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Advancing your Social Media Strategy

Presented by Jamie Verkamp, Chief Speaking Officer and
Managing Partner of (e)Merge.

As a keynote speaker, breakout leader, facilitator, trainer and consultant, Jamie Verkamp's passion for people has helped her energize nearly 40,000 audience members and become a nationally recognized thought leader in the healthcare industry. Her background in marketing and consumer behavior pairs well with her career-long involvement in the healthcare industry. She is able to motivate and educate healthcare leaders to understand patients' behaviors, their decision making process, what they desire from their patient experience and what shapes their perceptions.

Ms. Verkamp's expertise has been featured in multiple industry publications including MGMA Connection, Medical Practice Digest and the Journal of the American Medical Association. Verkamp's  article for the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) Connection, titled "The Real Value of Social Media in Healthcare", was awarded the Edward B. Stevens Article of the Year by MGMA and the American College of Medical Practice Executives (ACMPE).

 

Don't miss this unique opportunity to learn how to put social media to work for your practice from a prominent healthcare social media expert and a dynamic speaker!

Sponsored by Quill.com
Co-hosted by HealthCents, Inc.

Video Transcription of Advancing your Social Media Strategy

Steve: Good afternoon, and welcome to Quill Healthcare's webinar, called "Growing Your Practice with Social Media." My name is Steve Selbst. I'm a Quill Healthcare consultant. And I would like to introduce my colleague, Ms. Regina Vasquez.

Between us, we have 30 years of healthcare consulting experience. In fact, now that another month has elapsed since we've last talked to you, it's now 30 years and a month. Our skill base is in payer contracts, analysis, negotiations, general healthcare consulting, credentialing, and marketing practices, services to payers and employer groups. Between us, we have actually negotiated about 10,000 contracts.

I am really pleased today to welcome you to Quill Healthcare's fourth monthly added-value webinar for practices. Quill Healthcare is the leading seller of medical supplies and office products and is dedicated to providing you with useful content in these webinars as a value-add to your practice.

Today's topic could not be a better topic for the time of year. I think it's a terrific time to take a look at how to grow your practice with social media and to take the opportunity during this time to consider a social media strategy going forward into year 2015. So that will be the focus today, is how to grow your practice through the use of social media, a very compelling topic for us all.

Our speaker, Ms. Jamie Verkamp, is the Chief Speaking Officer and Managing Partner of (e)Merge. And before I tell you a little bit more about Jamie, what I'd like to do is just cover a couple of quick administrative matters so that we can make this session an enjoyable session and an interactive exchange for those who are participating.

First of all, if you would like to ask a question, there are a number of different ways of doing so. You may send an email at any time, from any device, during this session to the email ID info@HealthCents.com, and my colleague, Ms. Regina Vasquez, will be gathering your questions. During pauses during this session . . . Jamie will be pausing at every 15 to 20 minute intervals, and during that time, we will take questions both through info@healthcents as well as live questions over the phone.

If you would like to participate in the question and answer sessions, what you may do is simply press *6 on your phone during the question and answer sessions, and when you're done asking your question and conversing with Jamie, then at that point press *6 again. That would then free up the line so that it will silence again and enable everybody to enjoy the session and get the most out of it.

If at any time you lose contact during this session, please simply type join.me/healthcents and that will restore your session.

I have seen a number of things flashing up I think about the phone number. Let me ask Regina, if you could please, just on the instant chat, remind people that if they haven't already, they need to dial in to 213-226-1066, Conference ID 371675999#.

Introducing our featured speaker, Ms. Jamie Verkamp

Now to our main event. First, what I would like to do is introduce our featured speaker, Ms. Jamie Verkamp, who you see up on your screen. As a keynote speaker, Ms. Verkamp is a leader, facilitator, trainer, and consultant, and has real passion for people and energizing audiences all over the world. She is a recognized thought leader in the healthcare industry.

Her background is in marketing and consumer behavior, and this pairs extremely well with her career-long involvement in the healthcare industry, since she is both a motivator and educator to healthcare leaders and really understands, most of all, patient behaviors and in turn the decision-making process that affects patients. So this is really going to serve us well when we get into the topic of how to leverage social media and how to really understand the processes that our patients go through.

As Managing Partner and Chief Speaking Officer — and I love that title, Jamie — of (e)Merge, Jamie works shoulder to shoulder with medical professionals in hospital and clinical settings and improves patient experience and has demonstrated measurable growth in her clients' customer service efforts, in referral volumes, and in bottom lines. As a sought-after speaker and trainer, Jamie is going to share her knowledge today, and shares her knowledge with audiences all over the world with more than 50 events per year, speaking on topics related to social media.

She was published in the "MGMA Connection" magazine, "Medical Practice Digest," the AMA, and in fact her 2010 article for the "MGMA Connection" magazine, titled "The Real Value of Social Media in Healthcare," was awarded the very prestigious Edward B. Stevens award that year by the MGMA and by the American College of Medical Practice Executives, the ACMPE. The healthcare industry and the computing industry, I think, have more acronyms than we can count on 10 hands.

Jamie is a very well-renowned speaker, she has a lot to share with us, and without further ado, it is absolutely my pleasure and honor to introduce Ms. Jamie Verkamp. Jamie?

Jamie: Steve, thank you so much. I appreciate it and it is certainly a privilege to be invited to join you today, Steve, and Regina, and I look forward to sharing with the audience that we have on the phone and online as well.

This is certainly a hot topic, we'll say. It's a hot topic across the board in all industries, but certainly social media and social networking in healthcare, really this past year to year-and-a-half has certainly hit mainstream. It's a buzzword, much like "patient experience" is also or "patient engagement." Both those two terms are buzzwords, and they're actually trending on Twitter.

It's interesting to see the conversations that take place and the notice that we are all now taking of these digital tools, of the online tools, of the social networking opportunities that are here, not only for us to connect with our patients from a marketing standpoint, because certainly we know that channels like Facebook and Twitter and YouTube allow us a great platform, from a marketing perspective, to reach out to our patients to share our message, to further educate them on what we can do for them in our services, but it also allows us an opportunity to create a better-informed, better-educated healthcare population.

Our patients are smarter. We know that patients are now turning to the Internet more and more for information. They're turning to Dr. Google. And so this allows a way to educate them as well. And it's certainly a way to engage them with our office 24/7 in their homes, in their cars, on a plane, you name it, where they live, where they breathe, where they take care of their families, really allowing us 24/7 engagement with them.

So before we get started, I know that we're all at different levels of involvement in social media. Some of you may be joining us today and saying, "Hey, for 2015, we're going to get started in social media. We're going to develop a strategy for our practice. Perhaps we don't even have a Facebook page or a YouTube channel or a Twitter account, but we're thinking about it." Or perhaps you've started one but didn't really get much traction, so in a sense, we're starting fresh. Others, you are certainly probably well-versed in your social strategies. You're moving right along.

And it's my goal today to really just speak to both sides of our audience, the folks who are looking to develop a strategy, who need to get started, but also talk to the folks who are more advanced and looking for new ways to engage people, better ways to continue to grow your practice volumes, to grow your word of mouth, your brand awareness, and also engage your patients as well. So we're really going to hit a lot of information.

I'm going to talk fast. I'm from the Midwest. I talk fast. But occasionally I'll throw a few y'alls in because we get to do that in Missouri. We can be a little Southern, but we can also talk fast too. So I'm going to talk fast if you agree to listen fast.

Question 1: Who at your practice uses social media?

But as we get started, quick question for you all. Who at your practice uses social media? Check what applies there right now, whether you're letter A through F there. Who's using social media?

Steve: And to assist, for those that would like to answer that question, please simply go to the URL that you see on the screen, healthcents.com/q1, all small letters, to answer that question now.

Jamie: I always like to see where our audience is at.

Steve: Once you go to that location, just healthcents.com/q1 in your browser, you can answer any of those choices. And in about 30 seconds, we will take a look at the result. Give it just a few moments.

Jamie: Great. Thanks, Steve.

Steve: All right, Jamie, we have some results in already.

Jamie: Excellent.

Steve: So this may be a good time to review those results, which we now have up on the screen.

Jamie: Perfect. Perfect. You know, I love to see "All the above," and it certainly, Steve, as we're getting the results in, the 42% say "All the above," and that's not surprising.

Even just several years ago, it was interesting, when I would stand up in front of an audience, whether it were physicians, whether it were hospital-based leaders or private practice-based leaders, it was interesting to see how many folks had not yet adopted social media. Even from a user perspective, an individual user, it was interesting to see who was using it. But then certainly from a practice perspective or from an organizational perspective, a lot of organizations in healthcare were slow to adopt.

