PAFP Big 3: Primary Care & Advanced Social Media

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PRIMARY CARE & ADVANCED SOCIAL MEDIA

A MEMBER’S GUIDE TO CONTINUING THE CONVERSATION

“Social Media, it turns out, isn’t about aggregating audiences so you can yell at them about the junk you want to sell. Social Media, in fact, is a basic human need, revealed digitally online. We want to be connected, to make a difference, to matter, to be missed. We want to belong, and yes, we want to be led.”

“The Internet is not just one thing, it’s a collection of things - of numerous communications networks that all speak the same digital language.”

“Engage.”

- Seth Godin

- Jim Clark

- Captain Jean-Luc PicardStar Trek, The Next Generation

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

What is Social Media? 2Advanced Facebook 4Advanced Twitter 16Advanced LinkedIn 23Youtube 26Skype 44WordPress 60Wrap Up 121

This is an open publication written and produced by the PAFP Communications Department.

Originally published by Pennsylvania Academy of Family Physicians, October 8th, 2012.

Editor in Chief: Michael Zigmund

Managing Editor / Manager of Media and PR: Bryan Peach

Graphic Designer & Social Media Specialist: Tim McKenna

Special Thanks: To all our bloggers on pages 118 and 119. We appreciate everything.

All of the videos within are solely the opinions of their producers, parents, and affiliates and are not endorsed by the PAFP.

PAFP BIG 3, the logo, and other trademarks are trademarks of Pennsylvania Academy of Family Physicians and Foundation and may not be used without permission.

Visit Pennsylvania Academy of Family Physicians online at www.pafp.com.

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Another social media guide? Why?

Wow, I still haven’t even done anything with Facebook, LinkedIn, and ... what’s Twitter, again?

I think I have your “Big 3” pretty well figured out. What will this guide teach me?

Welcome back! Thanks so much for all the excellent feedback on our “Primary Care & Social Media” guide. We’re pleased that it’s been so helpful to so many!

We decided make a sequel to our first guide for a couple of reasons: We want give those who read “Primary Care & Social Media” a basic course on some advanced social media features. Also, we want to introduce family physicians to another group of technologies that

will further their efforts to connect with patients, colleagues, the media and their communities. The PAFP wants to put all the proverbial tools in your toolbox so you can decide how to use social media, whether for personal or public use.

We are your resource for navigating the ever-changing sea of technology and social trends pertaining to family medicine. We hope “Primary Care & Advanced Social Media” fulfills that purpose.

Don’t worry! Our first guide is an open, living document and can still be found online. If “Primary Care & Advanced Social Media” is completely new to you, click here to view our first educational publication.

If you already have a good handle on our Big 3 (Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter) then we salute you! That is excellent news.

You may already be using some of these advanced tools and techniques, which are built off the foundation of our last guide. If your knowledge has already eclipsed the usefulness of this guide, feel free to skip ahead to the chapters on the new technologies.

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Social media, defined.

Tim’s Answer

Merriam Webster Dictionary

About.com

Digital word of mouth.

Forms of electronic communication (as Web sites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (as videos).

Social media is a type of online media that expedites conversation as opposed to traditional media, which delivers content but doesn’t allow readers/viewers/listeners to participate in the creation or development of the content.

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ADVANCED FACEBOOKStill the 800-pound gorilla.

Facebook is still king when it comes to online communities. In the last guide, we showed you how to set up a basic page; how to navigate your news feed, or “backend;” and what people see when they visit your page.

This time, we are going to show you how to set up a “business page” and use Facebook as a professional tool.

We are also going to describe how to use the analysis tools for businesses so you can see just how effective your posts are. And we will tell you how to schedule Facebook posts so they can effectively “post themselves” when you’re away from the computer.

Finally, you will learn how to create events and group pages.

Efficiency. These new tricks will make your Facebook posting much more efficient and will help separate your personal page from your practice’s.

The analysis tools provide you with hard data to examine and determine what type of content resonates with your followers and subscribers.

By scheduling posts and tying them into Twitter, your stream of content and ideas will reach your audience on both platforms at once. This feature will also help you keep your Facebook Timeline constantly updated when time is limited.

What’s new?

What’s the benefit?

Advanced

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Setting up your business pageThis video, created by HubSpot, is an in-depth and easy-to-follow guide for creating a business page. Just like your own personal Facebook page, you will be asked to upload a photo and a cover image, because business pages also use the Timeline feature.

Business pages are tied to one or more personal accounts - Facebook allows multiple “admins.” Users are easily able to pop back and forth between business and personal accounts.

Once you have linked your business page to your personal page, find the downward-pointing arrow beside “Home” and click it to switch between your business and personal pages.

Direct link to creating a business pagehttp://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php

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ADVANCED FACEBOOK

The image below shows how your business pagewill look when viewers visit it.

Still the 800-pound gorilla.

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The big difference between a personal page and a business page is the “Admin Panel” at the top of a business page. Only “admins,” users who are able to access and post from the business page, can see this.

The “Admin Panel” lets you quickly view at the activity on your page. Any new Likes to your page, your posts or your photos show up in “Notifications.” Private messaging (“Messages”) works just like it does with a personal account. “New Likes” are Facebook users who like your business page. Try to cultivate these relationships: everything you post will go straight to their news feed. Finally, “Insights” is an function that lets you download influence statistics to a Microsoft Excel file.

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Once you scroll down past the Admin Panel, a tabbed bar will show up with drop-down menus and icons.

The Timeline drop-down menu collects all the pertinent information about your business in one place. For example, you can create “Events,” see how many people Like your page, link to your photo albums, change your business’s biographical information, and even connect Facebook to your Twitter account.

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The “Highlights” tab lets you sort the way you view content on your page. You can choose to display the Highlights (most important posts by your organization and others), “Posts by Page” (only the posts your organization has made), or “Posts by Others” (only the comments and likes others have made).

The “Now” drop-down menu lets you easily jump from month to month and year to year of your Timeline. This helps users to easily access old posts.

Hooray! Friends! When you are Friends with someone, you can check out their list of friends. Maybe you have someone in common. Remember, everyone has different privacy settings, so you may not be able to see everyone’s full profile.

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ADVANCED FACEBOOK

The “Events” function is a great way to leverage your online influence into real-world social activity. You can create Events to invite people to your conference, event, luncheon or any other gathering you may be hosting in real life.

When you make an Event, it will become a separate Facebook page that you can manage and update.

Simply click the calendar icon and this “Create New Event” box pops up.


Status Events

Photos

Setting up an Event

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ADVANCED FACEBOOK

Think of an Event page like an invitation to a friend’s party that you might receive in the mail. All the information in an Event page gives attendees a clear idea of what the event is, the date and time, the location, and any other germane details.

Event pages have an extra bonus - attendees can confirm on the page if they plan to attend or not, so you’ll have a rough idea of a head count before the event. Attendees also have the ability to leave comments or ask questions.

In the example below, Tim has created an Event page to let his friends know about a get-together for his birthday.

Here is Tim’s Event. He names the gathering and fills in some details, like the date and time. When he types in the location, Facebook will attempt to guess where it is and add it to a map. If the venue either has its own Facebook page or shows up on a map, attendees can click on the “Where” window to get directions.

Privacy features let you choose one of three settings when promoting your Events: “Public” means everyone on Facebook can see it, whether or not they’re your friends. “Friends” lets you only post the Event to your own circle of friends. “Invite Only” lets you choose which friends you want to invite from a pop-up list.


