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Google+Lisa Gualtieri, PhD, ScM

Dept. of Public Health and Community Medicine

Tufts University School of Medicinel.gualtieri@tufts.edu / @lisagualtieri

February 15, 2012

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Select goals• Patient education• Crisis communication• Community outreach• Customer service• Public relations

Decide which social media technologies to use• Who are you trying to reach?• What do they use?• What do your competitors use?

Use social media• How to use appropriately?• How to integrate?• What content?• Who manages/participates?• How much time?

Evaluate social media effectiveness• What are meaningful metrics?• How can they be measured?

Any social media decision starts with overall social media strategy

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Iteration is necessary

• Internally– Your needs and expertise change

• Externally– Social media technologies change• Example: Facebook profiles, privacy, and timeline

– How people use social media changes– Which are popular and demographics of use change• Examples: Second Life, MySpace, and Pinterest

– Health situations and needs change

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For each social media technology

• Who chooses? Are any policies necessary?• How to use a specific technology appropriately?• How a technology is integrated with others and with

a website?• How to select, create, and curate content?• Who manages a technology? Who else participates? • How much time does it take to set up, use, and

monitor and does it involve off-hour?• What are the risks and how can they be mitigated?

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Types of social media1. Twitter2. Facebook3. Google+4. Blogs 5. YouTube and video sharing6. Podcasts7. Flickr and photo sharing8. Pinterest9. Wikipedia10.LinkedIn groups11.“Like”12.Ratings and reviews13.Comments14.Q&A or Ask the Expert15.On demand chat, scheduled chat, and

other online events16.SMS, messaging, and texting

17.Buttons and badges for health campaigns18.Virtual hugs and gifts and other

indicators19.eCards20.Online and permission-based

eNewsletters21.Icons to share content22.Social bookmarking23.Contests 24.Crowdsourcing and collective intelligence25.Games and gamification26.QR codes27.Location-based technologies28.Holidays (day, week, or month)29.Realtime, specialized, and social media

search30.Website integration

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Google+ 101

• Circles control information sharing, supporting– Mutual relationships where personal information can

be shared, Facebook-style– Unidirectional model of Twitter

• Stream– View incoming information, like Facebook news feed

or Twitter stream– Circles gives control

• Hangouts (think local bar)– Audio/video meetings with group up to 10– Anyone from selected circles can drop in and out

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My Profile – Light User

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Will the circle be unbroken…

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Google+ 102

• “Vanity” urls– http://www.gplus.to/– Example: http://www.gplus.to/mariahcarey

• Hovercard or mini-bio– What someone on Google+ has in front of them for

quick decision– Mine says:

Lisa Gualtieri (you)Assistant Professor, Tufts University School of Medicine

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Google 102+

• Look at how Google+ page looks to others• Promote it – an art into itself• Capitalize on Google+ search, social search, and

other Google products• Get in circles, think segmentation• Use imagery• Share content, create polls, etc.• Play with hangouts• Check which features are added/changed

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Case study 1: Anatomy of a Google+ page

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Case study 2: Hospital use of Google+

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Conclusions

• Cons for adopting Google+– It takes time to set up and connect to others– It takes time to craft appropriate messaging and not

just reuse Facebook and Twitter posts– It is one more social media to monitor

• Pros for adopting Google+– It is pervasive because Google is pervasive especially

with social search– Despite Facebook copying innovative features, it is

not dying a slow death and seems to have potential