There are a number of reasons why that's true, and we'll go over some of those in a few moments. We certainly have to be a little more careful than your retail shops and your food establishments and your dining establishments. But we are certainly growing. So that's great to see. I love to see that number and love to see everyone starting to get engaged.

The fastest-growing group of Facebook users are females, age 45 to 65, and that's just Facebook.

I kind of laugh and giggle, we're adding now almost six nieces, but I have nieces ranging from 17 years old to a mere 6-month-old to one on the way this spring. I always laugh because our 17-year-old, she really kind of keeps us abreast as to what's happening in social media and trends. I was talking over the Thanksgiving holiday and we were talking about how the fastest-growing population is now females age 45 to 65.

Hannah, my 17-year-old, she was kind of giggling. She says, "Well, you know, it's because all the teenagers are getting off Facebook because we know that you all are all on there now, creeping on us." It's no longer stalking, it's now apparently creeping, and we're all getting too involved in their lives and we know too much about them. So they're getting off of Facebook, and they're heading to other avenues to share their information. But I do think that's interesting, and we're seeing that across the board, that no longer is there really a demographic that fits in as a "social media user."

It's across the board. It's male, it's female. There are really no age differences. Certainly you have certain tools that attract a certain age population or a certain demographic. But by and large, a social media user really encompasses everyone and encompasses a youngest . . . we have a 5-year-old who even engages in social media. We know that there are opportunities now for even children to play socially online, and while that can be a scary thing, it can also be a good thing as well too. So it's certainly changed the way that we communicate and the way that we stay in touch.

Healthcare's Involvement in Social Media

So let's talk specifically about healthcare's involvement in social media, and you've had a few moments with this screen up and you can see some of these numbers, some of the things that we are seeing. This is most recent as of about 60 days ago, and I get this information from the Mayo Clinic's Center for Social Media.

For those of you who have not yet hopped over to the Mayo Clinic site, they have a wonderful hub. It's really a resource hub . . . for all things related to healthcare social media, both from the private practice perspective, also to the multi-specialty group to the hospital platform. Really a lot of great information, blogging, just a number of leaders in our organization talking about what they are doing, talking about the industry is seeing, what their organization is seeing, both in challenges and successes. So I encourage you to hop on there, put it in your browser, and it'll take you straight there and you can see that.

Facebook

A couple things I want to point out here. I think it's interesting that obviously we see Facebook is kind of numero uno in that number of participants, the number of hospitals and health systems who are participating in Facebook. That's not surprising.

I would encourage, for those of you who are getting started with your strategy or perhaps looking to reenergize your focus in 2015, start with Facebook. Facebook is really the point of entry for all social media users. It's again heavily skewed female, not as skewed female as some tools, but it is certainly heavily used by females. It's a great way to communicate.

What we are seeing, both from my consulting side of things but also just across the industry, is that Facebook continues to lead the way in being a great place for easy traction, if you will. I use the term "easy." Easy is relative. But to really see traction in your social media efforts, Facebook is a great way. You can share pictures, you can share articles, stories, videos, and we'll talk more about content here in a little bit. But it's a great place to start engaging with your patients.

And the patients are now being trained to look for their physician's Facebook page, their business page. Certainly we want to keep our physicians interacting with our patients via their practice page or their business page. But they're looking for us. They're looking for their doctors' offices online. Some check in, as we talk about Foursquare, or even check in on their Facebook pages, but to make comments, to get information. I would encourage you to start there if you're renewing your efforts.

Definitely put your main focus on Facebook. We don't want to put all of our eggs in one basket as it relates to anything marketing. But Facebook can be a place where you'll probably see some quick wins. You tend to see your fan base or your reach pool grow the fastest there, because certainly the challenge that exists are the "what to post" and then "are we having someone see what we're posting," right? What information is there for people? So Facebook can sometimes be a great way to get some good traction and a few good wins in. So start there.

YouTube

I would encourage you, as you are starting your presence or as you're looking to advance your strategy, look to YouTube. YouTube, number one, is owned by Google. It's the second largest search engine in the world. It's certainly very, very powerful. We know that video content is king across the board. Every day, more video content is consumed than any other content on the Internet. It's a great way for we, as healthcare providers, leaders, and is a great way for us to connect with our patients.

Not only that, with YouTube being owned by Google, video search is wonderful for helping boost your visibility online. YouTube is a great, great marketing tactic for your practice. What we see many times is if we have a practice site or a physician's website that perhaps is not optimized very well, search engine optimization, or SEO, the way that these search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, it's really the way that they find websites and the way that they pull websites up when someone puts in a keyword search term.

So if you're in orthopedic practice and perhaps you've got a patient who has knee pain in your area and they put in "knee pain Kansas City Missouri," you certainly want to pull up in that search. How your site's optimized will determine whether you're pulling up in that search. That's kind of a quick study of optimization and search engine optimization there, or SEO as it's sometimes shortened to. But YouTube can be very valuable in helping your practice pull up.

What we're actually seeing is, with the ability to tag your YouTube videos . . . So for example, let's say — again, we'll go back to orthopedics there  — you have a physician of yours who specializes in knee replacements, and they share a video about common knee pains and signs of issues in runners perhaps, and they talk about the different methods of injuries and then also healing and possible surgery options as well, too, and they tag that video "knee pain." What we will see, is if their site's not optimized, may very well happen that the video that this physician produced on knee pain may pull up higher than their own practice website or their personal website. So it's interesting.

I would encourage you to really look into YouTube, really if you're starting as well, too, but certainly if you're looking to advance your strategy. It's an excellent benefit as we look at the overall online and the Internet marketing tactics out there.

Foursquare

Foursquare. If you're okay, Steve, we can kind of hit Foursquare real quick and then we'll move on from there. Quick comment on Foursquare.

Foursquare is a geolocation app. It allows you to check in when you are at a certain location. It's an app that used to be tied to Facebook. It used to allow you to check in via Facebook, and you could become the mayor, the governor, the president of a certain location. So if you're checking in at your neighborhood Starbucks, what you're telling everyone is you have a caffeine addiction, right, as you get that president's badge.

But geolocation apps in general certainly have changed the way we communicate and the way that we share information. We need to be cognizant of it in healthcare, because not only are our patients checking in on Foursquare, but they're also checking in on Facebook. And with that check-in comes a number of comments, a number of posts. They really garner a lot of back and forth or banter online. It's interesting to see.

We certainly want to think about the patient experience and customer service, the condition of our house, if you will. We certainly don't want our patients checking into our facility while they're sitting in our exam room an hour-and-a-half behind their appointment time, taking a snapshot perhaps of an overflowing wastebasket. It would probably not be our best first impression for potential new patients. So keeping that in mind, the way that geolocation has certainly changed the way we communicate.

And with that, Steve, we can kind of roll into that next slide and advance there as we talk about the way we communicate.

What do our patients want?

Now we've got to think about what our patients want. It's great to build a strategy and it's great to think about engaging in social media, but we've got to understand what our patients want from us. I would encourage you, take some of this information, go back to your practice, go back to your organization, but also take some time to ask your patients as well. Get a feel, get a pulse for what's taking place within your community, within even your community of patients.

What we see nationwide is that a third of consumers are using social media specific for health-related content searches. They're not just going to Dr. Google. They're not just going to their Google browser and putting in symptoms or concerns. They're actually turning to social media channels, and they're looking for that information.

A lot of times they're looking for information on reviews of physicians. Perhaps they have maybe received a list of referrals from a primary care source or several names of physicians who their neighbors, their children's teachers or friends, parents and friends have recommended, and they're checking out to see whom they may connect with best, who may be the best choice to treat themselves, to treat their family members. They are doing their homework, and they're turning to social media to do so, both for health remedies and advice, scary as it may seem, but also for reviews, outcomes, the general patient experience. We've got to keep that in mind.

Social media is very searchable. You can now search Facebook, hashtags. If any of you have seen those, for those of you who say, "What the heck is a hashtag, Jamie," that is the pound sign on your phone in front of a series of words. Half the time I think they don't make sense. I think people sit around just making up different hashtags. It can sometimes be a fun activity when you're really bored, I suppose.

But hashtags are a great way to organize conversations. They're searchable. So for example, whether you have a Twitter account with 8,000 followers or perhaps you don't even know what Twitter is, I would encourage you to go to Twitter, put into the search box at the top — you don't even have to have an account to do this — but go to Twitter and put in the hashtag, so pound sign, hashtag, H, C as in cat, S as in Sam, M as in Mary, #HCSM. That stands for healthcare social media.

