A few years ago I began researching health equity and social determinants of health (SDoH) mainly as result of my intentionality to join the diversity and inclusion conversation inside healthcare organizations.
The more and more I have researched, the more conversations I have shared with thought leaders, the more my interest has grown. I have specifically become intrigued by the intersection between SDoH and the use of social media inside healthcare organizations.
We are surrounded by noise, conversations, opinions, places where voicing and sharing our thoughts, feelings and opinions feel unsafe. Large group conversations are getting more overwhelming, more polarizing, and even volatile to a point forcing us to make tough choices….where is my safe space?
I just watched a Facebook post come across my news feed from a hospital employee. They were sharing a story from the local news paper’s website praising a hospital’s initiative. We see this everyday, employees and brand ambassadors sharing stories online, specifically recognizing their workplace.
I was sitting and meeting with a dear friend…and a great client. We were chatting about an upcoming group of projects, talking about the creative approach, budgets, logistics, etc. The more we talked, the more we began critically thinking about the visual message, the scripting, and the overall impact.
Why are we using them? Are they fun? Are the cute? Are they just what we do…hashtag everything?
They were meant originally to help organize conversations, allowing like minded people to connect inside conversations. Now…there is a hashtag for everything…just because.
Look above…that is the number of school shootings since Sandy Hook Elementary School incident. That is 74 school shootings since December 14, 2012.
The biggest debate right now:
I have one for you…how about the access to media, social media, and the velocity of the social share. We are content consumers…actually we are hungrier than a pack of wolves in the middle of winter. We crave content, we crave to share, we crave to be the one to post it to our news feeds…first.
So I found this on a pr/marketing firm’s website…and I think they raise an interesting question. Let’s look at this statement:
“Successful companies tell their stories well. Multiple channels today allow for storytelling on many levels. Our team helps clients tell those stories in the traditional way as well as through the digital and social media channels. It’s one thing to get good publicity and another to leverage it. We also help clients navigate the choppy waters of storytelling in less than ideal situations. Our advice to clients is simple: Tell your own story (good, bad or ugly) and tell it fast or someone else will.”
Yes…so who is telling your story? You? Your organization? The people in the organization? What is a good story?
It is possible…it is possible to measure success. I have been surrounded by groups that want to bring a visual context to their story. They enlist me to help find and tell those rich elements creating a meaningful story.
The idea of storytelling has become such a passé term. Each day I receive an email, see a pr strategy, get a insert in the my home mailbox advertising how to tell better stories. From rich pr strategies to complex marketing initiatives…we all want to tell better stories.
Groups invest tons of money into these initiatives yet sometimes measuring success is not part of the initial thinking. The hardest question…what is success. Or…is the term “success” an inappropriate representation for the need to see how the audiences interacted with the media.
Let’s think through the term “success” and consider a different lens. When I think of measurement and storytelling, I think in terms of impact and how the audience experienced the media.
From the very beginning, before the creative stage is implemented…we have to set goals. What do we want the media, (the story) to do and how can we measure the impact based on those goals.
Then, we have to identify the story that needs to be told. What is the message and how do we want it to influence the audience. Is this an awareness initiative or is it a marketing initiative?
Here are the fun questions:
1) Can we actually associate measurement to these goals? Well this mathematics graduate knows you can associate numbers/measurement to anything.
2) But, do we really care about all the data we want to collect?
3) Can we experience data overload? So much measurement we are not even sure what to do with the information…often times leaving us overwhelmed and less interested?
Maybe we should just focus our expectations…thus focus our data collection. OR…maybe we should focus on telling better stories?
Image Credit: Mashable.com
I just read an OPED on Mashable.com today, it’s title: “I’m 13 and None of My Friends Use Facebook”. Yep…things are changing. Let’s look at a few statements in the article that peaked my interest. This article is from the viewpoint of a 13 year old. Her name is Ruby Karp.
“Facebook is losing teens lately, and I think I know why.
Part of the reason Facebook is losing my generation’s attention is the fact that there are other networks now. When I was 10, I wasn’t old enough to have a Facebook. But a magical thing called Instagram had just come out … and our parents had no idea there was an age limit. Rapidly, all my friends got Instagrams.
Now, when we are old enough to get Facebook, we don’t want it. By the time we could have Facebooks, we were already obsessed with Instagram.”
Yes…and there are so many other reasons why teenagers are migrating away. None of their friends are using Facebook. Why? There is no community for this generation.
Ruby continues: “This leads me into my next point: Although I do have a Facebook, none of my other friends do. My friends just thought it was a waste of time. I decided to get a Facebook just to see what it was all about. I soon discovered that Facebook is useless without friends. My only friend is, like, my grandma.”
Her next point peaks my interest. She beings to examine the idea of surveillance. She explains parents spend so much time on Facebook, some of which to monitor what their children are doing. As a communication consultant, I remember having a Facebook training session for a group of hospital marketing/pr staff members. The main reason they attended, to figure out how to watch what their children were doing, with who, and where.
“Let’s say I get invited to a party, and there’s underage drinking. I’m not drinking, but someone pulls out a camera. Even if I’m not carrying a red Solo cup, I could be photographed behind a girl doing shots. Later that week, the dumb-dumb decides to post photos from that “amazing” party. If my mom saw I was at a party with drinking, even if I wasn’t participating, I’d be dead. This isn’t Facebook’s fault, but it happens there.”
So who is the average user on Facebook? Buffer’s blog shares some demographics. “According to the research, it’s a young, 25 year-old woman, living in a big city, with a college degree and a household income of more than $75k a year.”
Above are some interesting statistics from Pew Research Center surrounding the Landscape of Social Media Users. Once again, look at the breakdown of social users and their choice of social media outlets.
With all this said, I think there is a unique separation between the Generation Z (born after 2000) and the Millennials (Generation Y). The Millennials look like they might be last generation of Facebook diehards. But…these diehards, the supporters of this social network that brought them together are slowly departing. They are tired of the “drama” and being overly exposed to the world.
Here is an interesting commentary on YouTube between a group of young professionals. They fall into the Millennial generation.
At :37 seconds into the video, the young man says, “There is always going to be something new.” And this is point of this blog post. We as communicators have to understand that Facebook taught us to adapt from our “traditional” mode of marketing/pr communication. And once again, it is going to teach us that we have to continue to evolve and stay true our goals as practitioners. We are communication practitioners and not technicians.
The moment we put all our eggs into one communication basket, we will be taught once again that this communication paradigm is going to shift once again.