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Make sure to “Add Event Photo”! This makes your event look more interesting, even if it’s a birthday party.

After you fill all the fields, the Event page will generate. This is the Event page for “Tim’s Birthday Night.” It gives the time and date, a map, and the typical posting options (“Write Post, “Add Photo/Video,” and “Ask Question”). Attendees’ RSVPs will show up in the news feed, which makes it easy for those who plan to attend to coordinate their planstogether before, during and after the event.

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Finally, we want to talk about Insights. Insights is a tool developed by Facebook that gathers information to give you an impression of the effectiveness of your business page. It shows things like how many people Like your page, how many people saw it over the course of the week, and how many posts you’ve made. By clicking on “Export Data,” you can download a Microsoft Excel file with data pertinent to your Facebook “reach” (how many people you’ve connected with) and influence. Check your Insights from time to time, and use the tool to hone your social media strategy.

Facebook Insights

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Scheduling a post is an efficient way to maintain both your personal page and your business page ... even when you’re not at your computer.

Scheduling lets you create multiple posts, then assign them to post to your page at a later time. The benefit of this is to keep your page active with content when you’re in a meeting or out of town. The only downside? The spontaneity of social media is sacrificed for convenience. When you schedule posts, don’t forget one of the key tenets of social media: real-time engagement.

Our suggestion? Schedule a couple of posts a day, and always at the same times. This helps your audience to expect a particular type of post or content at certain time.

To schedule a post is simple. Write the content as usual, then, instead of clicking “Post,” click the clock icon at the far left-hand side of the Post box. Input the relevant time, date and year. When you do that, the Post button turns into “Schedule.” When finished, hit Schedule and the post will disappear then reappear at the time you selected. (Note: You can “backdate” a post, but it doesn’t literally send a message back into time. It merely gives your content the appearance of having been posted previously.)

See the button that says “Buffer”? You’ll read about that in this guide’s Twitter section!


Scheduling posts

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ADVANCED FACEBOOK

ADVANCED FACEBOOK

The verdict.

Who does it best?

Facebook is still synonymous with social media for many people. As a tool to connect with your community and patients in a way that is comfortable and recognizable, Facebook is second to none. It allows the story of family medicine to be told and shared by those who practice it every day in a friendly, familiar setting.

With Insights, you can track the progress of your Facebook page and see which posts engaged your audience the most. As you build your Facebook presence, you’ll begin to discover unique methods that work especially well for your specific viewership. Not a single business or practice uses Facebook in the same way, and that versatility is valuable to an organization trying to stand out in the marketplace of ideas.

Creating events is a savvy (and free!) way to get the word out about gatherings and get-togethers that you are hosting. An Events page gives your community the opportunity to interact with your event before the fact and enables you to easily and accurately gauge the level of excitement and expected turnout. Event pages can be created by individuals and businesses alike.

Here are some examples of some great Facebook pages that put images to good use on their pages and post frequently. These examples represent a cross-section of the most successful approaches to Facebook.

http://www.facebook.com/familymed

http://www.facebook.com/DigitasHealth

http://www.facebook.com/nonprofitorgs

http://www.facebook.com/pennsthersheyhttp://www.facebook.com/CDC

http://www.facebook.com/PrimaryCareProgress

http://www.facebook.com/RazorfishHealth

http://www.facebook.com/smexaminer

http://www.facebook.com/AnnvilleFamilyMedicine

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ADVANCED TWITTERA little birdie told me...

The core functionality of Twitter hasn’t changed at all. It’s still a fun way to connect with people across the planet and enjoy the instant gratification of replies, retweets and direct messages. Twitter moves at a breakneck speed, and that’s a large part of its appeal - but sometimes, it’s easy to get disoriented in the current! So in this section, we’ll discuss applications that can make your Twitter activity much more efficient.

Twitter lets you connect with literally thousands of third-party applications, or “apps.” These applications can perform a wide range of tasks, from posting tweets for you to rating your social influence; from allowing you to use multiple Twitter accounts at once to adding cool filters on your photos. We will go over some of the apps that we use at the PAFP. These apps are free to use, so take your time experimenting with them!

Because you can use Twitter from your smartphone, your tablet and your home or business computer, some apps are designed to work on dedicated platforms: mobile, PCs, Macs, tablets, and so on. Because so many options exist, we will show you how to remove services so your Twitter application doesn’t get cluttered. Twitter is simple already, and the last thing you want to do is make it unmanageable. Remember - apps are for efficiency. If one doesn’t work for you, use something else!

What’s new?

Advanced

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A little birdie told me...

BufferBuffer is a service you can add to your Twitter account that lets you create tweets (or retweets) and schedule when they post. A common issue with Twitter for physicians is that Twitter requires you be constantly active, and that isn’t always possible with a full day of patients, meetings, errands and the like. This can frustrate new users immensely; in fact, it causes plenty of users to drop Twitter all together. That’s why some intrepid developers thought up a way to let you write tweets and schedule them to go out at specific times. This way, you are engaged in your online community without having to be a slave to your computer

or mobile device. The bonus of Buffer is that it also connects to your Facebook, so you can post to both accounts from one session. Here’s an example of how to use Buffer: You can compose your tweets and posts in the morning, schedule them out for different times, then check the responses accounts when you have time. For the more active user, you can use Buffer to create dedicated posts (for example, a featured tweet on a specific topic) so that your followers can always expect to see something new at a designated time, while still allowing you to tweet and post as you normally would through the day.

ADVANCED TWITTER

Video: “Buffer in 90 Seconds”

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ADVANCED TWITTERA little birdie told me...Klout

TweetReach

Klout is a company based in San Francisco. It is a social media “metrics” website, which means that it tracks and shows how other users are engaging with your content. When you join Klout, you will be asked to either connect your Twitter account (which is preferred) or your Facebook account. Regardless of whether you’ve used it before or not, when you join, you will have a “Klout Score.” This is a number between 10 and 100 developed by the Klout team as its powerful computer models look at your tweets and posts across the social media spectrum and analyze their popularity (shares and retweets) and their reach (how the information has moved through you to your followers and subscribers, then to their followers and subscribers, and so

on) to determine how influential you are. Klout is adding more social networks to its site so you can gain a clearer picture of your social media acumen. These changes include showing you a timeline (similar to Facebook, but intuitively displaying activity from all of your social networks) and better analytics. Klout is often criticized as having value for marketing professionals only, but primary care physicians can get a lot out of this service, too. As a simple way to see your influence across a broad spectrum of networks, Klout will give you an impression of how well your message is being received by others - and how recognized you are as a thought leader or expert in your particular areas opf expertise.

TweetReach is a tool that lets you track the influence and reach of any hashtag, handle, keyword, phrase, string of text and URL (remember all those terms from the last guide?). TweetReach shows your reach (how many people actually read your tweets), your exposure (people who have seen your tweets and name by searching, and through other people who share your tweets), and activity (how often you tweet and retweet). It also displays those who share your tweets are helping

to broadcast your content. If you like slick graphs and numbers that give raw data more tangible meaning, TweetReach is a nice tool for in-depth analysis.

TweetReach is free, but you can pay a monthly fee for various levels of analytics. Our opinion: Leave the pay-per options to the social media marketers who are paid to be on Twitter all day. The free report is more then enough.