What that's going to do, it's going to pull up a huge feed, just like if you had searched Google. It's going to pull up a huge feed of lots of conversations that are taking place on Twitter, online right now. Physicians, we've got healthcare leaders, we've got consultants, we've got patients. You name it, we've got everyone represented in these conversations. It's a way to search. A lot of great information there for you.

You're going to see a lot of movers and shakers in our industry who are engaged in social media, great conversations taking place there. I would encourage you, if you take nothing else out of today, that you do check out that hashtag, because there's a plethora of research and information for you there as you're looking to advance your strategies, also even just really advance your knowledge even of social media and what's taking place in our industry.

The patients are going right there. We can now search social media. And the scary thing is, whether we do a direct search to social media or we perhaps go to Google, we're searching for health-related content. Conversations that are taking place on that hashtag, on the HCSM hashtag, are taking place, and physicians are talking about this, they are talking about how, with over 88% of patients now Googling before they call their doctor's office, before they go in to see their physicians, with that many people Googling, they're being directed to content that is not vetted. They're being directed to content that, frankly, any wackadoo, any nut right out there could post how to do open heart surgery on your living room floor. Certainly, we wouldn't want that.

But the general population doesn't always understand that Wikipedia is not the encyclopedia. It's user-generated content that may not be the best health information for them, for their families. It might not be health advice. So there's a number of conversations now taking place amongst physicians talking about how they have really a moral obligation to help direct their patients to vetted content, good content, from their colleagues, from their academies. Even create the content themselves, because the patients are there, looking for it.

Take into consideration this last point on this slide as we move forward here. Seventy-three percent welcome social media tools in their offices for their physicians' organizations, but they expect responses. They expect information to be posted. They want to have conversations with their providers. We can have those, safely, securely. We can have those in compliance with HIPAA and all that good stuff, and we'll talk about that here in a little bit.

Steve, we had another question right behind this slide, and I would love to see what our audience members have to say about this one.

Steve: Okay, terrific. What I will do is open up the line for questions. We will try again. Okay, there we go. Now for those that would like to ask a question at this time, please simply press *6 on your phone and fire away.

Woman 1: So how is it . . .

Woman 2: I'm curious . . .

Steve: Oh, great, it sounds like we have two folks. Go ahead, the person that just started to talk, go ask your question, and the next person right behind, go right ahead and ask Jamie a question.

Woman 1: Go ahead.

Pinterest Question

Woman 2: Okay, I'll jump in. You didn't say anything about Pinterest, and I know that gets high search rankings. What do you think about that?

Jamie: Great question. Yes, Pinterest is certainly something that you need to look at. We'll talk about it. I'll show a couple examples as we move into later of some how-tos, but definitely consider Pinterest. It's a heavily dominated female tool, and certainly in healthcare, we're looking to attract the female consumer because, frankly, we control the healthcare decisions of our families. We make over 90% of them, in fact. So, yeah, think about it . . .

Woman 2: So are you going to get in . . .

Jamie: I'm sorry?

Woman 2: Are you going to get into some specifics about the types of things you can post on Pinterest that would get attention?

Jamie: Yes, I sure will.

Woman 2: It's a little different than generally what you find on Pinterest.

Jamie: Yes, absolutely. And do you mind telling me what your practice or what your specialty is, and I can even perhaps pop in a few specific examples for you if you can give me that information.

Woman 2: Well, I'm consulting for a transcranial magnetic stimulation practice for a psychiatrist.

Jamie: Oh, wow, fantastic. Okay, that's a challenge. Let me see if I can come up with something good on that. But I like that. Yes, we'll talk about a few Pinterest examples as well too, and I'll see if I can think of something quick on the fly. Thank you for your question.

Woman 2: Thanks. Thank you.

Woman 1: Can I ask mine now?

Jamie: Go ahead.

Steve: You're up.

Responding to Social Media Questions and HIPAA Compliance

Woman 1: Well, I have a question now. On that bottom part where it says that they expect a response, and if they're using . . . because we work in a pediatric office. How are you supposed to be able to . . . like a lot of people are going to ask questions specific, HIPAA noncompliant. How do you address that?

Jamie: Sure. Sure, great question. I'll go ahead and touch on this, because again, the social media is a very broad topic, and we'll hit a few more HIPAA items as we move along, but I want to go ahead and address this in line since you brought it up. I'll kind of further expand upon the topic a little bit later.

Yes, so certainly you've got to keep in mind HIPAA. We can't give medical advice online either. We can't practice medicine online.

A quick note, I would encourage you all, I get a lot of my legal resources . . . I'm not an attorney, so I would first tell you to consult your legal counsel to get specific guidance on that. But I get a lot of great information from a healthcare attorney who's got a great blog. He's a friend of mine. His name is David Harlow, and his blog is Health Blawg, which is spelled B-L-A-W-G, HealthBlawg.com. He's got a great blog, and he talks about just a number of items as they relate specifically to healthcare social media. It could be a good resource for your legal counsel.

So on that point about responses, what you might say, especially in a pediatric practice site, we see this a lot. We have a lot of folks who, perhaps, little one is running a bit of a fever and they want to know when it's time to call the doctor's office. Or we just had this just this week because we've gotten strep notices like crazy from both of our kiddoes' classrooms. When is it time to call the doctor? Could the sore throat be strep? People are asking these questions on your social media sites.

What I would encourage you to do, have disclaimers posted that do say this site is not a place or a platform to seek specific medical advice. If you have specific questions, please call the office. Please call our office.

What I would do in that instance, if someone is, let's say, for example, they're posting on your Facebook page, "Jack has 101 fever, 102 fever, can I give him over-the-counter Tylenol, or do I need to bring him in to see you?" How I would encourage you to respond, because you certainly do want to, but in a way that would be probably more appropriate, might be to direct that mom or that dad or caregiver, you might want to say, "Thanks for your question. We appreciate your question. To give specific advice, we encourage you to call your physician's office."

Then you can even direct them to your phone number. Yeah, directing them back, it's always great to direct people offline.

Same thing with a negative response, if they were to post, let's say, maybe they had a negative experience, what I always encourage and what I always say is to respond to the comment. You might say, "Jamie, thanks so much for your feedback. We certainly appreciate any and all comments as we continue to serve our patients" or "as we continue to strive for the best service." Then call that patient offline, especially if you have their name and you can look up their phone numbers and their chart and all that good stuff.

Take the conversation offline. A lot of times they want to be acknowledged, but then we can take that conversation offline.

So any time you can do that would be great. Just don't ever dole out specific medical advice. Also, from a HIPAA perspective, be careful not to confirm nor deny a physician/patient relationship.

So a patient can make a comment. They can ask a question, perhaps, or they could maybe even share a positive comment. We've got to be careful there too, because we don't want to go online and say, "Oh, Jamie, thanks so much. It's always a pleasure to see you and your kids in the office, and good luck to you guys as you're moving this weekend." You make some kind of personal comment where you're confirming a physician/patient relationship. Careful with those.

I always say it's best to respond to the comment. "Jamie, thanks so much for your feedback. Glad to hear you had a good visit." Leave it a little more vague, a little more general, so that you're watching yourself, because a lot of it is in the way that we respond.

Again, consult your legal counsel on that. Different attorneys and different compliance officers have better ways of saying that, perhaps, or ways that they'd like you to say it. But that's kind of a general format or a template for you to think about.

Great question, thank you.

Woman 1: Awesome, thank you.

Steve: Any other questions at this time? Going once, going twice. On we go.

Question 2: Do your physicians actively contribute social media content about your practice?

Jamie: Perfect. All right, so it looks like we've got another quick poll here, Steve. I'd love to see further where we are as we're looking at the social media activities of the practices.

So our question two relates to your physicians, and if they are contributing to your social media content. We'd love to see where we're at in that, if we're going to have a conversation about how we get them better involved and what that really means. But there's a huge value in physicians, clinicians, even practitioners, nurses, our medical staff folks contributing to content. So I would love to see where we're at there, Steve. I'll let you take that away to give the folks the rights to do so.

Steve: Okay, you bet, Jamie. So once again, to participate in answering this question anonymously, please go to healthcents.com/q2, and you may do so either on a mobile device or on any type of computer. We will tabulate the results momentarily. So again, that is healthcents.com/q2, and it will take you to this binary yes/no question, and then we will look at the results in just a moment. Give you a few more seconds to answer, and we'll jump right over to the result.

Jamie: I'm looking forward to seeing this one. This is one that we're really starting to have some great conversations about, not only just, "Hey, do we have a social media strategy, but who is involved in it?" Oh, good. All right, great.

Steve: Yes, and we do have 19 responses, and here they are, Jamie.

Jamie: Perfect, perfect. So we're starting to get into a bit of a middle ground there. We've got 42% of folks saying that, yes, physicians are contributing to content, and 57% saying no, not at this time. Thank you all, for those of you that polled in, thank you very much. I love to see that yes category starting to grow.

