As you probably know by now, we assist clients in developing strategic, sustainable social media campaigns that are meaningful to their target audiences. What you may not know is that before embarking on this project, we perform a full social media assessment because every company is different and not every social media platform is right for you.

To provide advice for effectively launching a social media campaign, we’ve invited John Lynn to discuss insight into his success with social media and the Healthcare Scene Blog Network.

John (or as many of you may know him on Twitter, @techguy) is a leading social media influencer in the healthcare space, managing 14 blogs and a Twitter account with nearly 4,000 followers.

Dodge: What made you decide to begin blogging about healthcare and ultimately launch the Healthcare Scene blog network?

Lynn: Initially I just started with one blog and was really just bored on a weekend. My day job was implementing an EMR in a health and counseling center along with providing top to bottom IT support. I did have the original goals of showing my knowledge of EMR for future jobs and getting to the top of Google for the search term EMR, but otherwise I was just playing around. I saw it as a great way to learn about EMR and to pass that knowledge forward.

A few years later, I heard about the EHR incentive money when it was just “money for EMR software.”  I wrote about it really early and thanks to those posts traffic to my site exploded. I then started posting to the website on average about once a day for the next couple years. Along the way I kept adding websites to the mix and eventually decided to brand the network of healthcare IT websites The Healthcare Scene Blog Network.

Dodge: The Healthcare Scene network, which now includes an impressive 14 blogs, pushes out an enormous amount of relevant, targeted content. What’s your secret for not only staying on top of the most relevant EHR/EMR news, but keeping it fresh?

Lynn: Luckily, I now have 7-10 writers helping me to create content on the network. It would be a real challenge to create content for 14 websites by myself. With that said, I still personally create between 10-15 posts per week.

I do think I’m blessed with some special gifts to be able to create so much content that’s usually fresh and relevant. Not the least of which is a good memory and an ability to connect different stories very quickly.

However, I also believe a number of other things really help me. First, is Twitter is a great resource to find stories when the well of ideas is dry. Do a search for a relevant keyword and you’re bound to find something interesting.  Second, I believe the best writers are the best readers. When I read stories throughout my week, I’ll often come up with a post I want to write. I store those post ideas as draft blog posts on my website. I probably have 200-300 draft ideas sitting there waiting for me to write the rest of the story. Third, I try not to constrain what I write. At the end of the day, I try to create something that provides value to the reader. Once I reach that bar I feel I’ve done my job with that post. Fourth, my domain expertise really helps when writing about EMR and EHR. If I hadn’t actually participated in the grind of multiple EHR implementations, it would be hard to write as much as I do. Fifth, I try to meet and surround myself with smart people at conferences, on social media, etc. I often take kernels of an idea from these smart people and turn it into a post.

Dodge: Adoption of social media by healthcare providers and vendors continues to grow. How do you envision social media evolving for these audiences going forward?

Lynn: My gut reaction is that healthcare providers and vendors will likely take very different approaches to social media. However, one thing every organization needs to understand is that one of social media’s strengths is connecting people. Behind every Twitter account is a person. Behind every visitor to your blog is a person. Behind every like on Facebook is a person. Behind every LinkedIn profile is a person.

For healthcare providers, I’d suggest that they test out the social media waters and see if they like it. While many are likely concerned about patient interactions on social media, they can still interact with other doctors, experts in the field and other people who can support their practice. Start where it’s comfortable and provides real value and expand your use of social media over time.

For vendors, it’s going to be increasingly important to have an online presence. My most important suggestion to vendors is to create an authentic voice. A number of vendors have asked me Healthcare Scene could do their social media for them. While there are certain aspects of social media you could outsource, I think you miss out on a lot of social media value if the company isn’t the main voice of the company. I think the better model is to have a social media expert help your company create a culture of social media use.

Both of these audiences will need to have some social media presence as more and more people look to social media as ways to understand and interact with businesses. You can learn a lot about a business through their social media presence.

Dodge: So, you’ve already grown from one blog to 14; what can your readers look forward to next?

Lynn: I don’t have any big expectations to keep growing the network larger and larger. I’m sure we’ll cautiously add blogs to the network if we can do so in a sustainable way. For example, we’re just launching a new EMR & EHR Asia blog. Instead, the plan is to focus our efforts on making the existing websites more and more useful to those who read them.

I’ve also started a related site called Influential Networks which in some ways is an extension of the Healthcare Scene network. Influential Networks embraces social media and the new world of integrated marketing in a way that’s never been done before in healthcare IT. It will be a lot of fun to see it evolve as new media continues to evolve.

