Intro: The following SHSMD Podcast is a production of DoctorPodcasting.com.

Bill Klaproth (Host): On this edition of the SHSMD podcast, we talk about Social Media + Healthcare Heroes: A Dynamic Duo. Joining us is Carly Cori. She is going to be speaking on this topic during this year's SHSMD Connections Annual Conference in Denver, Colorado, October 13th through the 15th. Registration is open. Make sure you sign up now. So, why is it beneficial to spotlight your healthcare heroes and how do you do it? Well, let's hear more with Carly right now.

This is the SHSMD Podcast, Rapid Insights for Healthcare Strategy Professionals in Planning, Business Development, Marketing, Communications, and Public Relations. I'm your host, Bill Klaproth. In this episode, we talk with Carly Cori, Director of Social Media and Engagement at Stony Brook Medicine. Carly, welcome to the SHSMD Podcast.

Carley Weinstein: Thank you, Bill. I'm happy to be here.

Host: Yeah. Well, I'm happy to talk with you. I always love talking to social media experts, and especially social media experts that come with a twist, as we're going to be talking about Healthcare Heroes, a dynamic duo. So, Carly, tell us about your session. What can we expect?

Carley Weinstein: So, in this session which you had noted is Social Media and Healthcare Heroes: A Dynamic Duo, we are going to go over how to take employee recognition to a whole new level, weaving it into a social media strategy and maximizing impact by working across teams and really creating an integrated marketing campaign that is aligned with organizational priorities.

Host: Yeah. That's very interesting. A lot of times we hear don't focus on yourself, focus on the audience or the people you're trying to reach. So, why is it important to showcase and honor our healthcare heroes on social media?

Carley Weinstein: Yeah. So first, it's important to define what a healthcare hero is. So, we consider Healthcare Heroes to be every single person who works at Stony Brook Medicine. So, when we recognize somebody as a healthcare hero on social media, it could be a physician, it can be a nurse, it can be administrative staff, housekeeping, transport, food services, our staff touch the lives of patients and our community in a number of ways. So, we all make an impact in, the best ways that we know how. So, it's important to recognize our Healthcare Heroes because quite frankly, it's the least that we can do. Our Healthcare Heroes give. They're all for our patients and our community. They've chosen a life of service, and recognizing them in marketing and communication efforts is really a small token of appreciation. It's just a way to say thank you. It's a way to spotlight people who have dedicated their lives to our community. And, you know, we have seen firsthand that this impacts morale within our organization. It makes people feel good. And we all love seeing our friends and colleagues be being recognized. So, it's nice for our community to also get an inside look at who we are as well, right? It humanizes us as an organization.

Host: Yeah. I think that's a good point on how you said it improves morale. So, I would imagine this does wonders. People are recognizing me for the work that I'm doing, showcasing the great work that we do as a team, et cetera. So, that really does help morale, right?

Carley Weinstein: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, know, in terms of measuring the success of our Healthcare Heroes social media campaigns, obviously, we measure things from a quantitative standpoint, right? I handle a lot of social media metrics. So, we can see that these posts are performing well numerically on social media. They're getting reach, they're getting engagement. But then, just as meaningful is the anecdotal feedback that we're getting, right? So, walking around our hospitals and hearing people talking about these features, having people tell us that they really appreciate being featured or seeing these features. So, we really measure the success of this campaign in a number of ways.

Host: Yeah, absolutely. That makes a lot of sense. So generally, we on social media are there to develop relationships with the consumer. So, how do we focus on our internal staff, our Healthcare Heroes while simultaneously supporting our organizational priorities?

Carley Weinstein: Absolutely. So, one of Stony Brook Medicine's strategic priorities is workforce and culture. And I would imagine that, I hope, it is a strategic priority of most organizations, most healthcare systems. And, you know, we want to foster a high performance culture, and one way that we do that is to give people the recognition that they deserve. We also have what we call ICARE values, I-C-A-R-E, which stands for integrity, compassion, accountability, respect, and excellence. And we recognize our staff who embody our ICARE values, and in doing so, we're really achieving a strategic priority.

Host: Yeah, that's interesting. I like how you put that, the ICARE values. So, how do you do this then for someone listening? And I know in your session you'll go into this a lot more in depth, but how do we leverage staff spotlights, if you will, to achieve both internal and external impact? How do you do this?

Carley Weinstein: I already did speak to how our staff spotlights achieve internal impact, right? They boost morale, they make people feel good, they show that we care. We recognize and appreciate their efforts. But these spotlights are communicated both internally and externally. They're sometimes featured on our intranet, pushed on our internal newsletters. They take on video form and they play on our television screens throughout our facilities. But externally, these features are pushed on social media and hosted on the web, on our website. And our main goal externally is really to give our community a taste of who we are. So, to let them know we are not a faceless organization. We are a place with real people who truly care and who provide care for you and for your family.