From a marketing perspective, yes, we as marketers, we as practice administrators, as organizational leaders, we can certainly drive our social media strategy, and there's a lot of information that we have access to that our patients want to know, and a lot of content we can provide. But where we start seeing a great value, and what I'll even say, an advanced social media strategy, is when we start having conversations with our medical team. What are you hearing in the clinic? What are the questions that patients are having? What are those FAQs? Even to our call nurses who are on the phones, nurses, what are people calling in and asking, perhaps right now, for this specific time frame, and in our area of the country, and the weather we're experiencing and the seasonal items that we have to deal with, what are we being asked?

That can give us some great sources of content right there. It can tell us what resources our patients need. What information do they need? Perhaps maybe we're getting called in about using some of our online tools, like our patient portals or our direct messaging, those items. Perhaps we need to create some FAQ videos or some screen shots of how to do certain tools and certain tactics online as we're looking to adopt and bring in some of those new tools as well, too. So there is certainly a value to getting your physicians and getting your clinical staff on board.

If you haven't done so yet, I would encourage you. Go to them, talk about setting up perhaps even just a simple blog strategy, where once a month you focus on a specific topic, and one of your physicians or one of your clinical staff write a blog, a short article, two, three, four paragraphs, written in layman's terms. We need to write at about a fifth-grade level so that we really can capture all of our audience, because that is really about kind of the average reading level in the United States right now. We want to kind of water that down a bit, not to sound trite, but water that down a bit so that it really applies to our patients and they can understand it.

But a quick, simple blog on a specific topic can be a great way to be reaching out, educating our patient population, and giving us some great content to post online. Because the more content, the more relevant content that you post, the more you're going to see your engagement levels, your numbers of fans, followers, likers on your page, go up because you are consistently providing them information that's powerful to them.

So thanks for that question, Steve. I really appreciate it. Let's go ahead and roll on to our next slide.

We Win When We Give Them What They Want

Okay, so let's talk about it. Number one rule of marketing is always to give your audience what they want. If they want to hear something, if they need something, we want to be there for them. So what do we do with our social media strategy in healthcare? How do we win?

I've got essentially four principles that I recommend you look to build your strategy on. Or if you're already moving forward, think about using one or all four of these strategies to advance you to that next level, to move you into more engaging conversations, to grow your follower base, whatever your goals may be.

I'd encourage you to think about being a health resource. First and foremost, we talked about that, patients are hungry for this information. They are turning to the Internet to educate themselves.

And patients need their information after office hours. We talked about it on number three. Patients need that information 24/7. Perhaps when we're not open at 2:00 in the afternoon, maybe it's 2:00 in the morning when they need us.

So really, principle number one and principle number three go hand in hand. Being a health resource, and then ensuring that we've got information available to them when they may need us most. Not when it's most convenient for us, but when it's most convenient for them.

Our second principle, actually kind of our third there, as we're jumping around and combining number one and number two, but our second principle is really letting patients share their stories. Think about creating a platform or a community even, where your organization can help connect people , whether it's in real life or whether it's online, connecting those people, sharing stories, both about successes they've had with you as perhaps a provider of health services or even how they've found ways to cope and to deal with certain diseases and illnesses.

This principle is really built off of, Steve mentioned as he was doing his introduction of today's topic, he had mentioned an article I wrote in 2010 about the real value of social media in healthcare.

In that 2010 article for MGMA, I talked about a diabetes patient. The Mayo Clinic at the time had started an online forum and blog for diabetes patients. This particular patient, named Scott, he talks about in his journey and living with diabetes, how he found it very lonely. He found it very hard to connect with people. His family members didn't understand what he was going through, his coworkers didn't understand, and it was hard on a daily basis to get out of his routine, to go connect with other diabetes sufferers and other diabetes copers as well, too.

So he turned online, and he talked about how getting connected — he was not a Mayo Clinic patient at the time — but he talked about how getting connected through that online group meant so much to him and the care and management of his diabetes, of his disease. He talked about how it wasn't lonely anymore and how he was able to get tips from people and strategies for not only just coping but thriving through difficult times, especially the holidays. We know that's tough for a number of folks who live with diseases. So it was not only helpful to him, it turned out to be a valuable health resource as well.

So thinking about creating these opportunities for patients to share stories and perhaps even connect with each other can be a really, really powerful and winning component of your strategy. I know a pediatrics office asked a question a few moments ago. Think about even just connecting new moms and dads, even if you just have a new parent social, or a mom or dad's day out where you could connect folks. It's offline, but you can promote it offline, and you could perhaps tie that with your blog as well, too, where you're sharing the conversations that are taking place. When the folks meet offline, perhaps right there in your waiting room or in a coffee shop down the corner or around the hall from you, whatever it may be, those can all be powerful ways to connect and build communities. When we connect people, we win.

And number four, make it easy for patients to get in touch. Make sure that your patients know, one, that you're there, they can find you online. But two, make it easy. Have all the information that they may need right there at their fingertips. So when they do need you, again, they've got your information, they've got your resources, they can stay in touch. Many of us work in episodic care, so we don't need a doctor until we need a doctor, right?

We know that if we stay in touch with our patients, perhaps maybe they needed us two years ago for an injury and they suddenly need us again, or a family member needs us again, if we've stayed in touch with them, if we've created a connection, a bond, a relationship, we've stayed on top of mind, to use a marketing term, we may win that patient as a growth to our practice and may be able to provide them some valuable services down the road.

So those are those four principles. Let's break those down. Let's start with number one.

Principle 1: Be a health resource.

I want to share some specific examples of some organizations that are doing these things. I am a firm believer that, in social media, the best copycat wins, so to speak. Don't be afraid to go take a look at what some of the bigger organizations are doing, or even your competitors, or even your fellow pediatricians or orthopedists across the country.

Go take a look at what's out there. If you see a component of a strategy or some content that you'd like to share on your own site, you can certainly do so. Share that information. Copyright rules have certainly laxed a bit, if you will. They've relaxed in terms of the way we can share things, and it's very easy now online to give credit to the content source and to the authors and allows us to really seamlessly share that.

But we can also do some of the same things that the Mayo Clinics and the Cleveland Clinics of the world are doing. We can look to implement pieces of that as well, too.

So let's go look at a couple of these examples here. These are screen shots of some folks who are doing some things.

I want to point out the Cleveland Clinic, and certainly give them kudos for all that they do and their team. But they have a great YouTube library. Great health content via video, very well organized. I would encourage you all to think about, if you are a multi-specialty group or a hospital organization, think about organizing your social media content by department or by category or specialty. Makes it very easy for people to go in and find exactly what they're looking for. So take a look at their YouTube channel. Some great videos there, a lot of great information.

There are several other examples that I have here for you, the health resource. Taking a quick screen shot of Twitter. This is a shot of a specific physician, Dr. Robert Centor. He posts specifically himself as @medrants. He's a great physician to follow. I'd encourage, if you don't follow him, to do so. I've never met him personally, but I feel like I know him through the personality that he shares in his Twitter feed and in his content.

But what he does is he really provides a lot of information. It's not specifically about directly related to medicine, but it is. He talks about restaurants, rethinking menus. While sometimes we think is that directly related to our health, it is. It's about the food that we're intaking. It's about our lives. Health content that we provide shouldn't just simply be stuck to the cold, hard facts of medicine or healthcare. Think about the way your patients live. What are the topics that are important to them?

Pediatricians, certainly we're looking at moms and dads and how to care for the kids, right? But it may go beyond simply talking about the sniffles and the runny noses and the strep throat. Perhaps it talks about how to make the evening time easier, transition from work and school to dinners and homework and bed, talking about tips and strategies there. Making sure that moms and dads feel okay and don't feel like perhaps they have to do it all, all the time and be perfect. And talking about even the holiday cards.

There's a number of great conversations that can take place as we look at perhaps caregivers to an older patient population, helping and giving them resources and tips. But overall, leading their lives. What do our patients need from us? What can we help them with, simply just beyond direct medical content?

So some good food for thought there. Take a look at what Dr. Centor is doing online. He's doing some great stuff through his site there.

Another example of being a health resource, this is an organization here in Kansas City, Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics. They do a great job, especially with their Medical Mondays.

This is their YouTube channel, and what I love about this is they are getting their clinicians involved. They are getting their folks involved, getting them on camera for quick one-and-a-half, two-and-a-half, about three-minute videos, talking about just some general tips.

You see right here, "From Pools to Schools: Resetting Your Child's Sleep Schedule." Big topic, right? Something that we can help and interject certainly, at least from a health perspective, but with people's daily lives as well, too. So go check out some of the things that Children's Mercy is doing as well.