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A little birdie told me...ADVANCED TWITTER

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ADVANCED TWITTERA little birdie told me...

TwylahTwylah is an interesting, brand new service that reads through your tweets and finds commonalities. Maybe you like to talk about public health a great deal, or perhaps you frequently use the #FMRevolution hashtag in your tweets. Twylah reads your tweets and lets you create categories of searchable content based on the terms and topics you discuss the most.

Twylah houses your tweets in a webpage and serves as somewhat of a social media introduction to you, your practice or your hospital, without making the reader sort through all of the tweets in your feed. It showcases the best of the topics you’re passionate about. It won’t display retweets or direct messages, but it uses a built-in metrics system to assemble a complete webpage with your favorite topics as navigation buttons.

This might seem confusing until you try it out yourself.

Twitter is a great tool, but it has its limitations. It’s a members-only club. It’s a superb way to connect and share, but that conversation begins and ends with Twitter users. What about Internet-savvy patients and colleagues who don’t have the time and effort to put into Twitter, but want to reap the benefits of the content? What about people or companies who are on Twitter and don’t follow you yet, but want to learn more about you and your

motivations in a time-efficient way? That’s what Twylah does best.

Twylah takes your tweets, filters them through your dedicated Twylah page, and turns your conversation into content that is readable by search engines. What this means is that when you tie your Twylah page to your website, search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, Alta Vista, and others can access your website more easily and put your content into search queries. All of this is basic marketing: More people see more of you, more times per day.

Take a look at a few screen shots of our Twylah page. (We happened to luck out: one of their basic color schemes matches the colors of the PAFP logo and branding.)

In the following images, you can see our Twitter topics and conversations at a glance. We often tell people interested in our social media efforts to check us out on Twylah first if they’re unfamiliar with our digital footprint, because it gives them pretty good idea of who we are, conveniently categorized in a single location. On Twylah, there’s no scrolling through long lists of tweets and retweets without any frame of reference (which is what Twitter looks like to the unengaged user). Twylah conveniently adds what your Twitter page lacks: context.

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A little birdie told me...ADVANCED TWITTER

This is the PAFP Twylah Page. As you can see, the top navigation bar displays some keywords that we include in a lot of our tweets.

If you like this page, share it! With all major social networks integrated, you can quickly tell others about the PAFP.

Below the navigation bar, you will see each section laid out with choice tweets that highlight the keyword. The interview that

talks all about Twylah

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ADVANCED TWITTERThe verdict.

ADVANCED TWITTERWho does it best?

Twitter is one of the most versatile social media networks. Because of its inherent simplicity, it is user-friendly for developers to build productivity applications off its solid foundation. Is that always a good thing? Absolutely not. Twitter is utilized by large commercial organizations, individuals, celebrities, small businesses, fictional people (even Batman has a Twitter account), marketers and health care professionals - and because the service casts such a wide net, myriad apps exist to “improve” Twitter that, frankly, do anything but.

We ‘ve illustrated in the previous pages how some of our favorite Twitter apps add different functional upgrades to the user experience. You may happen across an add-on that makes your life easier. But if you are most comfortable with using the basic news feed, there’s nothing wrong with that.

Twitter takes a lot of commitment to maintain. When it comes to you and your usage, ask yourself what strategy works best for you. Like most social media avenues, there is no one answer to this question, no “one size fits all.” Enjoy experimenting!

Here are some of our favorite people on Twitter. They are active, consistent, and strategically engaging.

@markwschaefer Chieftain of the social web’s most unique blog, {grow}. Consultant, college professor, author of Return On Influence and Tao of Twitter. Social Media Bouncer.

@aafpAmerican Academy of Family Physicians represents more than 105,900 family physicians, family medicine residents, and medical students.

@hjluksHoward Luks MD - Orthopedist | New Media~HCR Consultant | Really like my job | tweets not med advice!

@DesignerDepotWebdesigner Depot is one of the most popular blogs about web design trends, tutorials and much more. It’s run by Walter Apai, a web designer from Vancouver.

@JasonBoiesCommunity Brand Journalist for Salesforce @MarketingCloud (formerly @Radian6). Tweeting current events, tech, health, film & pop culture.

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Still the professional.ADVANCED LINKEDIN

Since our last guide, there’s nothing new in terms of functionality for a free profile. LinkedIn, of course, offers paid memberships if you are serious about your networking circles, or if you’re looking for a job. For most primary care physician, a paid membership is unnecessary.

Recently, LinkedIn changed some of the colors on the website. But other then a few cosmetic touch-ups, it’s the same LinkedIn you’re used to.

The new color scheme has a black navigation bar at the top now, with slightly dark gray boxes around sections. This is merely a face lift to help people visually separate different section. Nevertheless, the user experience remains unchanged.

Advanced

Nothing new to report.

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NEW TECHNOLOGYThe following section of this publication, which focuses on new technology, represents the lion’s share of this advanced guide. In the summer of 2012, we brought you our BIG 3 (Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter). Now, we want to show you how to extend those services with three other technologies. Do you need to do these? Not at all. Are they going to help you as a physician? We certainly think that exploring the services to see if any fit your social media strategy is worth your time. We simply want to impart a basic understanding of these technologies so you can determine which ones warrant further exploration.

You know how we feel about the BIG 3. We like to use these services to engage with physicians, organizations, and the public about primary care. Our main focus with social media has been to converse, collaborate and contribute to the discourse of family medicine. Social media is just one part of an overall communication strategy that we employ. Communication is so vital to the family medicine speciality - like Dr. Mike Sevilla said in the above quote, it’s time for family physicians to tell our story.

“No longer are we going to let other people tell the family medicine story.” - Dr. Mike Sevilla

@drmikesevilla | www.familymedicinerocks.com

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NEW TECHNOLOGYA user-generated video-sharing site hosting user channels, news feeds, instructional segments, and a lot of cat videos.

One of the largest and highly recognized blogging platforms. Incredibly flexible and extensive, but easy to use.

A voice-over-Internet service that lets you video chat and conference with people in real-time.

What’s new?

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YOUTUBEShow me how it’s done.

What is it?YouTube is a video hosting website that lets people post videos that they want others to see, share and comment on. People create videos and upload them to their own personal YouTube “channel.” YouTube is a free service that is owned by Google, so if you already have a Google account, you have a leg up on YouTube. If you don’t have a Google account, it’s very easy to set up and use. We will walk you through that process.

YouTube is ubiquitous, by far the most familiar of the three technologies we’re covering in this section. You’ve almost certainly seen a video on YouTube before, and chances are good that someone you know has uploaded one. Internet users ranging from the kid down the street with

a smartphone to the Coca-Cola Company have YouTube channels of their own.

Like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, your YouTube channel is an extension of who you are. YouTube can be personalized, too: many YouTube channels are visually customized.

YouTube lets you upload videos for free. It makes its money through advertising, generally attached to influential videos and channels that get a lot of traffic.

YouTube can also be “embedded,” which means its videos - the entire video window, not just a link or a URL - can be posted on virtually any website.

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YOUTUBE & HEALTHOne of the best ways to connect with patients.One of YouTube’s strengths: you can’t beat the fact that showing someone how to do something has massive influence. It’s like the old adage, “If you teach a man to fish...”

Many people love to watch a good video, and plenty learn best when there’s a visual or video element. Seeing a topic or procedure can help the learner make sense of a difficult topic.

One example of the visual learning concept: “Gray’s Anatomy.” Published by Henry Gray, the 40th edition of this influential work on anatomy was released in 2008. Visually representing anatomy to facilitate learning, it is one of the most beautifully illustrated books on the planet and remains a valued resource for all physicians.

Illustration and demonstration are major tenets of learning. Along with understanding and absorption, YouTube lets you represent a message or an idea in ways that print just doesn’t do as effectively.

In addition to YouTube’s role as an excellent education tool, it’s also a way to creatively connect with people around you. You can develop and upload videos and “podcasts” (web-based audio broadcasts) through which to share thoughts, news and ideas with your audience. This video blogging (called “vlogging” by some) is a different way to connect with others than mainly text-based approaches.

YouTube is one of the cleverest, most engaging ways to achieve your goal of being a recognizable force in the primary care sphere.

In this chapter, we will discuss the basic layout of YouTube and its functionality. You’ll learn how to set up a channel and upload videos. Unlike other forms of social media, it can be taxing to create content for YouTube. The flip-side is that you can “set it and forget it” - you don’t need to keep up with it every day. The medium has long legs, as opposed to the brevity of a tweet.

Ahead, you’ll see examples of successful videos and “YouTubers,” and you’ll gain insight on how to create and edit videos as well.

Note: Creating a video can be a lengthy, tech-heavy procedure. We’ll touch on the process of planning, recording and uploading a video at the end of this section - for now, we just want to discuss how to upload a video, and the social media value of the YouTube service.

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A succinct (if over-caffeinated) description of YouTube’s purpose.

This video on YouTube was recorded by a knowledgeable, animated and fast-talking young man who describes what YouTube is and how media evolves. While he is (clearly) very excited over the topic, he touches on some important points about living with social media in general. Clearly, he is a digital native. But he makes a compelling case for the importance of social media: the innate human desire to connect and interact with one another.

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A succinct (if over-caffeinated) description of YouTube’s purpose.

GOOGLE SERVICESGoogle owns YouTube, and has now for several years. YouTube is considered one of the flagship products that Google offers, along with Gmail (Google email), Google+ (a social media hub), Google Maps (a navigation service), and many other technologies.

We can do an entire guide on Google’s services alone, but right now we’re talking about just one: YouTube.

To upload videos, first go to www.google.com/accounts, then click on “See more benefits of a Google Account.”

Here, you can view some benefits that Google offers. Take a little time and check it out. Since you will need to sign up to use YouTube, it might be nice to examine what else comes with your membership. Having a Google Account is free.

Now, go ahead and click “Sign me up.”

You will be asked to fill out a nifty form. Be sure to read the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. You may also click to allow Google to give you ads based on your web browsing, but that’s at your own discretion.

The next few screens you to upload a photo (which is helpful when you log in to see if it’s your account or not). Then you’re done! You will be taken the Google home page as a reward for your efforts.

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GOOGLE SERVICES

Once you’re all signed in, you will be taken to the Google home page you’re used to. The difference this time? Your photo will appear in the top right-hand corner with your name and a “+ Share” button. (This is for Google+, a social network not covered in this guide.)

Like we said, Google has a lot of features. You can choose to use them or not, but with an account, they are all at your fingertips - don’t be afraid to try them!

Click on “YouTube” to go the video service’s home page. Since you’re already signed in, you won’t have to when you go to the site.

Alternately, you can sign in identically at YouTube.com.

Google has created a web browser called Google Chrome that is completely free to use. It works on Windows PC, Mac, and Linux. If you have a Google account, Chrome has an added benefit: it fully integrates into your Google Account.

Of course, you aren’t required to have a Google account to use Chrome. You start just it up like any web browser and start searching. We recommend using Chrome for its clean interface and ease of use.

Because Google’s services are all integrated, you may see that four-color Chrome logo a lot in your web browsing!

Congrats! You’re on Google!

Google’s toolbar is customized for its user.

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YouTube Home Page

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YOUTUBEShow me how it’s done. You can browse categories for user

videos, or start uploading yours! You can also purchase full-length Hollywood films. Some are even free!This advertising is how

YouTube makes money.

This is your basic YouTube profile: Your channel information, videos you Liked, subscriptions to other channels and more categories.

YouTube saves your searches and builds a list of recommended videos based off of your last views.

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When you’re ready to upload a video file from your computer or make a video with a webcam, click on “Upload.” Upon your first time uploading a video, YouTube will present you with a pop-up box that reiterates all of YouTube’s fun features. You’ll have the option of making your channel private - simply click on “Learn more” to find out how privacy settings work. (This mostly applies to people who use YouTube for personal video blogging and only want their friends to watch.)

If you want to create videos under a company banner or organization (like your practice), at the bottom of the screen, you can see how to create a specific username just for YouTube. You will manage this YouTube account through your Google account.

What’s this?

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This is the basic upload screen. If you have a video you already want to upload saved to your computer, go ahead and click “Select files from your computer,” then find the video you want to post in your computer’s files. If you have a webcam, you can click “Record from webcam.” This will ask you to turn on your webcam, and you will see a screen that will start doing motion and audio capture. Click to record, and when you’re done, click to stop the recording. After you stop recording, you can either start over, cancel, or upload.

Below the white box, you can connect your video to other social media outlets including Twitter and Facebook.

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Here is where you add basic information about your video. “Tags” are keywords describing your video that help people find it when they are searching for videos to watch. Make sure to tag your video correctly (putting “volleyball” in this box if your video doesn’t have anything to do with volleyball is incorrect tagging).

These drop-down menus allow further customization. You can add your video to a category (like Travel, News, and Entertainment). You can also choose whether you’d like the public to be able to view a video, and select whether your video is able to be copied and shared.

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Once you have uploaded a video, you can access the “Video Manager.” The Video Manager is just a workspace where you can see your video activity and your searches for other videos. You can also check the analytics of your videos, view comments made on your videos, and look at the videos you Liked and commented on.

This is the social aspect of video. Your “History” is a group of the last videos you have watched and “Playlists” are groups of videos you want to watch in succession, similar to what you can do with your music on iTunes.

“Video Editor” is a new feature that lets you build your videos from cuts of other videos you have and create simple transitions set to music and other basic editing features. The “Subscriptions” button is simple: it lists the channels you subscribe to. Do you want to see popular your video is? The “Analytics” feature will walk you through the functions the first time you want to take a look at how your video is connecting with viewers. People can also email you directly on YouTube: from your channel to your inbox.

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The “Settings” button will take you to your YouTube “Account settings” page. This page contains all your account information (email address, username, login, and so forth), how to upload videos right from your phone, and what your account’s “standing” is - whether or not you’re following YouTube’s rules. (People who post copyrighted material usually have bad account standings.) Above, the account is set (by default by YouTube) to allow advertisements to be displayed before the video plays. You can turn this feature off, and your viewers will thank you for it. You can also set up links in videos that show up as pop-up boxes in your video.

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Once you’re signed in, search for a video you like. Just under the “video screen” area, you will see “Like,” “Dislike,” “Add to,” “Share” and “Flag” buttons. To Like or Dislike a video, click on that button. It will add to a counter of total Likes and Dislikes, but your name won’t appear. Only comments include your name.

