Media?

This is another in the Recently Asked Questions series. I’m glad to answer these via email (and have answered directly in this case), but by de-identifying the person asking the question (to protect confidentiality) and also answering in public I hope to provide a resource for others who may have similar questions. More importantly, it opens the process so if other SMUGgles have tips to share, we all can learn from each other.

So here’s today’s question from “Pat” (not his or her real name):

Hi Lee — I am the Manager, E-Strategy, at ________. While admittedly late to the party, we are preparing to launch an official presence on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and LinkedIn. But first, I have the pleasant task of selling our CEO and other senior leaders on the concept and benefits of social media. Do you have any resources/advice about how best to gain leadership buy-in? I’m not anticipating that it’s going to be a tough sell, but if there are any proven methods/pitfalls to avoid, I’d love to learn.

Dear Pat:

My presentations last week (embedded here and here) offer some basic guidance. I’d invite you to check them out. In essence, start by using social media tools to improve the efficiency of what you’re already doing (e.g. shooting Flip video for news releases and posting that to your Facebook site and YouTube channel…or just using the video to record your interviews and thereby do a better job of writing your old-fashioned text-based news releases). Use low-cost or no-cost tools so the out-of-pocket cost is negligible. Then when you get success at almost no cost you can build on that to extend into further applications.

If word-of-mouth plays any role at all in patients’ decisions to use your facilities (and it surely does), then social media will be a powerful means of spreading that word. You will be able to tell stories and describe treatments and services in much more detail than you could through mainstream media. And if you are spending anything on paid advertising, you can pay for your social media programs by channeling a tiny fraction of that budget. 

At Mayo Clinic we have been able to use social media tools to help tell stories, which has led to significant news coverage in the mainstream media, such as this story in yesterday’s Des Moines Register. And sometimes, as in this story in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, we’ve had news stories about our social media efforts.

I’d also recommend you refer to Ed Bennett’s listing of other hospitals using social media to show your leadership that many others have begun using social media tools.

Finally, I wouldn’t exactly say you’re “late to the party.” I think there are something like 5,000 hospitals in the U.S., and Ed’s list has 250 using social media. You will still be on the earlier side of the adoption curve, and should be able to move relatively quickly since there are some examples of others to emulate and build upon. 

How about the rest of you? What advice could you offer “Pat” in selling social media to hospital leadership?