Social Media Made Simple: Blogging and Twitter

Whether you've been doing social media or not, you've certainly heard about it. If you're interested in learning more about what to do, how to do it, and even some suggestions on what NOT to do, today's installment of "It Ain't Rocket Surgery" has some basics on kicking off your blogging and micro-blogging (twitter) efforts.

Social Media Made Simple

First up, I'd like to suggest you read this nice guest blog on KevinMD by Susan Giurleo, PhD called  "A Simple Social Media Plan Any Health Care Professional Can Use."  She focuses on blogging and twitter as the easy-to-launch vehicles to help educate people about important topics. I am constantly asked by physicians about why they should bother trying to blog or become active in social media. Of course, the primary reason is to share your knowledge and expertise with others. Below is one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Giurleo's post: 

"Why engage in social media?  My honest answer: to help as many people as you can by educating them about something you know lots about. Sharing that knowledge will improve people’s lives."

Isn't that why you went into a career in medicine to begin with? 

What Motivates One to Blog?

One of the challenging things is deciding when you have a topic you feel is important enough to share. Bottom line is, if one person gleans something from it, then it's worth it. Because, really, what's the cost of blogging, other then a few minutes of time? The video clip to the right side of this blog features an American Express Open Forum video on blogging by Seth Grodin and Tom Peters. They describe the impetus for blogging and the challenges. Thanks to Bryan Vartabedian of "33 Charts" for pointing that video clip out earlier this month.

Military Toolkit on Social Media

For those of you who are still afraid of social media for a number of reasons, don't be. You can learn from the experts:  the military recognizes the risks inherent in using social media, so the US Army created a toolkit for using it that will protect soldiers from providing information that might put themselves or others at risk. Take a look at it below. If you follow some of the suggestions, you will be much less likely to do or post information that would put anyone -- including yourself, your institution, or your patients -- at risk.

Get Started

There's no better time to start engaging in social media and sharing your expertise and knowledge with others. These resources and others I've blogged about before (see here, here, and here if you want to go back and review some of my old posts) should give you the basics to start getting active in social media. In fact, even the ACCP presidents are blogging now, so it must be simple! (I kid, I kid!!). You can see their recent posts here.

About the Author

Stephen Welch

Senior Vice President, Communications
Executive Editor, CHEST

This blog, "It Ain't Rocket Surgery" is intended to help busy health-care professionals find useful online and mobile resources that will enhance their self-education and professional research efforts, or point out important topics of discussion related to online information and content. The blog's title is a Yogi Berra style mash-up of two common phrases, "it ain't brain surgery" and "it ain't rocket science". I hope it will be casual, fun, insightful, and -- most of all -- educational.

You can follow me on Twitter. 

I currently serve ACCP as the Senior Vice President of Communications, as well as the Executive Editor of CHEST, the ACCP’s flagship journal. During my 15 years here, ACCP has focused on growing and developing the editorial, technological, and business aspects of the College. We are constantly striving to make the journal and other ACCP educational content as accessible and useful to clinicians as possible.

When not at work, I like to spend time scuba diving with sharks, collecting original comic book artwork, exploring the digital world, and searching for good BBQ.

Your feedback about the blog is always appreciated. So are tips on good BBQ joints.