Making videos social

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When you sign in to and out of YouTube, you will see this drop-down, sliding bar that will direct to you a variety of places, like your Video Manager from the previous page, your subscriptions, and your channel and settings. Right now, PAFP Social Media Specialist Tim McKenna is signed into his account. If he wanted to, he could click on Profile and write content that links to his Google+ social network, which will also let him host videos. If he has multiple Gmail accounts, he can switch accounts. Finally, he can sign out.

YouTube is all about the viewing of videos, so you can quickly jump to see the previous videos you Liked, ones you marked as favorites, or ones you marked to watch later. Your history is just the last several videos you watched.

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Making videos social

Click the “Add to” button to put a video in your Favorites list or add it to a Playlist. You can make the video public or private, meaning people who check out your channel of favorite videos can only see the public videos you Liked.

The “Share” button lets you do several things: 1) Embed videos on a webpage (we discussed “embedding” a bit back on page 28). 2) Email a video to someone. 3) Share a video on various social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

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If you click the “More” button below the Facebook icon, you will find several other social media platforms to choose from, like LinkedIn. Google really pushes the G+ (Google+) service, for obvious reasons.

(Note: For advanced web users or those who have written “markup code” before!) When you click “Embed,” a small code window appears with highlight text. This is HTML, the “language” of websites. Below that you have a few video and size options. Embedding a video on a website is a powerful feature: Simply copy the code and paste into your site.

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Last but not least, the “Send Email” button will let you email the link to a video. You can enter the recipient’s email address and add a little note. The big difference between using the “Send Email” button and copying, pasting and sending the link through your email account is that the recipient will get the email from YouTube, not your email address. If you are sending a video to someone not on Gmail, it will list YouTube as the sender in the “from” line (your name will appear inside the email). If the email is going to and from a Google account, your name will show up instead. Confused yet? The easiest thing to do is probably the way you usually send links to your friends: just copy the URL and paste it in an email instead.

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YOUTUBE & HEALTHThe verdict.

YouTube is the dominant online video service. Like blogging and Facebook updates, some users make posting videos a part of their normal routine. Some videos are of the same high-quality work you would expect from TV broadcasts, and others are just simple videos captured on smartphones.

No matter how your video is created, the purpose has to be the same as the rest of your social media efforts. And there are plenty of questions you must answer before you decide to dedicate the time and resources to making one.

Why do a video? How are you going to maintain it? Do you want to produce something that looks like it had a Hollywood budget, or would a simple webcam video better serve your purpose? Do you think your community, colleagues and patients will benefit from seeing your videos? Is posting a video worthy of your time as a physician?

We think that a well-executed video tailored to its audience is the perfect way to change up a social media routine that’s largely based on the written word.

Unlike Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, doing a video has a lot more steps, from the concept, set-up and script to multiple takes, editing and uploading.

Prepare! When it comes to video, a good plan is your most valuable asset.

Luckily, you can do it, and you won’t have to go it alone. There are already a number of primary care physicians who utilize video in their social media strategies. They do a fantastic job of creating engaging videos about a variety of topics that are important to the specialty.

What about equipment and video editing? Yes, there is a lot more involved in the production and post-production of a video than your average Twitter or Facebook user might be used to. If you are looking to post high-quality work on a continuous basis, look for free help! We recommend reaching out to your local college - video production students are always looking for opportunities to create material for their reel.

Of course, making and posting a video doesn’t have to be a big to-do. Your smart phone and webcam are perfectly capable of taking video, and prepackaged software like Windows Movie Maker and iMovie are excellent, user-friendly programs.

YouTube is a great service. It can be quite fun to experiment with. It’s yet another fun, free resource primary care physicians can use to tell their story.

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SKYPERing, ring ... Hello!

What is it?Skype is a service called a VOIP, which stands for “Voice Over Internet Protocol.” That’s a fancy way of saying it lets you make phone calls over the Internet. There are various reasons people use the web to chat on the phone, but you’ll probably be using it in a different way. For example, can you think of an instance where video chats maybe helpful?

Skype has a number of excellent features: 1) It lets you do video chats with other Skype members for free. 2) You can call mobile phones and landlines at a pretty low rate. 3) Free video conferencing! 4) You can share files in real-time during a conversation. 5) It is available on practically every computer operating system and mobile device in some form.

Skype has several levels of subscription. The basic, free level is great just by itself. You can go up to $10 per month for a high-end, multifunctional subscription that lets you call Australia from your handheld game device while doing a video conference from Greenland. If you want to do all that, it’s probably worth the Hamilton every 30 days.

All joking aside, we want to show you the basic, free subscription. If you learn to love the basic service, then you can purchase a plan based on your needs and usage - but you probably won’t want or need to.

Skype is one of those technologies we’ve seen in science fiction movies for years and always hoped for. Finally, we have it.

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SKYPE & HEALTHThe phone call, redefined.

You might think calling Skype a social media tool is a bit of stretch. Perhaps it could best be described as a business tool.

How can Skype be used effectively for your practice? A lot of physicians use Skype as a patient interaction tool. With Skype, you have another avenue to connect with patients for pre-appointment screenings and post-appointment follow-ups.

A lot of physicians might be wary of using this service because of HIPAA concerns. Physicians can take solace in the fact that Skype uses a 256-bit point-to-point encryption, which adheres with HIPAA’s privacy requirements. It is a secure videophone, and any HIPAA requirements that apply to a regular telephone are applicable to Skype.

The catch? One must ensure their computer system is protected against malicious software and spammers. Just like you would make sure your computer is safe against viruses and malware, to ensure Skype is secure, you would need to follow the same guidelines and practices you should use to protect yourself online

anyway. To some physicians, this may be appealing, and we would suggest that you find some more literature on how to make Skype work for you practice. Plenty of physicians already use it and could be a source of additional wise counsel.

Patients aside, Skype can be used to connect with other physicians, students, and family members. Conference calls with several physicians to come up with an agenda for a conference? Sure thing. Using Skype to connect with students and residents to send files to them? Skype users take advantage of this feature regularly. How about using it as a tool to connect with your office when you’re at a convention or on the rare vacation? All possible.

Skype, in many ways, replaces or enhances what calling on the phone can do. As we mentioned, Skype will even work on your smartphone through a variety of free, high-quality, currently available apps. Will it completely replace the phone call? At this stage, no ... but in the future, we can easily see how video chats and conferencing through the Internet can be directly applied to organizational use.

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A concise and easy-to-follow set-up demo on Skype.

This video from Ed Design Systems is an easy-to-follow demonstration of how to download Skype and use some of the basic features and settings. Since Skype was made to be used on practically any computer or device, the information on what versions of Skype to download will be likely be different when you download and use Skype. The developers of Skype want this technology to be widely used, so there are many different builds and versions to download.

How do you know which one to download? We’re going to take a wild

guess that you’re on a PC. If so, find out what operating system version you have (Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, etc.). You’ll simply download the version of Skype that corresponds with your operating system.

If you’re on a Mac, all you need to do is download the MAC OSX version of Skype. If you happen to have an earlier version of OSX, Skype will give the link to the correct download. (If you’re on a Linux-based computer, you’re probably more of a nerd than our Social Media Specialist, and likely don’t need our help. Carry on.)

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Skype home page

A concise and easy-to-follow set-up demo on Skype.

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Want to skip most of this account registration? Connect it your Facebook and it pulls your info from there.

When you create an account, you will be taken the all-too-familiar “Create an account” page. If you have been following along with our PAFP BIG 3 social media series, you should be a pro at filling out account registration forms by now.