In many ways, I’m still doing what I did when I started. I’m just having a good time doing something I love.

Blog. Blog. Blog. Blog. Blog. Haven’t quite wrapped your head around the importance of blogging and social media in healthcare technology? Yet to embrace these outlets as part of your marketing strategy? When others discuss the subject of blogs, does it come across more as the “Wah, wah, wah” Charlie Brown hears when grownups talk? 

These days, it’s misguided not to at least become knowledgeable about blogging and social media as it relates to your business. Blogging can have a measurable impact in both sales and visibility when integrated with the right public relations and marketing strategy, so understanding the benefits of creating a blog is Step One down the right path. Below, I’ve outlined 10 main reasons blogging is a crucial component to the marketing efforts of healthcare technology companies.

1. A blog is just a social media tool, but it is one of the easiest and most effective publishing tools for healthcare technology organizations to share information with customers and prospects. Why? First, because YOU control the content and messaging. Secondly, the cost of maintaining a blog is relatively low. And lastly, the blogging platforms available today make it incredibly easy to post content.
2. Your brand is what your people read and talk about online. If you’re not happy with what’s out there…or not out there…it’s time to look at blogs as a way of enhancing your online marketing strategy.
3. A blog can be the center of your content marketing strategy. It’s a hub of content for you to get out to the world through various outlets. If you’re only using Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn to share information, whose content are you promoting? With a blog of your own, you can create and publish the content where you’ll most efficiently see the results and gain the exposure.
4. Remember that it’s 2010. You can’t be taken seriously as an industry-leading organization if you’re only using the same marketing strategy from 1992. There’s a VERY good chance nowadays that your competitors are delving into social media and blogging, so if you’re without a sound and consistent blog, it’s harder to compete.
5. Search engines love blogs. For many B2B organizations, typical Web site content is rarely dynamic. With a blog, new content is added often, sometimes daily. And because you to create blog posts around important keywords and include additional inbound links to products and services pages on your Web site, it can serve as the core of your search engine optimization strategy.
6. A blog is a great way to differentiate your organization from the rest of the static corporate Web sites. By consistently posting interesting, informative information, organizations will encourage prospects to regularly visit the blog in search of fresh content.
7. Blogging represents a true commitment and passion to your industry. By offering insight on trends and interviews with industry thought leaders, blog content can help healthcare IT companies prove to customers they’re an integral and involved industry player. Presenting this type of compelling content – rather than simply pushing product information – is an effective way to prove that you truly understand your customers’ unique business challenges.
8. If you don’t have anything interesting to say, why would anyone have a reason to talk about you or your company? Every company has a story and a problem that their product or service solves, whatever it may be. A blog is a good vehicle for getting that story out there.
9. Repackaging of blog posts can nourish articles, email blasts, direct mail, white papers, speaking proposals, marketing sheets, and just about all other educational content you’ll need for your marketing, and vice versa. A company isn’t always tasked with creating completely original content, but instead can integrate their blog with other marketing efforts to do more with less.
10. Over time, there are cumulative results from blogging that can be gained. Each blog post continuously adds value to your site as a whole. Blog posts from months or years ago are still found in search results and read, adding traffic and building upon the collection of industry thought leadership your organization represents.

From the ability to interact and prove your industry expertise to prospects to increased search engine visibility, the potential benefits of implementing a company blog are endless. Comment below and share any thoughts or additional benefits you see from blogging!

Trackback: A trackback on a blog is a notification that a particular entry has been linked to by another blog. This lets the original author know who is reading his or her post, adds legitimacy to the post by showing relevance, and provides readers with additional sources of information on that particular topic. Trackbacks generally appear at the bottom of the post, near the comments section, and provide a snippet of the linking post. Trackbacks are a great way to foster good will between like-minded bloggers, and they allow each blog to benefit from the other’s traffic in both the short and long term. Also, your site’s SEO will be improved by having inbound links present in several different locations on the Web.

Past Words of the Week
Twitter Grader, Authority, TweetBeep, Compete, Astroturfing, WEGO Health, BackTweets, PDR.net, socialmention, Twazzup, Health Exchange, Health Tweeder, DIDGET, Thoora, Google Buzz, bit.ly, E-patient, Alltop, mHealth, Augmented reality, OpenID, ROI, #hcsm, Medpedia, Almost.at, Hashtag, FollowFriday, Beta, Microblogging, Sidewiki, Meta tags