Continuing to roll here through a couple other examples. Duke Orthopedics, and this is a screen shot of their Facebook page. They do a great job of talking about injuries and accidents as they relate to professional sports players and helping people better understand that. You can see there, they're getting some great information just about torn meniscus. But they're doing it in a very easy way to engage patients, to get them interested in the content and be able to relate to it as well, too.

I think a lot of the challenge that we have in healthcare is that a lot of times the information that we have in our office, it's just not relatable, and we've got to find a way to do that. Some additional food for thought there for you, as you're looking at content, and right before we move on to letting patients share their stories.

You know all that great information, all of that, the paper information that you have in your offices, perhaps it's brochures, pamphlets, perhaps it's maybe your surgery pre-, post-op kits, packets, whatever you want to call it. Perhaps it's the information that you hand out to patients that has been photocopied, oh 1,800 times or so over the course of the last 25 years. Yeah, but you can't read half of it as well because somebody made a mistake 25, 30 copies ago, and now you've tried to recopy it again. Think about using all of that information.

Think about pulling out the good parts, the nuggets of that information and putting it online. Whether it's in a blog form, whether it's in a video blog form, whether you go out and you try to relate it to patients, the way Duke Orthopedics does, think about getting some of that information online, making it more interesting and easily accessible for patients.

If you're wondering what to post, and you say, "Jamie, I have no idea what to post, we run out of content around here so fast," turn to some of your written or your paper publications or sources or resources there in your office, and you'll find, I'm sure, a whole new frontier of information that you can share online.

Any questions? Steve, do you want to open it up real quick? I know we're kind of running at about 20 minutes after our last question. Should we open it up real quick for this resource topic, because I know this is certainly a big one. We can open this one up to see if we have any questions here on principle number one.

Steve: Yeah, perfect timing, Jamie. Again, to remind all of the participants, if you would like to ask a question, I will open up the line. And as soon as I do so, please simply press *6 on your phone to ask a question, or at any time you may send an email to info@HealthCents.com. So give me just a moment to make sure the line is open, and then press *6. Okay, step right up and please ask your questions.

Regina, while we're waiting for the group to participate . . .

Online Forums Question

Regina: Sorry, I had my phone on mute. Yes, there is one here, and it goes back to kind of what Jamie was talking about earlier in the first segment, and then pulling in the discussion about offering an online forum. Is there any risk for practices that they need to be aware of when they're facilitating an online forum, when patients are allowed to provide that content? And then what are some tips on mitigating that risk?

Jamie: Sure, so great comment, great follow-up to that. Certainly creating online forums and running those, you do have to be careful. Disclaimers are always big. You always want to make sure that everyone has the opt-in disclaimers to read and that this information is public content, public matter, posting it online, kind of ensuring that we all know it's that legal jargon that most of us don't read, but it is there.

So I'd encourage, if you are going to look to create something like this, certainly turn to your compliance department or your legal counsel, whomever you may have help you with that, and ensure you have the disclaimers there.

Also, too, as you look at a lot of these forums tend to be patient share and very rarely, actually, do you see in some of these forums a healthcare organization or a physician commenting or sharing information much beyond, perhaps, maybe some conversation starter or some direction to resources. Certainly a lot of these are patient-led.

Again, encouraging to ensure that as a healthcare organization and a provider, no one does hop in and provide someone specific medical advice. You do have to ensure that you're monitoring these, though. Regardless of if the information is being directed by patients and is being posted by patients, we do want to make sure that we don't have someone that goes online and says, "I'm having a heart attack and I need someone to come to my house. I need the ambulance."

We have seen those on hospital websites, in particular, on their Facebook pages, etc. So that is something that we have to watch out for and be aware of.

Again, it certainly, as you're looking to do some more of these advanced items online, you do want to bring in legal assistance for that to ensure that you are all covered. But a few of those items, really monitoring, doing your homework before you start them, getting your whole team involved, and then ensuring that you're not posting any kind of medical content will go a long way into helping you mitigate some of that risk. That's really for all activities online, in general, for all of them.

Steve: Okay. Jamie, I'm just flipping real quick back to the beginning here, just because I noticed a question or two come up about to remind about what the email ID was to send any questions real-time to, and it's right here. It's  info@HealthCents.com. So at any time, feel free as a participant to either ask your question by pressing *6 on your phone, or by simply sending an email to the email info@HealthCents.com.

Any other questions on the line at this time, please speak up and ask your question.

Monitoring Social Media

Regina: Jamie actually answered the next question, which was, "Do you recommend monitoring the patient content portals?"

Jamie: Perfect, yeah. I definitely recommend monitoring across the board, and Regina, I'll kind of hop in just to add a little bit of an addition to that comment.

Monitoring is key. If we're going to start social media, if you're going to put up a Facebook page, regardless of how active you're going to be, I recommend at minimum you post two to three times per week in terms of your content. Some folks and organizations post every day. Some post a couple times a day. But at minimum, two to three posts per week, certainly from a content perspective, but from a monitoring perspective, you do want to make sure that someone is monitoring these sites really 24/7.

Certainly we don't need to stay awake and be glued to our phones. We all do need sleep to function, but I would encourage you, whether as a leader, the administrator, the physician, whatever your role is and your responsibility, perhaps you have it connected to your email address that you check often and frequently or turn the notifications on, on even your mobile device. That can be a great way to ensure that you're monitoring these and we don't have any issues that arise that we say, "Oh gosh, that's been up there for a week and a half, and we weren't aware of it," right?

Also, too, I encourage another strategy that we use in some offices, perhaps that an administrator, that may be pulled in many directions or doesn't have the time to add this to their plate, use a social media-savvy staff member whose sole responsibility is to hop online for just five minutes in the morning, ensure that nothing happened overnight on the pages or the sites that need any attention, and then hop on five minutes before you wrap up at the end of the day and ensure that nothing came in during the day that may need attention and they can then flag the appropriate people. That can certainly be a great way to help stay on top of that.

I would also encourage, we're not talking a lot about online reputation management today. That's a whole nother hour and a half segment that we could go on. That's a big topic. But it does factor in monitoring also, too, the reputation of your organization and your physicians as well. We know that Healthgrades, UCompareHealth, all of those big sites can certainly play a really big factor into the way that our patients select us and we grow our patient volumes.

So set up a quick Google Alert. I love Google Alerts. It's a simple way to help monitor your online reputation. Also watch, too, for any perhaps negative comments or blog posts, anything that gets posted publicly online. It won't search private Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, etc., but it will search public ones.

Set up a Google Alert with your physician's name, also your practice name. You can do that on Google under the "More" category in business, and it will allow you to then put in your keyword that you want to watch and put your email address. You can choose daily, weekly, instant, I believe, a couple different options there for how often you want those alerts. But that can be a great way to just in general monitor the Internet for what's taking place about your brand, what conversations took place about your brand, and also your physicians as well, too.

Regina, thanks for the question.

Regina: Sure.

Steve: Before we move on, any other questions that you would like to ask live to Jamie? All right then, Jamie, on we go.

Jamie: Fantastic. So let's move right along to . . .

Regina: I'm sorry, I have one last question.

Jamie: Great.

Regina: It just came through. Is that okay?

Jamie: Sure, that's great.

Steve: Yes, Regina is moving in the spirit of Steve Jobs. Just one more thing.

Regina: One more thing.

Jamie: I like it.

Responding to Facebook Reviews Question

Regina: The question is this. "When we respond to Facebook, do you recommend we respond to all comments and reviews? Not sure if we need to say thank you to a review."

Jamie: Sure. Yes, that is a great question. Wonderful, because the reviews are something somewhat new now to Facebook. They've popped up within about the last 10 to 12 months, and now they're really being used.

I typically do not respond to all reviews on our Facebook business pages. That can get a little bit I feel like redundant and also can almost kind of hinder some of the reviews that you're being left.

Now certainly, if you see someone who, one, shares an excellent review, perhaps they share a very elaborate story that you didn't know anything about in your organization, or perhaps it's an opportunity to further share their story — we'll talk about that in principle number two — I would reach out to them. I'd get to hear more. I'd think about getting them on camera, perhaps, for me, become a brand advocate. Share their story in more avenues than simply just that review.

But then also, too, for negative ones, of course I would take that as an opportunity to certainly contact the patient offline, see what happened, learn from our mistakes if there is a learning opportunity for us, perform a service recovery, may also to keep a disgruntled patient from going to other sites, like a Rate My MDs, UCompareHealth, etc., even Yelp, where you cannot take down reviews or monitor reviews or edit comments, etc., where you don't get to necessarily hear who's saying it. It may save you from some reputation issues down the pike there.

