Embrace it all

I wanted my first post to be prophetic, profound, progressive, which are three adjectives to describe what social media is (to me).

I decided that I would go with a term I hold in high regard in all aspects of my life - embrace.

I embrace my existence here on earth. I embrace the change that happens every millisecond. I embrace the strife and conflict that are a daily part of life. I embrace the fact that I am not perfect, nor is anyone, and therefore slack should be cut.

I am fortunate to work for a hospital that has embraced social media completely. I have been given the tools to do the job to the best of my ability. I also am part of a marketing and PR team that is enthusiastic about social media, understands it, and helps me to educate those that are unsure or afraid. My employer recognizes the need for social media as part of their internal and external communication endeavors. They support. They embrace.

Our community embraces. Our physicians, nurses, hospital employees, patients and neigbors embrace our social media efforts, and the result has been a rate of growth that has exceeded everyone's expectations, including mine. From November 2009 to February 2010 we grew from 323 Facebook fans to over 1,000. Our Twitter friend base has increased also, and we have just added a blog to the mix so that's exciting.

But social media measurement isn't just about numbers - it's about engagement, interactions, and the quality of such. We've experienced a tremendously positive reaction to our patient and employee video stories, which are posted almost daily. We have also garnered favorable feedback from personal posts, photo diaries and podcasts.

The reason for all this is strategy, and embracing change. Some things work, others don't - moving fluidly from one tactic to another, testing, trying all work to our advantage. Listening to our community - what do they respond favorably to? What kinds of posts are mostly ignored? They speak, we listen, we plan, we enact. It's that simple.

To successfully integrate social media strategy into a hospital communications realm, the idea of it must be embraced. And for many, it's difficult to embrace as it's a new type of communication. New = strange and scary. Couple that with the mentality that "if the kids are using it, it's not worthwhile", and you've got a mental roadblock that may never be overcome.

This is a point of view I'd like to explore in later posts. For now, I'll end with this: embrace it all - the known and unknown, and save the judgement for later.