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Make sure to read the Skype Terms of Use and the Skype Privacy Statement. Once you have, agree to them, pick your profile name and password, and continue with registration.

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The next step is optional. You can buy credits to make phone calls (Skype to mobile and landline calls) and SMS (Short Message Service, also known as text messages) to phones around the world. Our advice? This is not necessary from the outset.

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After you decide whether to purchase credits, the website will change to show you that your computer has started to download Skype. If you’re on a Mac, you will have a .dmg file. If you use a PC, it will be a .exe file.

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Once Skype is installed, a short welcome tour will start up. It’s a helpful walkthrough of how to get started with Skype and use some of the features.

PC Installation:

When you download Skype, you will choose a place to install it to. Follow the instructions on the screen and you should have no problem. You can also choose to install Skype in a different location than the default “downloads” folder if you’re somewhat familiar with Windows file navigation.

MAC Installation:

Mac’s a bit easier to install. Once you click the .dmg file, a Skype device will show up on your desktop. When you open it, you will see the Skype application sitting next to your “Applications” folder. Just drag the Skype app in the Applications folder and “eject” the device, then drag the icon from Applications to your dock, open Skype from there, and you’re good to go.

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Skype will open to “Skype Home,” a window that initially includes tips to help you explore some of the service’s options. (Later, Skype Home will show your contacts.) You will never see any ads in this space, just Skype. Skype gets most its operating revenue from paid users and from Microsoft. (Microsoft purchased Skype a few years back, but Skype remains semi-autonomous in how it operates. Future releases of Windows will include Skype in the bundled package of software.)

Click on your name to view your profile and change your profile settings. Want to buy those credits from before? Click “Add Credit” to do so. The “Search” bar lets you search your Skype app to find contacts, files or potential new contacts.

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When you click on your name, your profile will appear with all of your various settings. This is PAFP Social Media Specialist Tim McKenna’s Skype account (user name: tmckennapafp1of3). This account has the PAFP office number and Tim’s PAFP direct phone number, a general “About Me” section, and some basic demographic info. When this screenshot was taken, Tim had just set up his account, so it looks very similar to how your account will look when you first join Skype.

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By clicking on “Contacts,” you will have several contacts already in place. The “Skype Test Call” should be the first call you make - it will allow you to check your sound settings. If you can hear the call, you’re in good shape. Since this is the Mac version, Apple has included its customer service numbers in the downloaded package. If you’re on a PC, you will have Microsoft customer service numbers. Here, you can see Tim already has a contact: PAFP Media and Public Relations Manager Bryan Peach.

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Phone button = Voice ChatVideo button = Video ChatBlue Chat button = Text Chat

When you click on a contact, you can see their profile. This user only has a Skype Account set up. If you had their phone number, you could add it to their profile for your viewing only. “Adding to list” is similar to how your cell phone categorizes numbers (home, office, mobile, etc.), and it shows what time zone they are in.

Right now, this user hasn’t uploaded a photo to their profile, but at any time, they can update their profile and make changes. They can decide what their contacts can see and what everyone can see (for example, you can hide your phone number from the public, but your contacts can see it - useful and safe). By clicking on the green button by the phone symbol, you can call the contact if they are online. By clicking on the round blue chat bubble button, an instant message window will open that allows you to talk via text chats.

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Want to add a contact? Sure thing. You can search by name, by Skype profile name, and by phone number. Click on “Contacts” and the “Add Contact” button and, you will get a screen like this. You can search with a variety of filters from the top search bar portion. If you are looking to simply add a contact and their phone number, you can at the bottom. This highly depends on if you plan on sending voicemails and texting through the Internet to mobile phones. If you don’t ever plan to, then what this turns into a digital contact list, similar to your phone’s contact list. If you ever do want to use more features of Skype, then you have already done most of the set-up work for further use.

Best Tutorial on Sharing a Screen and Files on Skypehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCDCaBo99B8

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Here, we are looking to add to our contacts list. (Tim has two accounts, one for work and for personal use. To demonstrate how to add someone, he is connecting with himself. He has unwittingly found himself in the midst of an existential crisis.)

We searched for a user and got a hit. When we click on the Green “+” button, a text message box will appear prompting us to write a message to ask to be added to their list of contacts.

Write anything you want in this box. When the user you want to contact signs in, they’ll see your message and either add or ignore you. Write a kind message so they know it’s from a real person!

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SKYPEThe verdict.

Is that it? Yes, in fact. There really isn’t too much to Skype. It’s simple enough to get up and running - you can go from downloading it to playing with features in under 30 minutes. All you need is someone to connect with.

In the interest of time and space, we didn’t cover every single feature of Skype. This section of the guide is simply meant to give you a basic understanding of what Skype is, how to set it up, and how to use it. We know what you’re thinking: “But you didn’t actually connect with anyone. How does that work?”

We’ve got a great resource for that. Visithttp://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/features/and watch Skype’s four videos. Skype put a lot of effort into creating these videos, and we think they give a tremendous overview of the service.

We also encourage you to test it out with your significant other, a friend, your kids, one of your staff members, or even our PAFP Communications Department.

Skype as a tool for health care is something you will see grow in the future. This is first-generation technology that will eventually lead to networked hospitals, practices with view screens, and Internet-connected applications that will facilitate efficient patient care. We know

it sounds very science fiction, but these small innovations in how we connect with others lead to massive social innovations and uses. Remember, technology grows exponentially!

With Skype, you will be able to connect with your peers and constituents, with outside vendors and family, and, if you so choose, even patients.

Unlike the other social media outlets, Skype does not require planning or long-term goals. It is a rather utilitarian service that happens to connect with Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

By connecting with Facebook, you have seamless integration on Skype’s interface with your Facebook friends who use the service. You can also receive your Facebook and Twitter updates through Skype if you’d like to.

As a means to connect with your colleagues, Skype is a great tool. Many use it as a way connect with family and friends for free. The continuing chatter about use in patient interactions is worth following. Some already use it with patients. Others don’t. Our advice is to talk with a physician who uses Skype and consider how it might work for you. If you’re wary of using it this way, you’ll still get plenty of valuable use out of the service.

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WORDPRESSIt is written...

What is it?We saved the longest section for last. WordPress is an open-source blogging platform that lets you create a full-fledged website with a blog. Open-source means it’s free to use, and many people contribute to the development of the project or product.

WordPress has been around since 2003. It has steadily increased in popularity and usage. WordPress has grown from a small blogging resource into a fully featured “CMS (Content Management System)” and dynamic blogging community and set of technologies.

WordPress is one of three well-known “technology stacks” used by web designers and developers. Joomla (www.joomla.org) and Drupal (www.drupal.org) are the others. In the world of web design and development, you will hear these three mentioned quite a bit. We are starting with

WordPress because it is, in our opinion, the easiest to learn from scratch.

WordPress lets you not only create a space to blog, but actually build an entire website that you can update and control yourself. The focus of this guide will be to create a free WordPress.com blog. The lessons you will get from this section will be directly applicable to creating your own website as well.*

We won’t kid you: creating your own blog requires a lot of time, patience, thought, and faith. No one blog is ever an overnight success. Your blog, once set up and thought through, will be a way for you to share your thoughts and expertise with your patients, your community, and everyone online across the world. A blog will also tie all of your social media efforts together.

