Is the NHS rubbish with social media? Part II of a three part interview with @markoneinfour

Is the NHS rubbish with social media? Part II of a three part interview with @markoneinfour

by | Apr 29, 2012 | mental health, NHS stuff | 5 comments

What do you think about how the NHS is responding to social media? Read part II of my three part interview with One in Four editor and Social Spider development director, Mark Brown, to get his take on where we’re at with social media and what the future holds. Where do you think we are at with social media in mental health services?It amazes me how little the thinking has moved on in the area of social media and mental health.  It’s like a country, hidden away from progress, on a secret plateau.  There’s so much focus on how does mental health do social media or ‘how do we do social media at people with mental health difficulties?’. It’s unconnected to the experience of people actually doing and using social media. The problem isn’t about access (there are computers in libraries, school, workplaces and an increasing number of homes) the problem is meaning.  Why would people want to go online?  Without a particular reason to do so and support to improve your competency, the tendency is to get there, turn the thing on, prod it a bit and then wonder why it isn’t bringing all of these amazing and life changing things into your life. What are your views about how NHS Trusts are currently using social media? To an NHS press office doing social media, timely means putting out a scheduled tweet about it being a bank holiday, on a bank holiday.  This isn’t to say that there isn’t room for machines (or press offices) to pump content into social media space.  Indeed, if you’re going to see your...
Social media is my rocket fuel – part I of a three-part interview with @markoneinfour

Social media is my rocket fuel – part I of a three-part interview with @markoneinfour

by | Apr 22, 2012 | mental health | 4 comments

Do online networks enhance offline relationships? How can you make the most of Twitter? Read part I of my interview with One in Four editor and Social Spider development director, Mark Brown, to get his take on where we’re at with social media and what the future holds. So tell me a bit about you… I’m Mark Brown. Real world age 34. Twitter age 3 as of 23rd April 2012. I edit One in Four, the mental health magazine written by and for people with mental health difficulties. It grew from my own experiences in my early twenties when I was unemployed, unwell and wondering just what I was meant to do with my life; or more correctly, wondering what sort of life someone with a mental health difficulty was meant to have.  At the time I felt a huge sense of being on the outside of things, not knowing what I was meant to do to have a ‘proper’ life. When did you first start using social media? In 2001 someone I was sharing a flat with won a computer and brought it with him when he moved in.  I didn’t own one of my own until 2006. I’d been writing while I was unwell and it seemed to be the natural step to try to find places to share my writing.  I’m old enough to not be a digital native and grew up in a world where what I had access to intellectually and culturally depended on what was physically there. In what ways did you use social media in the early days? I did what a lot of people...

Social media learning curve – 10 tips for NHS Trusts

by | Apr 5, 2012 | NHS stuff | 0 comments

In our NHS trust we’re on a steep social media learning curve when it comes to connecting online with people who have an interest in our organisation. On Twitter we are @LeedsandYorkPFT and on Facebook we have a fan page for Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. We have a Youtube site and are in the process of setting up Pinterest for our campaigning work. So here are ten things we’ve learnt so far: Getting the basics in place – we have a section on our website with guidelines for members of the public about how we use social media.  We have also developed guidelines for our staff and are busy setting up a section of our intranet site to have useful information (such as guidance from professional bodies) in one place.  We find ourselves amending and adding to them as new issues and possibilities arise. Connecting Twitter to Facebook – in the early days we connected our tweets to Facebook but quickly removed this link. As we began tweeting more we worried we risked spamming people with the volume of tweets popping up on Facebook. Secondly, we wanted to use Facebook a bit differently – less frequently but with longer content and photos. We’re about to start experimenting with opinion polls and event invites and generally encourage people to interact with us more on Facebook so separating them made sense. To friend or not to friend – the steer in all the NHS related guidance that we’ve seen is for members of staff to not ‘friend’ anyone on their personal Facebook who is using services provided by...