I spent some time this fall at meetings with professionals who promote hospitals and health institutions. I like to peek at what they’re doing with regard to their Twitter, Facebook and other feeds. It seems that if you work with a hospital or even a medical school, you have a couple of options regarding the way you connect with the public: Talk about your ... Continue Reading about Why Hospitals Fail to Connect with Their Audience
Passion: What Hospital Blogs Should Seek
At a meeting recently a communication professional asked what skill she should look for when recruiting doctors to write for her hospital’s blog. I didn’t hesitate. ‘Passion,’ I responded. Blogging over the long-term is a slog. You capture an idea, sketch it out, write, add links and tags, basic search optimization, post, promote and hope that it makes a small ... Continue Reading about Passion: What Hospital Blogs Should Seek
Pool Safety and the Rise of Empty Health Messaging
It’s June first. Cue up the pool safety blog posts. It’s a predictable part of every hospital’s editorial calendar and a rite of summer in the health infosphere. We want desperately to be timely and seasonal. But the end result is the same: Year after year, post after post, empty copy that fills space but falls flat. Content farming masquerading as stuff that ... Continue Reading about Pool Safety and the Rise of Empty Health Messaging
Institutional Metablogs
The Greenville Health System has launched a metablog that aggregates content from blogs within its system. A blog of blogs. Despite following a number of large medical institutions, this is something that I haven’t seen executed. It raises questions about strategy versus function with regard to information. As Google punishes replicated content – how does this ... Continue Reading about Institutional Metablogs
How to Recruit Doctors for a Strong Blogging Presence
So you’re a hospital or a medical school, you’ve got a new blog that’s getting traction. But you want more of your doctors on board. You’ve reached out by traditional means, but not a lot of uptake. So what do you do? Your timing is great since doctors are increasingly venturing out into public spaces to write, record, converse and curate. They’re curious. ... Continue Reading about How to Recruit Doctors for a Strong Blogging Presence
An Institution’s Responsibility to a Public Physician
We talk a lot about the responsibility of doctors to respect a certain standard when it comes to their public presence. I’ve suggested that we’re accountable to our communities, colleagues and our patients. Extreme views and rogue behavior have a way of reflecting badly on those around us. The question then becomes, what responsibility do institutions, colleagues ... Continue Reading about An Institution’s Responsibility to a Public Physician