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WORDPRESS & HEALTHA centralized place for social media and your authority on health care.

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Blogging has been around since before the dawn of the social media sites. You can argue that blogs are the progenitors of social media as we know it today. Blog posts are the forefathers of posts and status updates on Facebook and LinkedIn. RSS Feeds (truncated links of your blog) are essentially how Twitter began.

Blogging about health care is nothing new. Many doctors have been doing it now for a long time (10 years is a long time in the world of the Internet!) and many more have started blogging since then. Physicians keep blogs for many reasons, from maintaining a record of their activities outside of the practice, to talking about the latest news in health care today. Primary care, in particular, has a lot of bloggers, from the physicians who have laid the social media groundwork for us, to new FMIG and med student blogs that allow us to track their progression as they learn more about the speciality.

Primary care physicians have adopted a lot of social media tools in their utility belt, and blogging has been one of the mainstays.

Today, there are many blogs that are cited constantly for their progressive content - sharing ideas that cause other physicians, health care workers, government officials

and the public to think critically. The future of primary care depends on physicians telling their own story. This is a powerful notion that can quite conceivably and tangibly “change the world” if put into practice.

It won’t happen overnight, but by coming up with a strategy and goal for your blog, you will start gaining dedicated readers. With Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, tying your blog to social media outlets ensures you reach the widest possible audience.

Blogging can be a useful way to teach others about primary care. By educating the public, we create a base of constituents that supports our initiatives and our interests.

Unlike other forms of social media, blogging requires an excess of planning and strategy. If done correctly, with a clear vision of what you want your blog to grow into, it can be one of the most gratifying ways to connect with people.

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What? No video?

Website or blog?


We want to walk you through everything with screenshots. Because of the popularity of WordPress, there are literally thousands of videos on YouTube about how to start your blog, build a website, best practices, and much more.

There is too much information to start off with just a video. The fact is, many of the videos on WordPress can are not meant for web designers, not health care professionals.They assume you are a web designer and developer.

We are not going to assume that at all. There will be terms and ideas in this chapter that will be new to you. We will take the time to

explain every new term so that this section will be easy to follow and understand.

Unlike previous chapters in this guide, there is one paid resource that we enthusiastically recommend. It is well worth the expense.

Lynda (www.lynda.com) has how-to tutorials on WordPress Essential Training that is, without a doubt, the best way to learn all the ins and outs of this technology from a trained instructor. It’s just $25 per month to access Lynda’s entire library of videos. Once you read this chapter and get really excited about WordPress, check Lynda out and see if it’s for you. We can’t speak highly enough about this incredible resource.

Is a blog a website? Can your website have a blog? The answer to both questions is yes.

A blog is simply a website were you can add journal-style entries. Blogs can be interactive, with social media buttons, comment sections and embedded video.

A website can have the same features, but we tend to think of websites as being updated less frequently. Websites exist primarily to give readers information about

something, like a business or service.

Blogs are written to be engaged with, to foster discourse. A website is not as concerned with social interaction.

WordPress can you let you build a fully functioning website, with or without a blog section. This is what a “CMS” does for you. We will begin this section by creating a website that has a blog. Along the way, we will teach you how to take things further.

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This is where you will go to make your blog. WordPress.com is the home site where millions of users blog about their passions. Chances are good that you will find several primary care physicians and other health care industry professionals on here as well. Let’s check out the home page.

Web term:CMSAgain, “CMS” is short for Content Management System. It is a bridging technology that lets non-developers maintain and manage a website.

WordPress is a CMS. It will let you manage your website or blog from a login backend (similar to a newsfeed which only you see, and your Facebook timeline, which your friends can see).

www.WordPress.comWelcome to

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1

2

3

4

5

Yes, this is a screenshot of WordPress’s very long home page. Here’s the breakdown:

1) The pretty slideshow with the “GET STARTED” button. We will click that button to create our account.

2) Examples of different styles of WordPress sites, called “themes.”

3) “Custom domain.” If you want to make a WordPress site into your business website, you can have WordPress host it for you for $13 a year. We’ll get more into this later. Right now, we will not be using this feature.

4) The social media aspect. You can connect everything to everything else!

5) WordPress.com links.

Wow. That makes no sense.

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Themes add customization and functionality to your site. A lot of them are free, but some you must pay for. Some web designers and developers make a living just creating customizable themes. Again, we will be using the default “Twenty Twelve” theme. It’s the basic theme that all WordPress blogs start with.

Web term:Themes“Themes” are prebuilt designs for your blog. They basically make your site look flashy and not boring. There are hundreds of themes with different styles, and they add different functionalities.

The default theme is called “Twenty Twelve.” We will work with this theme through the tutorial.

Themes.

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Social media.

The footer.

WordPress can connect your to all your favorite social media outlets. Unlike most social media today, WordPress is ad-free, open-source and not commercially funded.

Like the footer of a letter, WordPress has a footer with links to all its services and features. If you feel like perusing and taking a look at some of the cool features, go ahead.

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We need to take some time with this section. Since WordPress is a CMS, you can build an entire WordPress-based website with all the bells and whistles. The goal for this tutorial is to get you up and running with a free account so you can start blogging today.

The difference between a free WordPress account and a paid one is the “URL,” or web address, illustrated below:

yourprimarycareblog.WordPress.com - This is a free account.

yourprimarycareblog.com - This is a paid account.

Does that “.WordPress.com” part bother you? If it does, then you may want to purchase an account for WordPress to host your own blog. There are advantages to this. If you don’t have a personal website, or if this blog is going to be for professional use, taking the steps to create your own website here is a smart idea.

This is decision you will want to consider. It all depends on how you want to blog. If you want a professional blog that you’ll spend serious time to cultivate and promote, hosting may be a good option. But you’re under no obligation to do so - especially not from the outset. This tutorial will assume that you simply want a free blog.

Hosting option.

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All right, lets get started.

Click on “GET STARTED” and you will be taken to an account sign-up page. It’s pretty standard. By default, the blog address is set to “.WordPress.com.” If you click the blue arrow button you can see the various paid options. Each field has a description to the right explaining what information Word Press is looking for.

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This is your web address, your URL ... what people will type to get to your blog. Think of something unique. Maybe your practice name?

Your username and password are extremely important. Don’t make your username “Admin,” which is an easy target for hackers. Make sure your username is something easy to remember and unique. Unlike Facebook or LinkedIn, you don’t get security questions to answer if you forget your username. If you forget it, accessing your blog becomes impossible.

If you forget your password, you can always reset it with your email address. Usernames don’t. Make sure to use an email address you access frequently. Passwords need to be strong, meaning capital and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols.

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Once you fill out the form, scroll down. Right before you’re ready to create your blog, WordPress tries one last time to get you to “buy up.” Again, this isn’t necessary to start with. In addition, you can always upgrade later. Go ahead and click “Create Blog.”

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After you’ve clicked Create Blog, you will get an email from WordPress’s automated service to activate your account. On this page, you will give some bio information for your profile. Your profile lets you comment on other WordPress blogs without being anonymous.

Check your email! You will have an email from WordPress with this button (make sure to “Display Images” in your email). When you activate your blog, you will log in.

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Success! You have a blog.

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WordPress “Dashboard.”

This is your “Dashboard.” When you are logged into WordPress, this web page come up. This is where all of the management and updating will happen. Watch the video to the left for a basic overview.

