Isn’t it Ironic
If you’ve read this blog from the beginning, you know that I came kicking and screaming into the world of social media. But even if you’re new to this site, you can tell by my ‘Antibloggergirldc’ nom de plume that I’m not the first choice to appear on the poster advocating blogging, Facebook, Twitter and the like.
So it is with a tip of the hat to my Georgetown instructors, Garrett Graff and Kathy Baird for a job well done. At least according to my friends, who now describe me as a “fanatic” when it comes to all things social media. On a recent visit to my Southern California hometown, I spent a relaxing evening with six long-time friends. Each of these women is successful in her career: an emergency room nurse, a technology entrepreneur, a neurologist, an elementary school teacher, an advertising executive and a banker. Only one of them had an active Facebook page. Three of them had briefly flirted with Facebook, but none of them had a blog or posted on Twitter. A few had profiles on Linkedin.
Sounding like I was born-again or had drunk the social media Kool-Aid, I regaled them with the wonders and benefits of keeping your friends informed through tweets and status updates. I must have been convincing. Three of the six are now twittering, all but one is actively on Facebook, a couple more have filled out Linkedin profiles and one even started a MySpace page.
Who says social media is just for the 20-somethings?
Travels with Facebook
Who needs Conde Nast’s Traveller magazine or even Travel + Leisure when you have friends on Facebook?
Traditionally, August is the last chance for a summer vacation, and many of my pals and colleagues have left behind their day jobs but not their internet connections. Even those who rarely update their Facebook status are now sending missives from airports, beaches, ballparks and museums. Kicking back and relaxing now includes letting your closest circle of friends–and their friends–know just how you like to kick back and relax and where you are doing it.
Instead of peeking at the latest issues of travel magazines for hip destinations, I can log onto Facebook and read about the beautiful Mexican sky, the glorious weather on Florida’s beaches and the delicious local delicacies in Cabo San Lucas. I can read about kayaking trips, which beer gets the highest ratings, who has discovered a new singer and the stadiums with the best concessions. Sometimes there are pictures that accompany the posts.
With the high cost of gasoline and the long security lines at airports, maybe Facebook travelogues will become the new armchair travel destination.
Social Media and the Real World
I heard disturbing news the other night. A hometown friend’s son was one of 10 fraternity members arrested in New Orleans in May on charges related to a hazing incident at Tulane University. I Googled his name and was shocked to read the details: boiling water, pledge initiation, second- and third-degree burns.
The Smoking Gun had an explicit article about the alleged April 25th “Hell Night” activities at the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity house, and links to the arrest warrants and police mug shots of the frat members charged in the incident. The Google search also revealed several news
articles about the incident published in traditional news outlets in New Orleans and across the country in the boys’ hometown newspapers. And, since this is the era of Web 2.0, there were several blog posts devoted to the subject, including this “off topic” posting on PocketFives, a website devoted to poker. And, yes, there were comments. LOTS of comments. On the PocketFives site and on other sites, the hazing incident had definitely sparked a conversation. Or maybe it would be more accurate to refer to it as a shouting match, with some posters calling the fraternity members names that were nearly as awful as the incident that triggered the debate.
It struck me that regrettable behavior, whether associated with a college fraternity initiation or at any time in our personal or professional life, lives on long after resolution, in part, thanks to the Internet. And, perhaps unwittingly, the fraternity member’s friends may be contributors to the endless trail and the consequences. A Facebook page they posted, Free J—– B—–, has no privacy restrictions. There, for anyone to see, is his unflattering police mug shot along with news and wall postings that may be funny to his college pals, but probably wouldn’t be amusing to a potential future employer. 
And none of us should think that current and future employers aren’t looking at — and judging — our online presence. In its June 2007 issue, the Harvard Business Review published an interactive case study, We Googled You. The article poses a dilemma for an employer who thinks he’s found a dream candidate for a job until an online revelation proves that nothing from our past — even details found on page nine of a Google search — is ever erased.
Keeping the Blogosphere (and Everyone Else) Healthy
Cruising through the blogosphere I stumbled upon (pun intended) Diva Marketing Blog and her July 16 post on “Where Are The ‘Social Media’ Healthcare Organizations?” As I learn to love Social Media, and discover which companies have and have not embraced Web 2.0, I ponder the same question that the Diva raises: “Should healthcare organizations go ’social’?” 
We’re not talking about physicians here. The Diva claims that “thousands of physicians are active in social media.” I’m not sure if she means these docs have a Facebook or MySpace page to keep up with their friends or if they engage in online conversations with their patients.
The Diva is referring to healthcare organizations–hospitals, drug companies and corporations–which she writes treat social media as “more of a revolutionary strategy than an evolutionary way to reach customers.” I think she’s on to something. Shouldn’t healthcare practitioners go where their customers are?
Wouldn’t it be great if you could log on to the website of your local hospital and have a conversation with a nurse, department head, physician or some other representative to answer your specific questions about an upcoming procedure and your hospital stay rather than scrolling through the FAQ and not finding the information you are seeking. Reading the blogs of a hospital’s administrator or one of its doctors might give you a better sense of that organization’s philosophy or bedside manner.
Several of the hospitals that serve the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area where I live mail monthly or quarterly newsletters to local residents. These printed marketing tools provide updates on technology, treatments, personnel changes and public programs. Perhaps these institutions should save postage and help the environment by shelving the paper and going digital.
The Diva notes that those hospitals and drug companies that do have blogs have reaped the benefits. One Web 2.0 convert, Nick Jacobs, president and CEO of Windber Medical Center, credits his blog posts for speaking engagement invites around the country.
Nick Jacobs
Because of these presentations, Jacobs says he “was exposed to the magnitude of not only blog power, but also You Tube, Facebook, Twitter…” Jacobs tells the Diva that his blogging led him to write two books and four newspaper columns “that have increased our business by double-digit figures.”
Johnson and Johnson and GlaxoSmithKline are two corporations that use blogs to communicate with the public. The J&J site notes that “everyone else is talking about our company, so why can’t we?” Recent posts have focused on nutrition, first aid and the company’s health channel on YouTube. The GSK site is built around its alli weight-loss product.
How many people have logged onto WebMD at one time or another? Quantcast, the media measurement service, ranks the medical information site in the top 50, with more than 15 million people in the U.S. visiting each month. With so many consumers in the marketplace for health and medical information, doesn’t it just make sense for these organizations to join the Antibloggergirldc and step into the 21st century?
