How Health Practitioners can use Social Media

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@ H U G H S T E P H E N S

H U G H S T E P H E N S . C O M

Social media and technology consultant, Work at @DialogueAus, #mccsm board member, #hcsmanz chatter. Big youth advocate

ITS NOT JUST FOR RESEARCH OR ADVOCACY

Don’t lie, don’t pry, don’t cheat,

Can’t delete, don’t steal ,don’t reveal

-- Mayo Clinic CSM

SO HOW CAN WE USE IT?

Professional development

Marketing / Public Heatlh

Patient relationshi

ps

RULE 1:KNOW WHEN TO TAKE IT OFFLINE

#HEALTHYCHAT

#HCSM

#AIDS2012

HOW CAN YOU START?

• GOOGLE YOURSELF

• Get twitter. It’s quite fun. You can lurk as long as you want.

• Join a professional healthcare community LinkedIn has heaps, find some forums, Sermo (specialised), Twitter hashtag, Blog…

• Do some research (formal/informal) to see where, how and why you’d like to use social media

• Interact with the public before your patients (risk lower!). •What information do they want to hear?•How can you encourage positive behaviours?•Where do they ‘hang out’?

• Remember to know when to take things offline