Use available tools to develop a unique, compelling online identity
Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn alone are no longer sufficient to create an online persona. Users need personalized social networks to reach others with similar interests and goals.
Internet users need to build an online persona to be viable in today’s social and commercial marketplace, an expert told OWL members at the evening event held during the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery meeting in Boston.
Social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are growing by leaps and bounds, but they are not the only avenues for users to connect with friends, family, business associates and prospective clients. Various tools are now available to help Web-savvy users exploit social networking for a maximum effect.
Fabio Gratton, co-founder and chief innovation officer of Ignite Health, a marketing agency that specializes in medical advertising and patient education, urged audience members to learn about and use online tools.
“You can’t just rely on Facebook and LinkedIn to be the way that people find you,” Mr. Gratton said. “Control your experience. … Own your name or some variation of your name. … Make sure that people can find you. … You are a brand. You people are brands, whether you like it or not. Brands today are shifting online.”
Anyone can enter the online arena
The concept of Web 2.0 involves the Web enabling anyone with an Internet connection to build their online presence and enhance it with links, online tools, videos and slides, Mr. Gratton said.
“It’s a technology platform that now enables us to not have to know anything about the Web, nothing about programming,” he said. “Any of us can be a producer, an author, a publisher, a musician. All we have to do is have an Internet connection. Web 2.0 is simply that platform that’s sitting between the public domain and us.”
A willingness to learn and experiment are critical to building an online persona, Mr. Gratton said.
“It’s really, really important to be educated, and this is the type of forum,” he said. “Learn this stuff. It’s very important and it’s changing the way that we work. … Seize the moment. Too many people spend too much time trying to figure out how to take aim, so by the time they’re ready to pull the trigger, that target has moved by. Social media is about stepping out and taking a chance, be that diving off the deep end of a pool or dipping your toes in the water.”
Some useful online tools
DoseofDigital.com is a website designed to help health care professionals use the Internet and social networking to enhance their enterprises. The site is a wiki, meaning that it will be updated regularly, Mr. Gratton said.
Users can build their own social networking sites with www.ning.com, which links virtually millions of sites.
Another site, www.CarePages.com, links patients, families and friends coping with an illness. “This is social networking at its best,” Mr. Gratton said.
Resources are also available to help users, especially surgeons and other medical professionals, post videos on the Web. For example, www.vimeo.com lets users publish videos from a single location to more than 20 different video-sharing websites.
“YouTube has a big limitation that’s important to understand: You can’t put videos there that are greater than 10 minutes,” Mr. Gratton said.
Another site, www.slideshare.com, enables users to post PowerPoint slides.
“It is probably one of the greatest resources online that I can ever imagine. SlideShare is the YouTube of PowerPoint. It’s that simple,” Mr. Gratton said.
For more information about online marketing and networking solutions, visit www.ignitehealth.com.
– by Matt Hasson, Staff Writer, Ocular Surgery News
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