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Social media isn't child's play. In fact, the 30- to 50-year-old crowd is one of the fastest growing demographics on networking sites, and many are logging in to advance their career. No clue where to start? ADVANCE explains how to cast a social media campaign without getting caught in the Net.
Facebook
The Gist: For the 120 million users who log on to the site every day, Facebook is a simple way to connect with and keep tabs on anyone: friends, family, employers. A user's profile can be as professional or personal as desired, with detail options ranging from work information to favorite books.
But it's not just about putting your face out there; it's what you do with the application. Users can leave messages on "walls," join groups, create albums and post links to engaging journal articles or Web sites. "[Users] share photos of their families, but they're also saying, 'here's what we're doing professionally,'" says Deborah Krier, a marketing professional and principal of WWC Events, who leads seminars on using social media.
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The Perks: While it's most commonly used for personal business, Facebook is becoming a popular work force application. Hundreds of healthcare organizations and companies have Facebook pages to keep patients informed and employees connected, according to Ed Bennett, director of Web strategy at the University of Maryland Medical System. Users can also join groups sponsored by associations like the AABB, Labs Are Vital, the College of American Pathologists and the National Society for Histotechnology. Profile settings let you group friends, such as work, family, book club, swim team, etc., and set different privacy settings so each group only sees certain parts of your profile.
The Catch: Facebook offers a lot of applications, from photo galleries to personality quizzes to "bumper stickers." If you're using the site for career advancement, be smart about what you include; you may be excited to share photos of your trip to Vegas, but your employer won't be thrilled about how they reflect on your facility's image, Krier noted.
Be especially careful if you're on Facebook at work. Dawson Ballard, CCS-P, CPC, coding educator, Take Care Health, Franklin, TN, has a Facebook page, but keeps it separate from work. He has Facebook on his Blackberry, but limits activity to his lunch hour. If you're allowed to go on Facebook at work, stick to career-related activity, such as checking your organization's page for details about your next department meeting.
Always keep privacy issues in mind. It's easy to get caught up in the fun of posting photos and information online, but exposing protected health information will put you in HIPAA hot water.
Twitter
The Gist: Notoriously explained as "You won't get it 'til you try it," Twitter is a microblogging site where users post 140-character messages or "tweets." Like Facebook, Twitter can focus on the professional -- "Looking for advice on calcitonin reference intervals" -- or personal -- "Taking my cat to the vet." Users connect by "following" each other's tweets. New connections can be made by checking out who's following whom or by searching for keywords. Users can send messages via public tweet, called "@replies," or private "direct" messages.
The Perks: Twitter is currently the most active social media site for healthcare professionals, according to Bennett, who follows 500 users on Twitter. "It's a very vibrant community," he says.
The quick tweets are comparable to conference chatter; questions, ideas and industry insights are thrown around amid gossip and personal updates. And just like at a conference, participation is critical. "If you want to gain a reputation as someone who's a positive member of the community, you need to proactively go out there and engage with folks and answer questions," Bennett advises.
Use the search tool to find tweets on topics in your area of expertise. If someone has a query, lend your opinion or point them to a helpful Web site. If someone laments an workflow issue or common interference problem, explain what your facility did to solve it.
"If you are actively looking for a job, you want to use [Twitter] as basically networking on steroids," Krier says. And tweets don't necessarily have to be work-related. Answering something as silly as "What's your favorite peanut butter?" could start a connection that will come in handy career-wise, Krier notes. The important thing is to communicate regularly; abandoning the site as soon as you land a job will leave your followers hanging and could burn bridges.
The Catch: The constant stream of tweets can get addicting, especially when users are updating 24/7. Krier recommends tweeting once or twice a day to keep an active presence ("People have the attention span of a gnat," she notes). Tweeting every 10 minutes is just excessive, she adds.
Browsing through followers can also be distracting. Most Twitter users have open profiles, so there are thousands of users and millions of tweets to peruse, which can quickly consume an entire night--and stymie your productivity, if you're allowed on Twitter at work.
Krier suggests setting a specific amount of time aside for Twitter. Whether it's 15 minutes or an hour a day, stick to the timeframe and pull back if you find yourself getting lost in tweets, especially if they're not related to your career.
To avoid misguided jaunts, limit your followers to a number you're comfortable with, Bennett advises. You may want to start off following 50 people, and then work your way up to 500 or 1,000 people as you learn tools to help manage connections.
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