The World of Web 2.0

I think that Web 2.0 will expand even further in the near future than it has recently. In retrospect to three years ago, Twitter was not even on the public’s radar. MySpace was the “it” network, while Facebook and YouTube were just rising. None of those scenarios are the case today. Facebook has made rapid and drastic developments, and many professors are using YouTube videos as supplements to standard PowerPoint presentations. Slowly but surely, Web 2.0 is being incorporated into industries all over the world. I would not be surprised if in three years there were even more social networking sites and organizations focused a lot of time and energy into improving upon their web based activity, which is clearly exemplified in our department.

I think that M&M’s efforts in working with Captiva to improve PPC advertising and SEO are phenomenal, as well as those put into re-launching the website on hospitalist.org. Having in-house graphic and web designers really have given me insight to all the work that goes into a relatively small task. An example would be that every time a short web update has to be made in the Marketing department, it has to be approved by the Marketing Lead, and then sent to Dan. Sometimes it can go through multiple rounds of edits just to get the blurb right. Having firsthand experience with managing Facebook and YouTube, I have realized the work that goes into it from an organizational perspective. As a recreational user, I would never have thought of that because the majority of the events and groups I join are for entertainment purposes or something. The statistics behind these sites can be pretty intense at times, and that’s another part that I never had to experience with personal use. This information that we collect really gives us a chance to target and reach out to members, keeping them informed in a way that was not possible before. Although there is not a large percentage that is taking advantage of it, SHM is ahead of the curve. We’ve tackled a wide variety of Web 2.0: HospitalMedicine.org, Facebook, Twitter, e-mail marketing, blogs, YouTube, and RSS feeds. And each and every day we are learning new information/tips and ways to improve, which will definitely continue within the next few years.

P.S. We just changed our Facebook address to http://facebook.com/HospitalMedicine today. It was pretty exciting... :)

P.P.S. SHM is testing out the new Beta version of YouTube. I’m SURE you’ve all checked out our sweet page before, but maybe you forgot the link… No worries, I’ve got your back: http://youtube.com/SHMLive.