Most healthcare CEOs think of their Twitter account as a marketing tool.
For example, they may think of Twitter as something their organization needs to have because all organizations nowadays have Twitter accounts, or that it’s a nice place to post the occasional feel-good photo, which has something to do with highlighting a healthcare organization’s brand.
Or perhaps Twitter is another box to check off under “social media strategy” when a new service is rolled out, or maybe, in very rare cases, it can bring in a tiny amount of business (but because most healthcare organizations have fairly low absolute numbers of followers with even lower local engagement, this generally isn’t very helpful).
And, then of course, healrhcare CEOS may just think of worst-case scenario: that when the subject of Twitter comes up it’s because of some type of problem—such as a bad patient or employee experience that got some traction on local—or worse, national media—and now there is a media firestorm that needs significant resources to offset. (Heck, looking at Twitter in this way, I am surprised that Twitter isn’t more hated by CEOs! )
However, here’s the error the healthcare CEOs are making:
They are looking at Twitter as a marketing tool, rather than as a digital network building block, and as a digital network building block, Twitter is the most powerful and least expensive tool within any healthcare organization’s arsenal.
And what makes it so powerful? Because, unlike most digital elements, which are either platforms or links, (or, to put it in network terms, nodes or edges), Twitter is both simultaneously.
For example, most healthcare websites are simply a digital platform-a place for a patient to digitally arrive and look around. This is differentiated from another key healthcare digital system, internal email, which links people together.
However, Twitter can do both. For example, not only can you link your organization to trusted sources, such as the CDC, the NIH, the State Health Department, etc you can make their content part of your platform at a trivial cost.
Or you can creatively link your workplace—and your recruiting webpage—to every top residency in the country.
Or you can present your most trusted experts to every regional newspaper within a hundred miles of your organization.
Let’s face it, with Twitter a healthcare organization can link, highlight, comment, and relate content from their website, the administrators, their physicians, their YouTube Channel, their LinkedIn, their podcasts, their local and regional health departments, and yes, even their CEO.
Heck, the list of things you can do in the digital space with even basic use of Twitter is nearly endless. (In fact, I could easily generate a list of 50 ideas that could, over time, improve patient outcomes or generate additional revenue.)
But it is contingent on two things: First, the CEO recognizing that their organization lives with a digital network—a digital world. And second, the CEO understanding that Twitter mastery is essential in navigating, connecting, and creating this digital world.
And a CEO understanding these two things is going to be very rare.