Can Instagram Be an Insta-Great tool for Health Orgs?

Instagram. Instagramming. Insta-like. Regram. If you're familiar with the world of Instagram, a relatively newer social network, you'll know that Instagram is a great place to share photos and recently introduced, short video clips! With Instagram, Health Organization and Professionals can show a more creative and fun side to their establishment through posting and sharing of photos and videos! The more eye-catching site makes Instagram stand out from it's components such as Facebook and twitter. 

The purpose of Instagram is for users to share photos and videos via the media rich platform's mobile application showcasing a different side to user's lifestyle and experiences. Health Organizations and Professionals can surprisingly utilize Instagram effectly for their own uses. Instagram is a great tool to share photos of what the organization has been doing, giving a behind the scenes look at the staffing, and keeping things fun, but also professional when trying to attract new clientele. 

Instagram is a social media platform that allows users to share information via photos and videos. It is somewhat text based through photo & video "captions" but that is as far as it goes unless you decide to use other apps to share photos with text already in them. 

Health Organizations and professionals can create their very own profile by downloading the app to a smartphone. Once they've created a log in, they can easily begin sharing photos, updating their profile, ethically gaining followers and following others but it is not that simple. Wait. Yes it is, there are just a few things that must be considered before beginning the Instagram account. We will get to that in Cody's Corner: The Advice Column further down!

Cody's Corner

Tips & Tricks for Using Instagram Effectively

• What is the goal?
• Who is your target audience? What are you trying to establish by creating this Instagram account? 
• Create an eye catching profile -
• Make sure you that you have your company or organization logo as well as a description of the overall goal of the organization or mission statement. A link to your webpage or Facebook page will also be appropriate.
• Follow!
• Following organizations who are relative to you is a great way to get into the swing of things and also even build your follower base
• #Hashtags but don't #OverDoIt
• Hashtags are a great way for people to search keywords on topics they are looking for, especially health related information. Hash tagging your photos will allow them to show up in the searches for those key words! An example would be - if your organization is working on a brain cancer campaign, using the hashtag #braincancer will help others searching to discover your organization's campaing.
• Overusing hashtags however, can be annoying and tacky. This may show users that your health organization is only out to gain popularity (while this is true, they will view you as doing it unethically).. 
• Engage!
• Engage with people online. Like other health organization and professional's photos as way to show you're interested in what they are promoting or sharing. If someone comments on a photo or video, be sure to respond back to the comment! 
• Evaluate
• As always, monitor what people are responding to more and what they are not responding to. You can easily determine this by how many likes and comments the photos get! Find out what your followers want to see. If your focus is weight-loss, your followers are following you to see weight-loss tips and health recipes, not see photos about global warming. 

The World Health Organization is a great example of an organization utilizing Instagram effectively. They post regularly about projects they are working on including photos of the staff giving us a behind the scenes look. They do not clutter our feeds with non stop posts, but are steadily updating the profile. They have descriptive captions for each post and also use relative hashtags but do not over do it. 

The Instagram profile is the place where someone may stumble upon first. Having a decent looking profile with a photo of your company logo, some background information and a link to your website is a great start (even if it's a link to your organization's Facebook page). Sharing nicely taken photos with proper hashtags and informative captions is also key to success. Engaging with your followers and also following people back that are relative to your organization will increase the success of your health organization. 

As always, have a #happy and #healthy day! 
-Cody 

Hashtags, Health, Oh My!

Hashtags. Retweets. Mentions. Just a couple of keywords that are always used in the fascinating world of twitter! With roughly a billion users and over 320 million active users monthly, twitter is a great tool that can be utilized by Health Organizations and professionals looking to expand their organization or brand, and provide their target audiences with information specific to them and the company! Once you've learned the twitter lingo and gotten a few tips up your sleeve (which by the way is super easy), you'll be well on your way to fully implementing twitter as a part of your social media campaign. 

Twitter is a microblogging social media site that allows it's users to post status updates with a 160 character limit. Twitter allows users including health professionals and organizations follow one another, therefore people interested in you, will follow you! Twitter offers condensed communication through tweets but also allows for direct or private messaging among two users. 

