Tag: blogging

10 Great Social Media Contributors Already at Your Hospital

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If you’re the only person who works on social media at your hospital, you’re not alone. You may not realize it, but there are great social media contributors roaming your hospital halls.

To keep your social media fresh and buzzing, it’s important that you find the contributors scattered throughout your health system. Though the people who will make good contributors varies from hospital to hospital, these 10 people are good place to start to find great content:

  1. Key service line marketers. Social media should highlight the warm and fuzzy side of your key service lines. For instance, if your hospital is known for great cancer care, you need to connect with the cancer service line marketer to find inspiring patient (and staff!) stories that humanize your care.
  2. Volunteer director. People love to see other people doing good things. Your volunteer director may know of volunteers with special stories or help you get pictures of volunteers in action. If your volunteers include pet therapy dogs, then you definitely need pictures of those volunteers.
  3.  Director of development/fundraising/your foundation. If you have a large fundraising event coming up, let people know. Stay close with the person in charge of fundraising to find ways to promote upcoming events or highlight donors.
  4. Community outreach coordinator. Your community outreach coordinator knows how your hospital is involved in the community. Try to get pictures from community events, promote the events and share tips from community education classes.
  5. Diabetes educator/dietitian. People love great advice about living well. Your diabetes educator or dietitian has a treasure trove of great advice and recipes you can turn into infographics, blogs and more.
  6. Athletic trainer/physical therapist. The other key aspect of living well is moving well. Ask your athletic trainers or physical therapists for exercise-related topics for your blog and Facebook posts, whether it is quick and easy exercise, stretches to relieve pain or tips on improving running technique.
  7. Director of nursing. Nurses work hard; give them some love! Your director of nursing can help you tell a nurse’s story every month, congratulate Daisy award winners or feature photos from department events. Your employees will love being recognized online and be more likely to follow you on social media.
  8. Doctors who volunteer. Many doctors are too busy to contribute to social media, but you can always ask if any of them are interested in helping out. If a few respond yes, work with them to come up with ways they can help you create content.
  9. Your chaplains/social workers. Your chaplains and social workers understand better than anyone the stress your patients are facing. They can help you write blogs about handling hospitalization and be on the lookout for inspiring stories. If you are a religious hospital, you may also want your chaplain to contribute prayers or Bible verses.
  10. Your medical school marketing department. If your hospital is partnered with a medical school, work with their marketing department to highlight students and residents in your facility.

After you get the help of the 10 people above, your job will be a lot easier! You’ll also find that your social media channels are more active and engaging.

Need help with social media training or content? Let me know!

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7 Ways to Reuse A Blog to Save Money and Time

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Many hospital marketing departments are short-staffed and overstretched, leaving you with little time to come up with all of the content that your website and social media channels need. Fortunately, one well-written blog post can do most of the work for you.

Save money (and time) by reusing your blog posts for these other content sources:

  • Tweets. Pull out sentences from your blog for a week’s worth of tweets.
  • Facebook posts. Share your blog on Facebook or separate it up into different factoids to supply multiple posts.
  • Press release. Is your blog topic newsy? Add some quotes from physicians (if they aren’t already there) and send it out to the media to see if you can pick up a health story on the six o’clock news.
  • Infographic. Shorten your blog up and get it to a great graphic designer to turn into an attractive and easy-to-read infographic. They are perfect for Pinterest.
  • Educational handout. Do your patients prefer handouts? Put your educational blog into a flyer template and have it in your offices for patients to pick up.
  • E-Newsletters. Fill your e-newsletter with content from your blog. You’ll find it is much easier to stick to your mailing schedule.
  • Editorials. In smaller communities, many newspaper editors love some input from local doctors and hospitals. If you have a timely blog, say one to do with a recent news story or a health observance that month, send it in as an editorial to your local newspaper.

Well-written blogs are extremely valuable to hospitals, powering both traditional and digital communications efforts. I’d love to help your hospital blog succeed. Contact me today to learn more about my blog writing services.

Write What Your Patients Want to Hear

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You do everything right with your blog; you update frequently, you quote doctors, you promote your blogs on every social media channel known to man, but still your traffic is slow. Before you pay for that boosted post, really take a look at your content. Are you writing what your patients want to hear or are you writing what you want to tell them?

Traditional marketing has all revolved around telling people what you want them to know (We have a new doctor! We’re holding an event!), but social media marketing and blogging demands that you create content that people are looking for.

You can find out what your patients might want to hear by doing some quick (and free!) research.

  1. Hop over to Google Analytics and check out which pages are most popular on your website. Write about these topics.
  2. Head to YouTube. Which of your videos are most popular? Which of your competitor’s videos are most popular? What about industry leaders? Make a list of topics related to these frequently searched subjects.
  3. Check your Facebook. What posts do the best?
  4. Ask your followers on social media. Why not crowdsource blog ideas? You’ll have a better understanding of what your followers want to hear about.
  5. Ask your healthcare providers what questions patients ask most often. Your doctors and advanced care providers know best what patients want to know and are confused about. Answer the frequently asked questions your doctors hear.

Also consider writing blogs that are tailored to the audiences of popular programs at your hospital. If you have an autism clinic, write a blog series about parenting children with autism. If you have a robust cancer program, write blogs with tips on how to handle chemotherapy side effects. Let your patients know these blogs are online to help them, and you’ll have an audience from your very own waiting rooms.

Running short on time to write blogs? Tag me in to help with your blog writing needs.

3 Essential Features of A Hospital Blog

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No hospital website should be without a blog anymore. A blog is the powerhouse behind all of your social media channels, e-mail marketing and website content. It improves your SEO and gives you another low-cost way to connect to patients and improve community health.

For maximum success, hospital blogs should have a few essential features, including:

  1. Graphics liven up your blog, making it colorful and inviting. They also increase the number of clicks you get when you share your blog on Facebook or Twitter. Every post should come with an image of some sort.
  2. Physician input. Use your blog to position your physicians as experts. Most (if not all) of your blog posts should either be written, ghostwritten or feature quotes from your physicians. Not only does this make your blog seem more trustworthy, it makes your physicians look like the pros they are.
  3. Call to action. Include ways for your patients to take action at the end of the blog. Invite them to make an appointment, take health surveys or quizzes or even just learn more about the blog topic or featured doctor. Always give them a way to become more familiar and involved with your hospital or practice.

Go for bonus points and add a comments section for people to ask further questions and interact with you. Use you blog to build a relationship with patients and future patients.

Have a blog, but no time to write? Drop me a line, and we can work together.