This guy doesn’t have skin cancer…

Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger has skin cancer.

St. Louis Cardinals’ manager Tony LaRussa made fun of drunk driving and two Cards’ pitchers that died.

How do I know? Because they Tweeted about it or said so on Facebook…or did they?

Well, before this blog goes any further and AVID Design gets slapped with a lawsuit (like the lawsuit LaRussa filed against Twitter), neither of those rumors are true.

But that’s certainly not what thousands believed when those sports celebrities’ seemingly authentic social media accounts (complete with thousands of followers) posted those fraudulent statements.

…and this guy didn’t make fun of drunk driving or deceased Cardinals.

Does Your Hospital Have a Twitter Account?

Or a Facebook page? Or a YouTube page? Or accounts or pages for any of the dozens of other social media Websites?

Well, in case you can’t see where this is going, I’ll be direct: You might want to think about establishing those accounts, even if you don’t intend to use them.

While you are at it, you also might want to ensure that you know how to monitor them to immediately be notified about what is not only being said about your hospital, but also what your hospital is supposedly saying (especially if it isn’t).

The Long Arm of Online Justice Isn’t Very Strong

Don’t think that just because you can possibly sue somebody for defamation, fraud or slander that it is any kind of determent for somebody to pose as your hospital (or a hospital executive, for that matter). It surely didn’t stop somebody from pretending to be Roethlisberger or LaRussa or countless other celebrities.

First, you have to find out what’s being said, and then you have to find out who said it.  And even if and when you do, you’ll likely have to put out the fire and handle any potential public relations backlash that might follow.

As most know, with the Internet, information goes public to thousands—if not millions—of viewers in an instant, often with little or no fact checking or culpability for false information from phony sources.

There’s also little recourse if there is. Aside from the public relations nightmare, legal options are slim. For example, the LaRussa case: He eventually dropped the charges, and reportedly even had to eat the legal fees.

He is the popular manager of a successful professional sports franchise. Not only is it a safe assumption that he can probably afford the legal fees, he was also probably represented by a die-hard Cardinals fan that felt privileged to represent his favorite team.

Excess money and pop culture status are two concepts that are not often associated with hospitals, which, among other reasons, are why hospitals shouldn’t sit on the fence embracing social media.

Does your hospital have a trusted and reliable partner to build, manage and plan your online marketing strategies? AVID Design offers free Web 2.0 and social media assessments.

Add to Technorati Favorites

Tweet This Post

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 11th, 2009 at 9:44 am and is filed under Brand Monitoring, Pop Culture, Social Media, Things 'n' Stuff, Web 2.0. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.