As healthcare providers, your social media presence should be 25 percent about you and 75 percent about your patients. Instead of posting constrained content that merely announces information to them, publish open-ended content that creates engagement and conversation among them.

According to a 2011 study conducted by the Pew Research Center, one in four Internet users living with a chronic illness has gone online to find other people with similar health needs. As a trusted source for healthcare information, you can use social media to reinforce that role by creating a channel for their connectivity. Your effort provides value and supports patients during their journey to wellness.

But what are these peer-to-peer connections about? In a word, “hope.” Patients are hoping to find answers, information, advice and empathy. They are hoping to find someone who truly “gets” what they are experiencing or has “been where they are” and made it through. Yes, they are hoping to find – hope.

Patients want to connect with you but they also want to connect with one another. Use your social media presence to facilitate their efforts. Are you helping them have the conversation? We hope so.

Your efforts will lead to connections, enable shared experiences and offer hope for better health outcomes.

Conversation Starter.

Try this:

• Decide to use your social media presence to connect your patients with one another.

• Pick a health issue and encourage conversation by relating the story of a survivor (i.e. cancer in remission) or promoting wellness visits (i.e. prostate exams).

• Invite your social media connections to relate their own first-person experiences via comments to your posts.

Questions, comments or discussion? Talk to me:

tim@gobigfishgo.com

For more information about Bigfish please visit:

http://www.gobigfishgo.com

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