Where does social media fit in?

Mayo Clinic announced earlier this week the opening of their new Center for Social Media - overriding the PR and Marketing department efforts within recent years. The medical center has many great accomplishments within the realm of social media. According to their website, they have the most popular medical provider channel on YouTube, over 60,000 Twitter followers, and 20,000+ Facebook connections. They also maintain multiple blogs (all with different audiences and voices), were revolutionary in podcasting (started their journey into social media in 2005), and maintain support forums for diet, disease, and more. Furthermore, the hospital utilizes internal employee newsletters and blogs to communicate with staff and faculty – tools that undoubtedly influenced Fortune Magazine’s decision when rating Mayo Clinic among “Best Places to Work.”

But where does social media fit in? Of course, Mayo Clinic was lucky to have the resources to create a whole new center for the cause. But most nonprofits, hospitals, and corporations aren't able to do something so costly and time consuming and end up grouping it with another department. But where should it go? Is it marketing? PR? Or even IT? I know most of us would be likely to say PR, but I've definitely worked places where they would disagree. In fact, my last internship had IT managing their Facebook and Twitter accounts!

Managing social media is managing a reputation – it can quickly turn into a crisis scenario and they have to be ready to deal with it. Take the Nestlé case that we discussed in class as an example. Their Facebook page was overtaken by Greenpeace advocates, but instead of responding in a calm and composed manner or listening to the conversation, they attacked their fans & critics and alienated their supporters. This ultimately resulted in negative press - and a lot of it! Had they been properly trained in social media, this crisis scenario would have played out in a much different manner.

Mayo Clinic is in an even tougher spot, as they are a health service provider dealing with sensitive information that could potentially lead to life/death scenarios. It's extremely important that they monitor and respond to social media and maintain control – even though they are, essentially, giving it up. The Social Media Center is a great stride for Mayo Clinic, hopefully other health care providers will take notice and jump on the social media bandwagon.

Below is a video of the manager of syndicated & social media for Mayo Clinic discussing the new Social Media Center: