All Nurses Are Marketers?! Why would someone say that? Marketers are soulless hucksters who pollute the world with annoying ads, right? Well, perhaps some. But Marketing is a much larger concept than the lay conception of it as a professional role for generating revenues for a business. So let’s take a quick look at Marketing and why nurses benefit from viewing the world through Marketing Vision.

WHAT IS MARKETING AND WHY SHOULD NURSES CARE – AN ILLUSTRATION?

Wikipedia defines Marketing

Marketing is an integrated communications-based process through which individuals and communities discover that existing and newly-identified needs and wants may be satisfied by the products and services of others.

A general enough definition, but let’s expand products and services to include more than just the strictly commercial kind. For example, as a nurse, can you think of anything that you do as a service? Of course you can: that’s what you do as a nurse. Also, marketing involves more than just communications: it involves process, arrangement and distribution.

If you want an effective infection-control system, for example, you need a superbly integrated solution. This includes awareness of proper cleaning techniques; the right kinds of facilities (no paper towels & touching the faucets); the proper positioning of facilities (make it stupid-easy to funnel people into sanitary behavior); a system that never runs out of supplies; and educated staff to ensure the process is implemented. That’s all marketing. And this is just for hand-washing. Of course there’s far more to a complete infection-control system. Which is why we need excellent marketing approaches.

NURSING MARKETING

All successful marketing campaigns need champions – people who are wise and diligent and persistent enough to see the ways to better land. We desperately need more nursing involvement in championing ideas that make important differences in lives.

When you walk into your facility, what do you see? Do you like it? Do you think it respects your patients? How an organization presents itself to people is a key component of marketing. Nurses need to be a part of the design, don’t they? Imagine  if more nurses were involved in the official marketing process – what difference would that make? Do you think that the “customer” would have a better experience, talk positively about her experience and come back if she had to?

Hospitals spend money all the time on the tactics of marketing (printing glossy brochures of sick people smiling like fools). Do these things earn attention and return? Maybe. But does it do anything to wow people as much as a well-marketed nursing experience? More CNO’s, CMO’s and CEO’s need to ask these questions. Many don’t or won’t because they convinced that the 20th Century model of unilateral broadcasting is the foundation of marketing.

THERE IS NO ROOM FOR MEDIOCRITY IN HEALTH CARE

Nurses, you need to create a revolution in Marketing. You are the real Healthcare Marketers. You are the ones who understand what patients and family members need and how to deliver remarkably.

I know your jobs are tough (and you don’t often enough get the credit you deserve for your hard-work nor do you deserve the superficial conception of nursing that our culture typically encourages). But, if you can take that extra spare time and invest a bit in seeing things from a marketing perspective, perhaps you will, little by little, make huge differences – the ones that not only benefit the public, but also ease the burden of the unnecessary wars on stupidity and mediocrity you encounter in your work.

When it comes to the Web, nurses and doctors and other healthcare professionals are going to have to establish useful presences. Sure there are some healthcare bloggers and tweeters. But we need a lot more. There’s too much “patient advocacy” by people who really don’t understand what that entails. Nurses need to position themselves in the right places on the Web. And that takes marketing.

Know how you market what you do and improve it. There’s a reason why the words marketing and remarkable sound similar: they’re both about being re-marked on. Remarkability is the goal of all marketing. There is no mediocrity in health care – it must be remarkable or it’s not health care.

Nurses, be the best marketers in the world. Be Re-Markable.

All Nurses Are Marketers is a post from: NurseHacker

Do you see that blue rectangle on the sidebar of this blog? That’s a real-time stream of people around the world talking about Healthcare Reform. Healthcare Reform is a hot topic these days (of course “Healthcare Reform” is a misnomer, since there is not Healthcare System – but that’s an entirely different discussion).

Here’s another real-time feed from the aggregation and sharing service FriendFeed:

Do you see what you can with a socially-driven Web? What do you have to say? Claim your name and voice yourself before someone else does.

Healthcare Reform on Twitter is a post from: NurseHacker

One of the ways more people are using the micro-sharing service Twitter are joining what are called Twitter Chats or tweet chats. For those of you who have been participating in tweet chats, you know that they can become rather noisy and unwieldy when it comes to sorting through the conversations. Add to that, Twitter’s search isn’t the most reliable.

FriendFeed offers a way to help focus conversations around a specific topic and can be used to help organize tweet chats without disturbing their normal flow. Many people who use Twitter don’t use FriendFeed – the most frequent claim is that it’s too cumbersome or they just “don’t get it.” Fair enough. Perhaps that an educational opportunity for the FriendFeed team.

So, to help illustrate the value of using FriendFeed in conjunction with Twitter, I’ve put together this quick-and-dirty demo (expand screen at lower right corner) [link if not viewable].

There are many nuances and features that aren’t necessarily obvious to newcomers to FriendFeed. Twitter’s appeal is its brutal simplicity. FriendFeed takes a bit more getting used to and some time to fully appreciate what it has to offer. Dovetailing FriendFeed and Twitter can produce a synergy that combines the social rapidity of Twitter with the conversational expansiveness of FriendFeed.

If you moderate tweet chats, try it out and let me know what you think.

@NurseHacker

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How to Use FriendFeed to Enhance & Organize Twitter Chats is a post from: NurseHacker

Nurses play a core role in almost every point of health care. In today’s world, when more and more people and organizations are taking notice of online social networks, it’s important that nurses be up-to-speed on social software and how best to get the most out of them while also providing remarkable value to the communities they serve.

I’M A NURSE – WHERE DO I START WITH SOCIAL NETWORKS?

Twitter seems to be the wildest rage these days. Is it a trivial service? Yes, mostly. Does it have value? Yes, if it’s possibilities and varied applications are understood – and if nurses use a bit of imagination and elbow grease, it can offer a simple but effective way to learn new things, connect with other healthcare providers, participate in meaningful conversations and ultimately help patients and families to cope with the consequences of patient’s health issues. Furthermore, for nurses who may not be into social networks or aren’t familiar with their nuances, Twitter may actually be a good place to start and get up-to-speed.

THE EARLY AIMS OF THIS BLOG

This blog will explore the changes to the world that these technologies pose, primarily in the context of healthcare in general and nursing in particular: both the dangers and the opportunities. It will also provide specific guidance on various tools with a goal of helping nurses hone their social media skills. There will be blog posts to engender conversation, provide occasional lists of applications and their uses, produce screencasts of software demonstrations and tips on how to learn about these technologies.

Check back here and be a part of a community of nurses and others interesting in the intersection of social software and healthcare. Upcoming posts will discuss syndication of the content of this blog using something you may have heard about but were afraid to ask: RSS. Put simply RSS is a simple method of aggregating the content contained on websites (such as blogs) and assembling them in an single line-by-line display on one page. Instead of bookmarking endlessly and forgetting the sites you’ve visited, you can get the content delivered on your own terms. With RSS you don’t have to keep search google or keep pulling up the same websites every day: with RSS you just read what you enjoy reading on one simple interface (called a Reader).

I recommend Google Reader. For now, go set up an account, follow a few of the suggestions so you get the basics and come back here. Our feed is on the top right hand corner (the orange button). A forthcoming demo on Google Reader, and its many benefits, will be posted here, so come back if you’re interested.

But I’ll go beyond “old school” RSS approaches to sharing information online. Real-time connectivity is something that’s happening right now, which means you don’t have time to catch up: you’ll have to jump into the stream. We’re here to help you.

AS A START, FOLLOW NURSEHACKER ON TWITTER

If you have a Twitter account, or don’t but would like to get started, follow @NurseHacker and we’ll help introduce you the right people.

NurseHacker: Social Software Tips, Tricks & Hacks By And For Nurses is a post from: NurseHacker