Host: So, you said earlier, these types of campaigns, or the campaigns you're doing, really humanizes your staff, which I think is really important. Does this send a message then, Carly, to the consumer, we care for the people that care for you, which in and of itself is a message saying to the consumer, that means you're going to get better care overall because the people that are caring for you are well cared for?

Carley Weinstein: Yes, 100%. It's exactly right. it's important for people in our community, the people who we serve to see that we care for the people who care for them. It's exactly what you said. It comes full circle.

Host: So, you do this on social media primarily? Do you do videos too that you put on social media? How do you create and develop the variety of campaigns that support what you're doing?

Carley Weinstein: Yeah, variety is truly key, because content is consumed so differently based on the medium and even based on the audience. So, the way that people respond to content on Instagram, for example, is different from how they would respond to it on Facebook, which is different from how they might receive it on a television screen or in an email. So, we feature our staff in the form of video, photo, and written interviews. We measure success in a number of ways, right? So, I had mentioned we listen to and observe that anecdotal feedback, but then we're also looking at video views, the post reach, the engagement, how long somebody is standing to watch a video that's playing in the hospital. Our team really enjoys that, right? If we're walking in the hospital and we see somebody, whether it's a staff member or somebody in the community, they have somewhere to be, but this video has captivated them so much that they stop what they're doing just to watch a video and watch it in its entirety. It's very meaningful. And it means what we're doing is working. So we're always evolving these campaigns. We're always open to feedback, which just makes them better. And really, Healthcare Heroes started as a vignette series. Now, we have one of our hospitals doing a video version of this very same concept, and it just proves that the opportunities for growth with this campaign are endless.

Host: Yeah, that's really interesting. So, do you have a frequency that you do this? Do you do a Healthcare Heroes spotlight once a week, twice a month, once a month? How do you do that?

Carley Weinstein: This originated back during COVID. And we were really pushing them out about once a week. And we've since pulled back a bit. So, we do two to three a month. And it really allows us to be even more thoughtful about these features and allows us to take more time to do things other than just a photo and a written piece, right? So, video production takes more time. This allows us to kind of dedicate more resources to that. So, the frequency, although steady, has pulled back from where we started at.

Host: Yeah. I'm just thinking in marketing, we have that adage, you buy from people you know, like, and trust, right? Kind of in your personal life, when you go to a party, what do you do? You go and hang out with the people you know, like, and trust. So, by spotlighting these Healthcare Heroes, they're getting to know these people, the knowing, the liking, the trusting. So, I can see where this type of a campaign really would have its benefits.

So, how do you then work with cross-functional teams? There's many different departments within a healthcare organization. How do you do that to maximize success to reach as many people and touch as many hearts as possible?

Carley Weinstein: There are many teams across the healthcare system. And our social team works with employee engagement, patient advocacy, media relations, internal communications, our marketing leads, our videographer, design team, photography, the list is just endless. You know, in order to continue to produce, to grow, and to evolve our employee spotlights. And it would not be possible without this collaboration. We all have different expertise, different thoughts. We all know different staff. And we come together to produce engaging and meaningful features that recognize our deserving Healthcare Heroes.

Host: Yeah. This is really going to be interesting. Social Media + Healthcare Heroes: A Dynamic Duo. Love it. So, any final thoughts before we wrap up, Carly?

Carley Weinstein: Yeah, I would just leave you with, you know, within marketing and communications, we do what we do best to amplify the voices of our Healthcare Heroes who do what they do best, right? Which is to serve our patients and community. So, I'm just so grateful to work at Stony Brook Medicine, and I'm grateful to be part of this community.

Host: Yeah. And I would imagine that in your session, you're going to be showing a whole bunch of examples of the campaigns that you've rolled out. Is that right?

Carley Weinstein: That is correct.

Host: Love it. Well, it's going to be a great session. Make sure you check it out. Social Media + Healthcare Heroes: A Dynamic Duo with Carly Cori, Director of Social Media and Engagement at Stony Brook Medicine. Carly, thank you. It's been a pleasure talking with you. I appreciate your time.

Carley Weinstein: Aw, thank you, Bill. Same here.

Host: And once again, that is Carly Cori. She will be speaking at this year's 2024 SHSMD Connections Conference in Denver, October 13th through the 15th. Get registered now, people, at shsmd.org, that's S-H-S-M-D.org/education/annual conference. Sign up today, you will thank me. You'll come up to me, you'll go, "Bill, thank you. Thank you for encouraging me to sign up. This has been the greatest conference I've ever been to in my life." You'll come up, you'll say that to me, promise. So, if you found this podcast helpful, and come on, how could you not? Please share it on your social channels, and please hit the subscribe or follow button to get every episode. It's chock-full of goodness, people. And to access our full podcast library and other topics of interest to you, please visit shshmd.org/podcast. We've got over a hundred of them. Check it out. This has been a production of Doctor podcasting. I'm Bill Klaproth. See you!