Twitter moves at a very fast pace meaning that tweets are constantly being sent by users. Certain topics may trend or be discussed by many users at once on the site. When a user sees a tweet they find interesting or can relate to, they may retweet it which shares the tweet to their followers (GREAT because more people see the information) or they may favorite it (twitter's version of the Facebook "like") and they are able to access their list of favorites at anytime! 

Utilizing twitter for your health organization will allow you to share information quickly, concisely and connect with the people that you follow and people that follow you! As a health organization or professional, you can tweet out information regarding new health findings, studies, concepts relative to your target population or to your company. You can pretty much tweet anything.. (well we will become more specific in a second)! Several tips are listed below to help jump start your awesome, fun, and tweet-filled twitter experience!! 

Cody's Corner!

• Goals & Education

• You know the drill. Define your goals of utilizing and implementing twitter within your organization! Once that is determined, educate yourself and your staff on how twitter works (i.e. retweets, mentions, hashtags)
•  Goals include finding out your target audience! 
• Balance
• According to Social Times, since twitter moves at such a fast pace, you need to balance the amount of time you spend formulating a tweet (not that it's rocket science but you want to be clear) and actually tweeting things out.
• Character Limits
• Twitter limits you to 160 characters and there's even less if you have to mention people, use hashtags or include links so be concise!!
• Mentions
• Mentioning a user on twitter is like public communication, anyone who follows you can see it and the user you mentioned will be notified of the mention! It's a great way to include others when tweeting relative information
• Hashtags
• Twitter's version of keywords. Important. Important. #Important. Especially when you're just starting out tweeting, using hashtags will help you get discovered by others using that same hashtag or searching that hashtag! (but, make the hashtags relative)
• Links
• Often times, health organizations will need to include links in their tweets, however links can be excruciatingly long, often times consuming the character limit, use link shorteners like Google or Bit.ly to shorten URL links! 
•  Apps & Tweet Overload
• It can be annoying when a user mass tweets 10 things in a row to their followers. If you have several tweets you want to share with information, try utilizing an app that will queue your tweets for you and send them over a period of time. That way, your followers are not bombarded all at once by information! 
• HIPAA
• When discussing health information, it is crucial to be weary of sensitive information! It is illegal to discuss personal health information with users over the internet, including twitter and even if it's through private message. 
• If the information you want to tweet or direct message has to do with a user's health status, do not discuss it. 

American Medical Association

1. The American Medical Association twitter account is a great example of a health organization effectively using twitter. With over half of a million followers, the AMA focuses on sharing health information to a broad group of people. Their target audience is people in general because after looking at several of their tweets, they include political aspects and how they tie into the medical field as well as tweets toward medical students. You may just be a general health twitter account like that AMA and that is fine, but just make sure when tweeting you aren't showing any favoritism. The AMA tweets often too, but doesn't bombard their followers with a constant feed of status updates. They also include links in their tweets and their links have been shortened to provide more room for headline type information.
   
   As always, have a happy & healthy day!
   - Cody

Link Up with LinkedIn

 Link Up Your Health with LinkedIn

Viewed as the professional or business sibling of Facebook, LinkedIn is a great tool for health professionals and health organizations seeking to expand their companies. With currently over 300+ million users online, LinkedIn can supplements an organization by providing information across the professional network and "linking up" or connecting with other professionals and organizations across the world.The concept of linking up with people online has a different take with this social network. LinkedIn allows people who are searching for employment, contracts, internships, and the like there of to use their "links" to expose their expertise as well as get discovered by companies and organizations. 

LinkedIn for health professionals and health organizations is a great tool to use because it will allow you to expand your horizons of opportunities, but also allows for information to be passed on in a more professional manner. There are over 1.5 million health organizations and professionals using LinkedIn with many groups being endorsed by the MHA Degree Organization.


Health Organizations and professionals can employ this technology through a variety of ways. First and foremost, you 
 will need to begin and build your company page. This allows you to provide the organization's name, missions and other information. You will also need to begin sharing information about your products and/or services you are offering. Delegating overseers of certain areas of the technology is crucial to a successful outcome of LinkedIn. Success means flourishing new connections, ample opportunities and endorsements by larger or "big name" organizations as well as reaching out to the consumer/people you're targeting. As with any social network, it is extremely important to make sure the consumer feels that you as a health organization cares about their well-being. 

