University of Utah Health Care Gives Docs Something to Tweet About

// By Jane Weber Brubaker //

Do you have a hard time getting your physicians to tweet or blog or post anything at all on social media? So did University of Utah Health Care (UUHC) before the organization found a way to crack the code. “I’m not going to lie, most of them needed some convincing,” says Libby Mitchell, Social Media Coordinator. “Most of them saw it as frivolous. They didn’t see it as a good use of their time.” Kathy Wilets, Director of Public Relations and Content Marketing, adds, “They would ask, ‘Why should I? What am I supposed to say?’ They would send us things and say, ‘Is this okay?’ We started thinking that we needed to give them something to tweet about.”

Kathy Wilets, Director of Public Relations and Content Marketing, UUHC

Both Wilets and Mitchell were TV news producers prior to joining UUHC. Faced with the challenge of helping physicians overcome their resistance to social media and become content creators, Wilets and Mitchell drew on their experience as journalists and built a news-style content platform. “We really tried to put it together with a journalistic vision in mind,” says Wilets. “It really is important to be authentic and real.” If it’s not, she says, “People can sniff it out a mile away.”

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