The digital world is evolving, our realities often reflected in a series of webpages, tweets or posts. Almost an year to the day, I heard a talk by a medical officer of health at The Ontario Public Health Convention (TOPHC). He spoke about his digital presence on Twitter. His talk resonated with me as I envisioned myself a trailblazer in the field of Health Communications. The very same day, I became an active member of the twittersphere! Since then I have been a passionate advocate of social media platforms in order to communicate health and healthy practices. During this time I became aware of a multitude of perspectives why individuals refrain from engaging on social media platforms. Yet such perspectives could not argue the logic that the world is becoming more digital. Does it then become our responsibility as public health professionals and communicators to be more aware of this medium and its potential?
Feeling the pulse of social media, transcends just one direction in terms of communication. There is a strong engagement component aiding the individual in cultivating their own social media brand. The transparency factor will definitely be inclusive in this equation but so will information sharing and trust. The most important thing to consider prior to taking this initiative or leap of faith is...
"Do I have a social media strategy?"
This is important as it will compliment your objectives on social media platforms, whether the platform is to be utilized for information retrieval, passive e-listening or active community engagement. What are your goals on social media and how do you hope to achieve them? These are the questions you should be asking yourself...
When producing your social media strategy I would consider the following..
This is important as it will compliment your objectives on social media platforms, whether the platform is to be utilized for information retrieval, passive e-listening or active community engagement. What are your goals on social media and how do you hope to achieve them? These are the questions you should be asking yourself...
When producing your social media strategy I would consider the following..
- What's your ultimate objective on Social Media? With respective to my social media strategy, I wanted to be more aware of the public health resources available to myself. This subsequently allowed me to use numerous engagement opportunities to further my personal brand on social media.
- How will you commit your time to your social media presence? How much time will you commit to this endeavor? One hour/day or one hour/week? Remember, your time commitment will obviously be reflected in your results!
- What results are you looking forward to? How will you evaluate yourself? By the number of followers you get per week? The number of retweets? Number of post views? In my opinion there's no easy answer to this question, it depends entirely on your objective. Are you looking at simply awareness? Which means you are considering the page or post views. If you are hoping to engage with people and see responses or actions, you would be looking at the attention grasped! You could go a step further and reach more people, asking them to perhaps collaborate with you on future projects. Hence the level or degree to which you hope to engage with other digital personalities will be reflected in your results. So be SMART! (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Reliable and Timely)
- Lastly, do you want to be considered an influencer? From my perspective, this depends on your niche and what kind of a social media community you would like to foster within your digital space. It is a belief that the more followers you have, the more likely you are an influencer or thought provoker. This is definitely defined in various ways. The point I would like to make is that this must be considered in your social media strategy. If you're like me and consider multiple perspectives a resource, you would not look for a specific followers to following ratio on your platforms.
The world of social media is changing in leaps and bounds. It becomes our responsibility to engage with this world and ensure that the digital health of our social media ecosystems are kept healthy. It is imperative that you become aware of the resource that is SOCIAL MEDIA. That being said, becoming more familiar with social media may aid you and your specialties, advance!
Take the field of humanitarian assistance as an example. Upon reading a blog post by the Canadian Red Cross, social media is utilized as a medium for communicating and coordinating emergency response in countries like Kenya. Based on a survey conducted on behalf of the Canadian Red Cross, 63% of the 1000 survey respondents felt that emergency staff should be equipped to respond to requests for help made online through social media sites.
Take the field of humanitarian assistance as an example. Upon reading a blog post by the Canadian Red Cross, social media is utilized as a medium for communicating and coordinating emergency response in countries like Kenya. Based on a survey conducted on behalf of the Canadian Red Cross, 63% of the 1000 survey respondents felt that emergency staff should be equipped to respond to requests for help made online through social media sites.
Check out this Video on Digital Humanitarianism;
Social media will continue to evolve!
The question is, are you ready to evolve with it?