Cody's Corner

Tips for using LinkedIn Effectively

• Get everyone involved in your organization online with LinkedIn! 
• You organization will have increased visibility
• You can delegate ambassadors for your organization
• You can build trust amongst you and your members

• Connect
• Get to know fellow organizations that are in the same boat as you.
• Determine their goals and work together 
• Become connected with larger organizations that can take you under their wing and show you the ropes. 
•  Evaluate
• In this case you should monitor how well LinkedIn is working and what isn't working.
• Tracking where your consumers click and what type of information they respond most frequently too. 
• This will provide you with data on what to keep posting or what to retract from posting.

 

World Health Organization

 A perfect example of a health organization successfully utilizing LinkedIn is the World Health Organization or WHO. Scrolling through there profile, the first thing a user will notice is that they post regularly, mostly daily, and often a few days apart. However, their use of LinkedIn is not stagnant. Among clicking around the profile, LinkedIn shows the user how they are connected to the organization based on Links. This is where once again, linking up with people and organizations is very important! The Organization also has their other websites and social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Instagram linked in their about section. This makes it easy for users to simply click and go to a new social media page instead of having to use a search engine! People are all about convenience! 

As with many other social networks, there are positives and negatives to each. LinkedIn seems to have a grasp on successfully connecting people and organizations. LinkedIn also helps people find many opportunities and promote different products and ideas. Remaining knowledgeable about your goal, connecting and interacting with the LinkedIn community and evaluating what is and isn't working, you should find a prodigious amount of success for your organization when utilizing LinkedIn. 


Have a happy, and health day!
-Cody

Facing Health with Facebook!

The breadwinner, the most talked about, the very tip top of the echelon of social media. Facebook boasts itself as the social media site with the most users. 

One billion. 1 billion. 1,000,000,000. Is that the correct number of zeros?? Facebook has increasingly grown since it's debut in 2004 when it only had 1 million users. Fast forward to 2015, roughly eleven years later and Facebook now boasts a whopping 1 billion+ users! If there are one billion registered people on the site, would it not be a great idea to utilize Facebook as one of the many resources for your health organization?! 

Facebook continuously evolves welcoming new members and new features daily. If you are a regular user like me, you may have a personal Facebook account that you use to connect with old friends from high school, colleagues, family members and maybe your 85 year old grandma that lives in Alaska. I'm kidding... my grandma does not have Facebook, nor does she live in Alaska. However, it is a simple, easy and effective way for health organizations to communicate with large sums of people including teenagers, adults and the elderly (who by the way are more common than you think.) 43% of elderly adults, ages 65+ are utilizing the social media platform. 

Facebook offers users and potential users like health organizations the option to create a business page or commonly known as a fan page that allows normal users like myself, to "like" the page so I may view informational posts and interact with others on it. Creating a Facebook page for your organization will give you and your health organization a voice online allowing you to connect with people and create new customers!  According to a survey done by National Research Corp, approximately 40% of respondents said they rely on social media to find out health information with 93% of those turning directly to Facebook! 

There are several guidelines or tips that should be followed for a more successful experience with the technology as well as success for your health organization..

Cody's Corner

1. Goals - I cannot stress this enough. Before you even begin to think about creating the Facebook page. What is the health goal or the purpose of making this Facebook page and who are you targeting? Contemplate the goals, brainstorm them, write them down, print them out, laminate them, put them in a safe. 