So certainly monitor those. I wouldn't respond to every one. But if people are leaving comments within your feed, I would look at responding to those, even if it's just a simple, "Jamie, thanks for your kind words." "Jamie, thanks for sharing." Whatever it may be, it shows people that you're watching your page and that there's really truly a personality behind it.

That was good. I liked that question. That was really, really good. Thanks, Regina, I'm glad we stopped there. Thank you.

Steve: Excellent point about being responsive. Any other questions? Still opportunities here for questions.

All right then, let's tee them up. We'll continue on.

Principle 2: Let Patients Share Their Stories

Jamie: Fabulous. So principle number two, letting patients share their stories, we mentioned that just briefly with the question that Regina asked from one of our audience members.

Certainly maybe we have someone who's had a great experience. We had this just recently in a client's hospital organization, where the marketing department can somewhat be disconnected sometimes from the care teams and what's taking place in the various departments within the hospital, especially in a large setting, and this was true for this organization.

What they found was that sometimes they were hearing about great stories and great opportunities to further share the brand of the hospital but also certainly have some goodwill with patients in the community as well, too. So a patient had posted on their review site about a great experience that her son had had, the team that had taken care of him and had some of the life-saving services he'd received as a part of his care. So they later contacted this mother and the son, and they talked about what had happened and they agreed to share their story.

It's really become a great way for other patients to understand the great services that this organization is providing, the talented team that is there, and when it may be time to call a doctor, to take a child to an ED, to get involved and be active in their healthcare. It's been fun for the family. It's been fun for the organization as well, too, to share their story.

So I would encourage you. Don't be afraid. Reach out to, let's say, 10 to 12 of your most loyal fans, the patients that have been with you from the start or been with you from 10 years and they're always coming in and they're talking about how much they love your physicians and how much they love your staff. You notice that they're sending every single friend and family member they have to you when the opportunity arises.

Don't hesitate to reach out to them. Give them a call. Talk to them about their experiences and why they have been so loyal over the years and why they've trusted your doctors and your organization. Then ask them and see if they'd be willing to share. Get them on camera. People love video, and people connect very well to other people via video.

Point in case here, Women's Health Associates, it's an OB/GYN practice here in Kansas City, Missouri, a couple years ago we did a campaign just as that. We reached out to some of their most loyal patients, and we got some of them on camera, all through different walks of life and the different demographics that they served. What was interesting, you can see here from this really quick screen shot, was that we posted one of the videos that we had shot and had edited just barely and shared up. But very quickly it prompted several other patients to go and share their stories as well, too.

I think that's what's so neat, is that many times, when we start sharing one or two patients' stories, we have more come out, and they want to share theirs as well, too. Suddenly, from a reputation perspective, when we have new patients who are looking to find a physician that fits them, find a physician that's best in their area or has the best reputation, they suddenly see all this great information about us.

Maybe there might be a negative review or two out there, but all of this wonderful content, these positive stories that we do control and that we're sharing, they certainly shadow, and they kind of take that negative comment and really certainly make that a wash for the patient and they see our real personalities and they see the patients that are happy.

So I'd encourage you think about really working with your folks, your current patients, your loyal patients and getting a few of them on camera. It can be a great way to build rapport with other patients and to certainly garnish new volumes as well.

A couple other examples here of patients sharing their stories. This is from Children's Mercy. They encourage people to write in under a Share Your Stories tab on their Facebook page, and then they post these great podcasts and videos up right there on their website so that other families can see what Children's Mercy families have gone through and where they're at today to give hope, to give encouragement.

There's a number of excellent ways to do that. I think certainly in children's care and even in orthopedics and a number of specialties, but specifically I've seen some of those videos be very moving to see either children going from certainly a scare to having great care and being on the road to recovery and living full lives. Then some of the injuries or the prolonged items that orthopedists can take care of for our patients, and just seeing people going from no mobility to full mobility again, very powerful. So keep that in mind as you're looking to build your strategy and have people share their stories.

Steve, we've got a couple more examples there, if you'd like to kind of move to those as well, too. More about sharing stories. I'd encourage you to look to your own people as well. Are your staff members, are your physicians, your clinical teams, are they involved in medical missions, in philanthropic work in the communities? If so, use your social media as a great way to share those stories as well.

Share the stories of the organizations that you support, the people that you're supporting and that you're working hard to help lead better lives and to help them have better health across the world even. Great way to share that information and great way to get more attention to those causes, and it certainly goes a very long way in growing patient volumes, in growing our referral volumes.

We know that cause marketing works. When we give people a cause to join into or we tell them what we care about and what we're involved in, suddenly they care too. People care that we care, and they can be a great way to build relationships.

A couple more examples here for you of some sharing stories. The Ohio State University, the Wexner Clinic, I'd encourage you to go check out their social media sites. Quick example here, they started a smoking cessation program a number of years ago, and they talked about how using these shots, these images of patients who are going through the process and sharing their stories, how that was one of the most successful recruitment tools that they had for these programs. Talking about why Jim started smoking, why he decided to stop, where he was out on that road now.

People connected to those. People connect to stories. I always like to think everyone loves a good story. You go hear a motivational speaker, and all you remember are the stories, aren't you? Because they tell so many, because people love them. Same thing about a movie. We love a good story, and we can't wait to share when we've heard a great story on the movies, on the big screens. We can't wait to go and tell all of our friends.

You can do that same thing for your organization as well, too. Give people a great story to tell, they're likely to tell more people. They're likely to hear your word of mouth. They're likely to hear that more in your communities, and you're likely to see more patients as a result. So great example there, go take a peek at what Ohio State is doing.

Other items there, we talked about great stories and connecting people as well. We'll kind of pull this in. Hosting events, offline events. They run a Fit Ladies Challenge for runners, and they talk about a running group and events that they host. They do a number of those, that give women and patients in general an opportunity to connect so that they can really share their own stories. They can be that connector building community.

We see this time and time again working very well on social media. That same OB/GYN practice, Women's Health Associates, what they did was they were hosting a Fit Yoga pregnancy class, and they used their social media channels to promote that. Initially, we had a fair amount of turnout. It would be sporadic. One class one week may be more full than the others, but by and large they had okay attendance.

As we started to promote this via social media, we saw that attendance grow and become consistent, and we added another class. Suddenly it was a great way for these pregnant moms-to-be and moms happening again, having other children, connecting with each other. They were connected because of their physician's office or because of this practice. Some of these patients didn't even go to that physician or that organization, but they were going to the Fit Yoga classes and they got to see the environment of which this practice operated.

We saw folks change OBs for their next pregnancies because of their experiences through that Fit Yoga and connecting people. We win when we can connect people, and a lot of that revolves around stories and providing the opportunities to do so. So some food for thought there.

Principle 3: Make Information Readily Available

All right, let's talk about information being readily available. I'm going to kind of add these next couple principles in, and then we'll open it up for questions after I get through principle number four.

Information is always great. We need it. It always needs to be there, because we are now a 24/7 society. We want information quick. I may not need information at 2:00 in the afternoon, but I might need information at 2:00 in the morning. So we'll go through some examples here.

You see just this is a quick snapshot of a group that is doing some medical missions work, but they're sharing this information via social media so that if patients want to support their causes, support them in their journey, they can do so.

Ensuring that the patients understand how to get in touch with you is key as well. They know your office hours. We have a number of practices that will use social media to say what doctors are in or out that day, who's got walk-in clinics, who's got flu clinics, inclement weather announcements. All that information can be great because our people need it, and most of us are now getting our social media news and updates via phone.

Ask the Expert. Love this, it's a great way to ensure information is readily available to patients. I encourage you to hop online and check out the University of Maryland Medical Center's overall social media strategy. This is their Women's Health Division. But they are doing a number of great things that you could put into practice in your organization as well, too.

Ask the Experts are great because they're organized by topic. People can go in and they can read the questions. They can read the FAQs or the general advice that physicians and clinicians are giving. They can then inquire further if they need to. So I'd encourage you to think about an Ask the Expert column, whether it be on your social channels or even on your website as well, too.

But we've got to be there. The resources need to be there when our patients need us. Here you could see I mentioned examples about up-to-the-date information, daily letting people know what's available. Social media can be a great way to do so. Your phones go down? Use your Facebook page, use Twitter to let people know what's happening within your organization.

Disaster planning should also include social media. Social media, in a time of disaster, can be a great way to reach out to the masses, to the community, to let people know what happened.

After the Joplin tornado — Joplin's about two and a half hours south of Kansas City here in Missouri — after that tornado came though, everybody's cell phones were down, lines were down. It was hard to get in touch with anybody for several days.

