Early on in the process I realized that in order to make content both authentic and representative of the hospital, I would need to get the physicians on board. In the beginning it was tough. I would call and e-mail and harass their admin's to try and get them on camera for a quick video, or get them to sit still long enough for a 15 minute podcast recording. It was not unusual for me to get no call back, or a no show's on the appointments set by admins.
My one saving grace was that I am a part of the external communications team. The physicians are used to getting calls from other members of the team asking them to do interviews for traditional media. I leaned quite a bit on my colleagues for help in figuring out which physicians were the most media friendly, tech savvy, or just plain nice. Sometimes if physician had a breaking story or research coming out they would just book them into a session with me at the same time they were booking their traditional media interview schedule, the physicians just thought they were coming to do another interview.
So every time we got an opportunity we
- Made it an easy, and comfortable experience
- Made the process flexible, accommodating to their schedules and streamlined so that it took as little of their time as possible
- During set up answered the questions about the value of this project for them and their program
- Offered the content up to them for use on their department web page
A year ago I had maybe one physician who was really engaged in social media, and participating willingly. Today I have a solid handful or real success stories.
Here are a few examples of our Physicians using social media at my hospital
Dr. Anas Younes
Blog
Video
Dr. Raymond DuBois
Blog
Dr. Michael Fisch
Blog
Video
Dr. Oliver Bogler
Blog
