HMC News is a strong, growing network of healthcare communicators. Let’s take advantage of it. Do you have any burning questions about your role as a healthcare communicator? Please tweet any questions you might have—about social media policies, hospital exec staff, Twitter or Facebook—to @raganreporter. We’ll post your question here (and we can withhold your name, if you like) and help you find an answer.
Article comments:
Friday, July 30, 2010 11:47:26 AM by Charlie Powell
Let me just offer that I am the Senior PIO for Washington State University's College of Veterinary Medicine and the Public Information Director for the Washington State Veterinary Medical Association. Please feel free to ask me any questions that I may be able to help with especially if it concerns the ~70 percent of diseases than can pass from animals to humans. Our teaching hospital faces many of the same issues as human hospitals do.
In the blogosphere, the secret to publishing a successful blog is not necessarily what you know, but how many people know you, writes Copyblogger’s Dean Rieck. “In other words, success isn’t necessarily about competence,” he writes. “It’s often about likeability. People like to spend time with people they like. The same applies to blogs. Success often depends on likeability. How you come across. Your vibe. Your attitude and personality.” He offers seven tips for upping your popularity. —PR Daily
For 50 percent of the population, reading is a difficult task. A recent study from the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion said that people not only struggle to read websites, but also have difficulty retaining and managing new information when moving through a website. What can you do to help? These 5 steps will help you figure out a plan. Here is one: "Use short chunks of text and bulleted lists. This may seem obvious to the experienced Web writer, but according to this study, users skipped over any paragraph more than three sentences,” says Online it ALL Matters.
You may not think of clinical professional associations as being hip to Web 2.0. But here’s one that’s got a pulse on social media. The American College of Cardiology recently launched a private social network for its members. CardioSource.org gives cardiologists a place to “add content and start conversations with one another.” With a regular blog and an active presence on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, this is one group that’s jumped head first into social media. Do you know of other clinical societies that have made the leap? —Melissa Tizon
As our kids head back to school, what will we do with all of our “free” time? The Texas Health Moms blog is dedicated to the experience of being a mom and offers advice from their health experts at Texas Health hospitals. It shares real stories about motherhood and tackles issues, such as the death of a family pet (a chicken), a son going off to college, and tips on helping children deal with school bullies. —Holly Potter
PR pros love to debate which social media tools are fleeting trends—fads even—but there’s little talk about which trends never go out of style. PR pro and PR Daily contributor Susan Young applied her 25 years of experience in news media, PR, and communications to create this list of timeless trends in the world of public relations. —PR Daily
Do you want to learn how to use Facebook for your hospital? We’ve got the webinar just for you. We’re doing a re-broadcast of one of our most popular healthcare webinars. Ryan Squire, from OSU Healthcare, will also take all your new questions at the end of the re-broadcast and talk about the new changes with Facebook.
MyRagan-ites continue to discuss the importance of print publications at their organizations, along with strategies for print. Take a look and weigh in.
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