So as the practice started to come back online, they reached out to people through Facebook. That was how they connected with patients to let them know when they would start seeing patients in a temporary facility, what to do about medical charts, etc., keeping them updated. They used social media. They didn't even have phone lines. They used social media primarily for months to connect with people. So keep that in mind as well, too.

Principle 4: Make It Easy for patients to Stay In Touch

I believe we have maybe a couple more examples here. Perfect, we'll roll on to principle number three [sic], making it easy for your patients to stay in touch, and this certainly does fall in line.

Staying in touch is important. We've got to ensure that we are top of mind with our patients, that they can reach out to us when they need us and when their friends, when their family, when their neighbors need us as well, too.

So think about using different avenues. We mentioned Pinterest earlier. Don't just put all of your eggs in just the Facebook category. Think about Twitter, it can be a great option for you. Think about Pinterest. Think about Instagram. We need to make sure that our patients are able to really keep a pulse with us and that they see us, that they see our information.

This is an example here of another physician, she's doing some great content generation, some great work on Twitter. I would encourage you to take a peek here at what Erin is talking about. She's got a great way to really make it easy for her patients to stay in touch with her.

A couple more examples as we roll through this principle here. We mentioned Pinterest. Here's an example of the Cleveland Clinic's site. I would encourage you to go take a peek at that. I would also encourage you to take a peek at the Children's Hospital of Los Angeles. Some great work being done there, specifically on Pinterest. Children's Hospital of Los Angeles.

Pinterest, you're right, is a little bit of a different bird or a different animal, so to speak, than Twitter. Pinterest is a great way for people to flag resources, information, recipes, tips, stores. You name it, it's a good way to kind of group all of the, I kind of say, reference later, almost even. I want to keep in my mind and I want to keep it all organized, but I might not have a chance to look at it right away. Pinterest can be a great way for you to stay in touch with your patient population.

Think about recipes. Think about anything, anything lifestyle is really very attractive and really used or pinned well on Pinterest. Right now, certainly with the holidays, we've seen a number of pediatric practices go in and talk about the elf on the shelf and ideas to do that. That's one of my personal favorites. Around our house, it's very popular. But that's one my personal favorites. Great, again, recipes and holiday party hosting tips and keeping kids healthy before the big day and you name it. All of that right there can be a really nice way for patients to stay in touch and remember you when they may need you.

Also even think about just an e-newsletter, a simple quarterly e-newsletter with health tips, information, upcoming things to think about for whatever quarter of health you may be headed into. It can be a great way to stay in touch and make it easy on your patients to get you when they need you.

Steve, with that, let's open it up before we go into challenges and legal considerations. Let's pop in and see if anybody has any questions off of those four principles.

Steve: Okay. Terrific. Simply press *6 on your phone line if you would like to ask a question. Any questions at this time?

LinkedIn Question

Russell: Yeah, this is Russell Bradley from Right at Home, home care provider. This isn't really directly related to the principles, but I was curious about LinkedIn, and I haven't heard too much about that. But what do you think about having company profiles, and what advantage does that really gain you with LinkedIn?

Jamie: Sure, Russell, I'll kind of mention just briefly, and you're right, I did omit that information, some for time constraints but also just in general. Here's kind of what we're seeing with LinkedIn. I myself, I love using LinkedIn. I encourage, if any of you would like to connect and stay connected, I'm there as Jamie Verkamp. I'm easy to find.

I think it has a number of benefits for us from a personal perspective, connecting with people in business and in our industry and certainly resources shared. I wish LinkedIn would have a little bit more of a robust offering for business. You can certainly create a profile for your organization or for your company. But as a business, there's not a lot of two-way connection and engagement taking place right now.

Since we are looking at it from a health perspective, really this topic and what we see a lot in healthcare is really B2C, business to consumer marketing and conversations. LinkedIn is just not quite there as a platform for that. We see more of these channels like Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube really being great for that engagement to the end consumer.

I would encourage you to definitely have one, a business profile, because it can be great for your search engines. LinkedIn pulls up very well in search.

Also, too, if you want to create a LinkedIn profile for your physicians or your clinicians or leaders, whomever that may be, certainly ensuring that's there can be a great way to help with their brand. You can direct folks then to a website. You can direct them to social media channels as well, too, for further connection. Certainly as leaders in the industry having them, too, are great.

But the business profiles, from a B2C standpoint, are just not quite as engaging as some of the other forms of social media. So thanks for your question. That was really good.

Russell: Yeah. I appreciate the answer, and that was the reason I asked it, because I knew that the two-way wasn't really that solid through LinkedIn. But I do appreciate your answer.

Jamie: Absolutely.

Steve: Jamie, this is Steve. In that regard, is it a fair or reasonable characterization that LinkedIn tends to be a little bit more of a, let's say a B2B social media tool as opposed to a B2C tool, like maybe Facebook would be?

Jamie: Yeah, great summation, Steve. You're absolutely right. Yeah, it is more B2B, and the B2C does tend to happen on some of those other sites.

Steve: Regina, I think you had a question.

Regina: I'm sorry, Steve, you cut out there a little bit.

Steve: I said I think you had a question to tee up here.

Regina: Yeah, kind of along those lines that you were talking about on B2B, as far as leveraging social media to possibly increase referral sources or things like that, LinkedIn might be a good pathway for that.

Jamie: Absolutely. Yeah, you're absolutely right. It's a great way to connect with some of those folks, whether it be leaders of businesses and other organizations that we need to reach out to, whether it be other physicians or hospital leaders, absolutely. Yeah, from a referral standpoint, it can be very powerful.

Regina: I don't have any additional questions on the email, Steve.

Steve: Okay. Let me poll the audience one more time. If you'd like to ask a question, please press *6 and jump right in. In that case, we'll continue on once more.

Challenges and Legal Considerations

Jamie: Great, thank you. So let's quickly touch on a few of these challenges and also some legal considerations. I know we've had a couple different points in the conversation where we've brought these up.

A couple things that I do want to point out. Growing the participant base. This can be something that we see folks struggle with. As they're growing the social media channels, as they are even moving forward and trying to advance their strategy, assuming we've got great content, we don't have anybody that sees it, right?

First off, I would encourage you, if you already have a social media presence, especially with Facebook, we'll go back to that for a moment. They have a great Insights tab. As an administrator, you can see the insights on your Facebook page. Go in and take a look at that. It's an analytical dream come true.

They're really doing some great things in terms of talking about the number of people that your messages reach, about the number of times your content is viewed. There's a lot of great insights there for you that can help you really drive some of your content that you're posting, but also help you grow that participant base so you better understand what your audience likes. What are they consuming? What are they engaging with us on?

I would encourage you, don't just pull a if-you-build-it-they-will-come, and think that if you put up all these social channels, by the end of the month, you're going to have 13,000 likes and followers and all kinds of good stuff, it's going to be great. You've got to let people know you're there. Think about updating the signage in your office. Think about updating your on-hold messaging.

I also encourage you heavily to get your staff involved. Let them know what you are doing online. Let them know why you are doing it. Have them friend you. Perhaps have some contest to have them get their friends and family members involved. But have some conversations with them about how they talk to the patients. "You know, Jamie, are you on social media? Do you use Facebook? Oh, you know what? We just sort of launched our Facebook page. If you went there, I bet you would really enjoy some of the content that Dr. Smith is posting. He's talking about a blog that he has, about keeping kids healthy and safe right before the holidays. And I think there's just some great stuff there for you. Go check it out, or hey, I can take you to it right now. We've got tablet or a kiosk here or a screen in the room."

Having those conversations and encouraging staff to do so can be a great way to grow that participant base. But they're not just going to come find us. We've got to let people know that they're there.

Also internal policy, quick topic on that. This is great. I'm looking at Danbury Hospital there. Steve, go ahead and roll through those examples. Cleveland Clinic and Danbury Hospital, they've got social media policies, both internal and external, posted on the Mayo Clinic's Center for Social Media site. Go take a look at some of these policies. Take them back to your compliance department, your legal counsel, see what you need to include in yours.

I'd encourage you to have an internal policy as well, because common sense does not run standard. Staff members can certainly cause you HIPAA violations and fines if they decide to go online and talk about patients and take pictures while they're at work. They have to leave work at work. It really is black and white. You as an organization can be fined for their actions online as well, too. So certainly understand that and keep that aware as well.

Content is another quick challenge that I will touch on. We talked about some of those sources of content, your old paperwork or your brochures laying around. There's a lot of information there. Turning to, again, turn to your clinical staff. Turn to your clinical team and ask them what they're hearing, because they can be a great source of content.