2. The T.R.E.C. Method © (Copyright, Cody Norris, June 2015)

• Transparent - Be clear with the consumers you are trying to reach. Do not beat around the bush with the health information you are providing. An example would be to inform the people where you are donating your breast cancer fundraiser monies to and how much is going to be kept for the organization. Transparency is key and your consumers will thank you for your honesty. 
• Relatable - You could put the word relative in here but just make sure the information you share on your Facebook page relates to your organization, and is also relative to your target audience -- oh yeah, your target audience needs to be defined in your goals.. *stresses immensely at the fact that you may not have defined your goals yet* 
• Engage - Engage. Comment. Talk to the people who are interested in your organization! Show them that you value what they have to say, what they feel, what they want to know more about etc. At the end of the day, you didn't just create this Facebook page for you or your organization but you created it for the betterment of the people you are serving. 
• Credibility - Credible. Factual. Peer reviewed. Scholarly journal articles. Nothing is more dissatisfying than seeing an awesome, eye-catching article title shared on Facebook then noticing it's from a satirical news site of site of little to no credibility. 
• News sites are going to have biases. That's okay! Just try to incorporate a variety of view points and writers. (Unless your target audience is liberals, then I suggest not using or even thinking about Fox News; or CNN if your audience is predominantly conservatives.) 
• This is an example of a credible source of information regarding Facebook and well-being in young adults. 
• This is NOT an example of a credible source of information. 
• Usually, .org, .gov, and .edu sites are great repositories of credible information. 

3. Evaluation - So you need to assess your successes and failures! What is working? What isn't working? Are you posting too much? Are you not posting enough? Is there prominent engagement on your posts? Try being a little more concise in your posts and maybe ask questions that spark a conversation between your consumers! 

Local Businesses at "Work" with Facebook!

A remarkable and local business dubbed Rivertown Fitness Center is a prime example of an organization that focuses on the health and wellness of individuals in the conway community through the gym facility but also through daily Facebook updates. The owner, Shannon Sharpe, is on Facebook when not physically engaged with clientele, sharing the latest information regarding fat burning workouts, healthy summer recipes and other related fitness tips! I am currently a member here and have been for three years. I also did an internship at the facility last Fall for HPRO 201. The way RFC does business compared to corporation gyms like Planet Fitness is a completely different ballgame. RFC has been successful for over 15 years and still continues to grow! Their utilization of Facebook is not the main reason for their success, but is a complementary tool to their achievements! 

I hope you enjoyed this post, and remember, always define your goals first no matter what you are trying to complete! 

Have a happy, and healthy day!
- Cody 

Blogging for Health Organizations!

Social Media has evolved and expanded drastically over the years with many forms being utilized by people, companies and even health organizations. Social media allows people to connect with one another and distribute all sorts of information with the world.

Health professionals and health organizations can use Blogger to share information or posts about what they are currently doing in the community, introducing different ideas and volunteers and share information and findings through out their blog. Specifically, Blogger allows users to embed different types of media like photos and videos. If the organization recently assisted in relief efforts in a country and desired to blog about it, they could include photos of what they did to make the blog more appealing to readers. Blogger is an archive of posts so as something new is posted, the previous posts is put under the new one. Therefore readers can still access older posts if the user makes them available to read.

Blogging Tips:

*Define your goal(s):

·      What is the purpose?

·      What will you write about?

·      Who is the target audience?

- Not having a set goal or working towards accomplishing something, you may eventually fail.

*Being consistent:

·      Information is relative to the overall blog topic

·      Posts are shared in a relative similar time frame.

·      Once a week? Once a month? Once a day? – You decide and stick with it!

- If your blog is about providing water to a village in the Galapagos Islands, you should not be posting information about the new iPhone.

*Spell Check and Grammar:

·      Write well

·      Use spell check

·      Proper grammar is important

·      Proofread

­- If blog posts are unorganized, inconsistent, full of grammar and spelling errors, the credibility as a health organization/professional will decrease.

This website is a great resource to get you and your health organization jump-started on building a blog! http://goo.gl/OwSPLc

United States Department of Agriculture

The USDA is a great example of an organization utilizing blogging. They have successfully created a header with their organization logo, provided tabs to access different pages, a sidebar with different topics they’ve posted about as well as a body with the most recent postings. The USDA has even included links to their other social media sites. When building up a brand or company on social media, it is crucial to link every social media account with one another because not only does it increase traffic by allowing visitors to quickly click to your other sites, but it also keeps them from having to go back to a search engine to find more information about yourself or organization.

Take a look here to get a better understanding of the USDA’s blog!

http://goo.gl/tPCIes