Owly is the Hootsuite mascot; a simple piece of swag.
But at the last social media conference I went to (Social Media Camp in Victoria BC, one of Canada’s largest social media conferences), it actually appears to be a little more.
You see, at the conference, when they offered this little critter to the audience, they also suggested that if you take a fun photo of it you should copy @hootsuitelife and use the hashtag #LifeofOwly.
Now this little polyester owl becomes more significant.
Why? Because Owly becomes a fun visual link to one of Hootsuite’s digital platforms for recruiting – their devoted @HootsuiteLife Twitter Page (which is conveniently called Hootsuite Careers and which links to the Hootsuite Career webpage) – a page which is effectively a daily snapshot of what a great place Hootsuite is to work.
So who is going to play around with Owly and photos and creative Twitter posts?
The people who are “in” to social media and “in” to creativity (and the social media creatives who follow them on Twitter) – just the type of people that Hootsuite wants to impress!
So, what does this have to do with healthcare?
Well, no matter what your mission is, or your 5 year strategy, or your value proposition, there are two things I can guarantee: First, physician talent is important. Second, this talent will become increasingly hard to access.
In healthcare, you must be continually on the lookout for simple tools to help you access your future talent pool because your healthcare organization’s financial future depends on the quality of your future providers.
Look, what isn’t important isn’t having a piece of swag, or a devoted Twitter account for the daily life of your healthcare organization – although the latter isn’t actually a bad idea.
What is important is you start right now to bring social media creativity to your recruiting process and leverage some of the creative ideas from companies like Hootsuite to your organization.
(Addendum – in my photo above, my selection of a bridge background was not accidental. Hootsuite effectively acts as a bridge between all of your social media accounts.)