I would also encourage you, content-wise, patients love to see your doctors and even your staff living their lives. We've got a group of runners in one of my practices that we work with, and we post up when the physicians are going to be running and what races they're running. They post up their training tactics and tools.

We had one physician that was just insistent on, she had actually taken a picture of, she had lost a toenail, which those of you that run, you know that's not pretty. It's not pretty in general. But she had taken a picture of a lost toenail during a marathon training session, and she said, "I want to share this online. I want to share it online." We thought, "Oh, boy." So she was insistent, and we did. And you know what?

Patients loved it. Patients commented. They started sending in their own pictures. It was interesting. Maybe not what we all wanted to see, but from an engagement perspective, it drew in new participants, and it was one of the most heavily viewed posts they had that month on the social media channel.

So keep in mind that your patients want to see your physicians being real people. Are they helping out at church? Are they doing things for kids' schools? Are the kids involved in sports? Are they Boy Scouts leaders and troop leaders, etc., Girl Scouts, etc.? If they're willing to participate like that and share their stories outside the clinic, do so, because the patients love it, and that is going to get you high, high volumes in content.

Measuring Effectiveness

As we talk about that, let's talk about some success in measuring your effectiveness.

In general in marketing, the general rule really is any kind of place advertisement, give it three months. You've got to have some consistency in your postings, in your monitorings, in your activities, in your strategy. Get started before you just simply say two weeks in this isn't working and we scrap the whole process. Give it three months. Measure it. Look at those insights on your Facebook Insight page. That can be a great source for you to be able to get some data on return, on what people like to hear from you.

I like to look at the engagement quotient, and you can see that there. The engagement quotient really is, if you look at maybe just by channel or you go across to all of your social media channels, you look at the number of posts, likes, comments by your fans, all of the activities, divided by your total number of fans. That's going to give you a ratio there that you can look and you can start to monitor and see your progress.

I certainly encourage quality over quantity. I'd rather have a client have, let's say, maybe 500 fans but have a 40% engagement of those 500 fans than have a client have 1,800 fans but have a 3% engagement rate. People aren't seeing it. You can have a number of fans and a number of likes, but it doesn't mean that they're always seeing it. We need our people to see it, because when people are seeing things and when people are talking, that's when we can start to tie some ROI, some growth in our practice to our efforts.

Also to keep in mind, ask your patients where they're hearing about you. Update your intake forms. Have conversations in the clinic. Are you on social media? Are you using it? Did you see that post? By having your staff more engaged in the process, they can make comments. Like, "Did you see Dr. Smith's scary toenail from that training on there? Oh my gosh, we got so many people coming and commenting on that. Did you see that, too? I know you're a runner, right?" They can appoint people there and they can hear if people are seeing it as well, too. They can be great eyes and ears for us.

Survey your patients. Ask them. Even this quick SurveyMonkey emailed after an appointment of new patients, ask them how they heard about you, have they been to the Facebook page, or ask them about a specific contest perhaps you had or a campaign. Ask your patients. They're going to have a lot of information for you there.

Steve, I think we may have maybe one or two slides after this.

80/20 Rule!

We've got the 80/20 Rule, keeping in mind as again, you're looking to move forward, we're looking at measuring effectiveness, and we're looking what to post. Quick rule of thumb here. Eighty percent of your content should be educational. It should be about being a health resource, directing your patients to better content online, directing your patients to vetted content, providing them something of value.

Twenty percent should be that shameless self-promotion, I like to say. The advertising and marketing of 15 years ago, where we talked about ourselves, where our physicians went to school, and their training, and all that good stuff, that's great, sure. People want to know that. But people want you to educate them, and I would encourage you to think about that 80/20 rule.

Tips for Talking to Your Physicians

A couple more tidbits as we're wrapping up here. Getting your physicians, getting your clinicians involved. You'll see this here on your screen.

Make sure you've got a strategy. Go into them armed, saying here's what we're going to post, here's how frequently we're going to post, here's who's going to monitor this, here's how we're going to remain compliant.

Then ask your physicians what success out of this strategy means to them. What are their expectations? We can help them to manage those. We can help them to understand what they want out of it, and then we can help build our strategy around that.

Couple ways to get them involved in the process as well, too. I always think it's important to talk to our physicians about how they can be involved and how they may be expected to be involved, and their value of their involvement here.

Engaging Your Physicians

Steve, as you kind of roll into this next slide of getting them engaged, here's a few things they can do for us to help us out.

Blogs, video blogs. Coming up with a schedule. I like to look, whether it be we post a blog a week or we post a blog a month, but look a minimum of six blogs in advance and set up a schedule and assign each physician to their blog topic. Now they may have a ghostwriter. A nurse or a staff member or a consultant could possibly help them write this, but giving them a schedule and letting them know what's expected of them there.

I also like to go to them and say, "Hey guys, are we hearing anything in clinic that we need to be focusing on? Is there anything in the upcoming months that we need to ensure that we get FAQs out to our patients on, that we find articles on, perhaps that we get you in front of the camera talking about," planning in advance what they may be hearing in clinic.

I also like our physicians to go ahead and fill out a physician focus sheet, and that may be anything from kind of a bio sheet of where they went to school and what they like to do on the weekends to why they got in medicine, any kind of unusual or unique situations they've been in, philanthropic work. Get all of kind of that info about them. What do they like? What makes them tick? What do they have coming up in terms of events they may support, host, work with their kids on?

If you can get all that information down, that makes for great content, because then when you're looking at, gosh, I need something to post for my Facebook, my Twitter, my YouTube, you can go to that focus sheet, you can pull out a quick fact about Dr. Smith. Did you know that Dr. Smith and his daughter go da-ta-da-ta-da? Or Dr. Smith and her son are here doing this. You've got some quick tidbits you can pull out, and people love that.

Networking

Steve, we've got just a minute. I think it might be a great time as we're looking at the networking slide to begin to open up the lines for questions. But I'll leave you with this thought. I took this picture after an MGMA Alabama conference. Yes, they were having their conference in Florida. This is out at Pineapple Willy's on Panama City Beach.

But we had lunch, and I thought as we walked out, I saw this sign and I thought, how odd. We were eating lunch. We weren't networking. But then it hit me. Yes, we were. We were networking. We were getting to know their people, their menu, their view. We were experiencing them.

Your patients are networking with you when they're on your phones, when they're in your four walls. They are now networking with you online. Are we giving them something to share? Are we giving them the information that they want and that they need from us? Are we encouraging them to tell our story and share their story as well, too?

Keep that in mind as you're building your strategy and you're looking ahead. So with that, Steve, I will kind of wrap up, and we'll see if we have any final questions.

Steve: Okay, very good. We have time for maybe a quick question before we do a final wrap-up here. So anybody have a final question you would like to ask?

Okay, then I'd like to cover just a couple of quick items with you. First of all, on behalf of Quill Healthcare, we thank you for attending this webinar. And I am absolutely certain that we all walk away with a perspective today about how to put social media to work for our practices.

Towards that end, as a thank you for the participants, up on the screen is a copy of a discount on our healthcare supplies, $20 off when you spend $50 or more using that promo code, or $40 off when you spend $100 or more on healthcare supplies. This particular promotion can be invoked anytime up until January 4, 2015. You go to www.Quill.com/medicalsupplies to invoke the discounts.

Now, as far as obtaining copies of this chart deck, including the promotional offer, the easy way to do that is at any time following this presentation simply send an email to charts@healthcents.com, that's charts@healthcents.com, and you'll be immediately given instructions for how you instantly get a copy of this exact presentation. So it contains all of the slides that you've seen here today.

Also, if you would like to follow up with any further questions, please feel free to send info@HealthCents.com an email at any time, or reach out to us by phone at 1-800-497-4970. And you can also reach the Quill Healthcare direct line at 1-800-789-1186.

Last but not least, if you would please take a moment as you exit this call and simply go to healthcents.com/survey, I promise you it will take no more than two to three minutes. We value your answers greatly. It helps us not only to evaluate the effectiveness of our current session, but our future sessions as well.

And speaking of future sessions, I'd like to whet your appetite. We have one coming up after the New Year, on January 20, and it's a terrific follow-up to this discussion. It's all about a mystery patient, and the topic is about what patients observe in terms of customer service and how to optimize the patient experience.

So we will be putting information out to all of you who registered to attend that particular session, and we thank you for your participation. We wish you a very happy holiday season, and we look forward to having a very successful 2015.

And most of all, I want to thank our featured speaker, Jamie, who has done just a fabulous job here today of conveying the importance of social media to medical practices of all types. Jamie, thank you for being our featured speaker, and thank you for the outstanding job and information.

For all of you, I wish you a happy holiday season and a happy New Year. This concludes our last webinar for the year 2014. Thank you for attending and goodbye.