Paul Levy’s “Running a Hospital” blog not only reflects the right way to blog, but what’s right about blogging.

Like a lot of marketing groups, AVID Design is no exception in encouraging healthcare systems and hospitals to integrate blogs and other social media into their marketing strategies.

So, say you took our advice and started a blog. Now what?

Although this is not exactly a new example, it’s still one of the best and perhaps most extreme: Paul Levy’s Running a Hospital blog.

Created by the president and CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, it is a blog “to share thoughts about hospitals, medicine and health care issues.” As trite and obvious as that may seem, it truly encompasses the spirit of blogging—in general and specifically for healthcare—in several ways:

• It’s not an explicit marketing device. One of the unwritten rules of social media is to contribute to the community first and use the network for personal/financial gain second (and then very discretely).

However, aside from the publicity this blog generated when it first launched, it essentially functions as a subtle marketing device because it is drawing attention (and likely traffic) to the hospital and its Web site.

• It is transparent. Furthering the notion that Levy’s site is not an explicit marketing device, the transparency and openness that it presents is both unique and affirming—how many other large businesses give you access to its CEO?)

• It creates a forum to discuss the issues. It’s one thing to hear what the CEO has to say…but it’s another to be able to respond, no matter if you are also a hospital CEO, administrative assistant, patient or somebody that is just interested in healthcare and hospital-related issues.

Being able to comment is perhaps one of the features that has helped blogging become such a popular technology. As we’ve written elsewhere, this is a powerful, affordable and efficient way to hear and address concerns.

The benefits are potentially exponential, because by being involved in the discussion, it furthers a perspective about your organization and leaders’ transparency…something that is not easily done with traditional marketing techniques.

• It’s a directory for other relevant information. Along with links to other articles, resources and causes, the comment sections allow the visitor to discover others that are interested in what Mr. Levy has to say. It’s quite likely that those people also have interesting and relevant blogs, can be new contacts, etc.

Although your hospital’s CEO might not be inclined to duplicate Mr. Levy and create a similar type of blog, it should at least recognize the need for and benefits from a blog written by somebody (like AVID Design).

Tweet This Post

This entry was posted on Friday, March 13th, 2009 at 9:53 am and is filed under Blogs + Blogging, Industry Trends. 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.