“It Takes A Village??” – no, Ann did not hijack my keyboard! What am I talking about? One of my favorite business building messages for the leadership teams that I have worked with during my career, is that marketing is not just the job of the one or two people in the marketing department, is the responsibility of everyone that works at the hospital. In our case, marketing and promoting Knoxville Hospital & Clinics is not just Katrina’s job, it is the responsibility (and obligation) of all of our 245 employees! In other words, the “Village” is all of us and how KH&C needs all of us to market and promote the great things that are going on here on a daily basis!
With the continued technology and internet revolution, the tools available to us to market and promote KH&C are ever changing. A few years ago, I would have thought that the term “Social Media” was a punk rock band from the U.K. Today Social Media (aka SoMe) is fast becoming part of our everyday world. You can see the impact that SoMe has had on the elections and subsequent uprisings in Iran – people there are using YouTube, Facebook, blogs and Twitter to communicate, unite and broadcast messages and videos. Truly amazing stuff!
Today these SoMe tools are being adopted and implemented by hospitals and healthcare organizations at a very fast pace, including KH&C. According to the Iowa Hospital Association, we are one of only nine Iowa hospitals that utilize SoMe tools on a regular basis. Various healthcare organizations are using these tools to broadcast surgeries, promote events, healthy messages, etc. I would doubt that you will be seeing Dr. Busick doing a colonoscopy on YouTube anytime soon, but you can find out what is going on at KH&C on a regular and frequent basis.
People in the internet business are referring to SoMe as the Web 2.0 – while most of us are just trying to grasp Web 1.0 – the internet is evolving into a much more real time environment. Web 1.0 was mainly structured around organizations, people and businesses having a website. Websites are typically very static, with infrequent updates and changes. Websites are a great tool for communicating what your business or organization does, who is involved, where it is, etc. – basically the who, what, how, where and when answers. But they are somewhat archaic and typically move or change very slowly – with updates being very expensive and time consuming.
SoMe Web 2.0 tools are very dynamic and real time – i.e. what is happening right now, what new doctor just signed on to come to a hospital, what health screening event is going this weekend, etc. SoMe tools also provide an excellent opportunity to develop a community of followers or a “Village” (aahh, now it all ties together!). People on Facebook can become a “fan” of KH&C, a “follower” on Twitter and a “subscriber” on YouTube and a blog. With KH&C participating in all of these tools this our opportunity to build our online communities and create our own “Village”. One of the best parts about these SoMe tools is that they are free or very low cost to KH&C!
This is where you come in, by becoming a fan, follower or subscriber you will be getting frequent and regular updates about what is going on at KH&C. You also have the ability to help expand and grow KH&C’s internet “Village”. As of this writing, we have 58 fans on Facebook and nearly 100 followers on Twitter! I am pleased with what we have accomplished in this arena in just a few short weeks – but we have a long ways to go. It is up to us to grow our online community and further engage our community in the many exciting things that are going on at KH&C!
Where do you find us on these SoMe websites? Our blog is www.khcblog.com – on Facebook we are Knoxville Hospital & Clinics - and on Twitter we are at www.twitter.com/knoxvillehosp.