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The “Menu The “Menu Bar” is your friend. Everything you will do on your blog will be done from here. Let’s break down what each link is. Whenever you hover over any link, a box will pop out to the right and give you extra options.

With a WordPress account, you are connected with millions of other blogs. That is why you have a profile: its like joining Facebook. Your profile lets you comment and follow other blogs that are out there in cyberspace. Without a profile, you would have a few extra steps to leave comments on other users’ WordPress blogs, and comments wouldn’t contain any biographical information (like your username). WordPress is a community like Facebook in that way. You can choose to follow other blogs or not.

“Home”: Clicking on this will take you back to the main Dashboard page. The links below let you see analytics and keep up to date with blogs you like.*

“Store”: Only applicable if you are paying for hosting.

“Posts”: For writing a blog post.*

“Media”: A repository for photos.*

“Links”: Links from your blog to another, WordPress automatically builds some in.

“Pages”: Like posts, but creates a brand new webpage.*

“Comments”: Manage comments people left on your blog.*

“Feedbacks,” “Polls” and “Ratings”: All information polls you can set up.

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“Appearance”: Lets you change your theme and theme settings.*

“Users”: If you want, you have can multiple people access your Dashboard and blog. Additionally, you can set up any new user and determine what they have access to.

“Tools”: Only needed when you are moving a WordPress blog from one hosting to another.

“Settings”: General settings, from how you want the text to look to the size of post boxes ... and much more!*

* Anything with an asterisk means we will use these features a lot.

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To log in and out of your WordPress blog, find your username on the top right-hand corner of the page. Click that and a drop-down menu will appear.

You can sign out from here, no matter what page you’re on. This dark gray bar at the top will be on every page when you’re signed in.

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On the far left-hand side, you will see the name of your blog. Hover over that and a drop-down menu appears with links that quickly take you to pages in your Dashboard.

By clicking on your blog name, you will be able to view your blog the way that visitors see it. This is a great preview feature.

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The backend (Dashboard).

The frontend (what visitors see).

You can toggle the view by clicking on your blog name on the top left hand corner. This is useful to preview how something looks when you make a change on the backend.

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What’s next?

Oh, is that all?

Make a page.

Write a post.

Create some categories.

Add some photos.

Change the appearance.

Check analytics.

Use widgets.

Change settings.

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WordPressIt is written...

Make a page.By default, your blog has one page containing all of your blog posts. You can make as many pages as you want, though. When you make a page, you will add a link to your navigation bar so visitors can click on it and see what information the page contains.

Step 1: In your Dashboard, click on “Pages.” By default, a list of all of your current pages comes up. Click on “Add New.”

Step 1

If you want more than one single page, here are some good ideas to branch out:

- You can make an “About” page that explains the purpose of your blog. Tell about your practice, yourself as doctor, and why you’re blogging.

Links: You can “spread the love” with a “Links” page. Link to other blogs you like or organization websites like pafp.com.

Gallery: If you’re good with a camera, you can add a “Gallery” page. Maybe it’s photos of your office, landmarks around your community, or snapshots from conferences. People love seeing photos.

Contact: Do you want people to contact you through your blog? Setting up a simple “Contact” page is a great way to get people to email you while circumventing spammers.

Ideas for pages

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Step 2: The “Add New Page” window. Here you name the page and add some page information. Write up the information you want to add to the page, then you can save it as a “Draft” and work on it later or preview it to see how it looks. If you like it, click “Publish” and your page is automatically added to your website’s navigation bar for visitors to click.

Step 2

“Page Attributes” lets you make drop-down menus and base your blog off templates. This is more of an advanced feature. “Feature Image” works with blogs that are photo intensive.

By default, social media buttons are already turned on both “Posts” and “Pages.” It’s recommended to have them turned on for posts. Pages isn’t necessary since they don’t change.

You have different save features. Saving a “Draft” lets you work a page later, with visitors unable to click on it. “Preview” lets you see how it looks before you publish. And “Publish” makes it a live link in your navigation bar.

These are some standard formatting buttons you’re likely familiar with if you’ve ever used Microsoft Word. Hover over them to see what they are and give them a try.

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Step 3

Step 3: Publish your page and preview it by clicking on your blog name in the top left-hand corner. You can see the new page was added to the navigation bar and the contents of the new page are just what we wrote. Nothing too fancy, but this screen grab illustrates it quite nicely.

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Step 1: Hover over “Pages” and click on

That’s it for pages. They are pretty simple. If you ever want to go back to a page and edit something, just click on “Pages” then “All Pages” to bring up the list of your pages. Then hover your mouse over the name of the page, and you will see options to “Edit” | “Quick Edit” | “Trash” | “View.” Either click “Edit,” or click on the name of the page to open it up again and make changes. If for whatever reason you need to delete a page, you can always “Trash” it from this menu as well.

What is really nice about this is that posts actually work the same way as pages - however, you will have far more posts then you will pages, and posts show up show up differently than pages. Before we get into how posts work, let’s create some “Categories.”

Categorizing your blog posts does a couple of things. 1) It makes your blog posts easy to search for on your site, as visitors can just look for blog posts by category instead of just by time and date. 2) Categories help to organize your blog. The more posts you have, the harder it might be to maintain a consistent message, and organization goes a long way toward combating that. 3) Adding categories to blog posts actually make your blog easier to search for in Google, Yahoo, Bing and other search engines.

Create some categories.

Step 1

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Step 2 Step 2: Once you’re on the “Add New Category” page, go ahead and make some categories. This requires some thought about what you want to discuss on your blog. If you know some of the topics you want to talk about, go ahead and list them. You’ll see a drop-down menu that says “Parent”; ignore it and keep it at “None.” Add a short description: this helps for searching and categorizing purposes!

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Step 3 Step 3: Once you add a category, you will notice on the right-hand side of the page all your categories are listed. Hover over the names to either “Edit “| “Quick Edit” | “Trash” | “View.” “Slugs” are hidden identifiers when people search your site for a particular post.

Now that you know how pages work and you have some categories set up, let’s talk about posts in WordPress. Like we said before, writing a post is almost identical to creating a page. By default, the home page of your blog lists your blog posts. Right now, we are going to keep it that way. Once again, the “Twenty Twelve” theme is the standard blog theme that everyone starts out with. On the next page you will see how the blog page (or as some people call it, the “blogroll”) looks.

Posts are where the fun happens. This is where you can get very passionate about your subject. If health IT is something you’re very interested in, posts are where you talk about it. If you want to discuss PCMH, blog it in a post!

Write something!

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This is the main section of your blog. It is standard to see many websites and blogs with this two-column structure. The large section is where posts and page information shows up.

This smaller section is called a “sidebar.” The information here stays the same on every page for quick navigation and links. The sidebar is where you have widgets installed. See the section on widgets for more info.

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WORDPRESSIt is written...Here is our blog. You can see the blog name at the top, with the subtitle below it. The navigation bar has the horizontal lines telling you they are different from the rest of the page. “Home” is the blog page, which we are currently on.

“Hello world!” This is the first blog post you have. Everyone starts with this blog post when they create a WordPress blog. It is meant to be used as a teaching device. Eventually, everyone just deletes this first post. Below the post, you can see the category it has been set to, which is “Uncategorized,” and the timestamp showing when it was created. This all appears on the left-hand side of the page.

On the right-hand side, you can see this column is narrower than the space taken up by the blog. Look at the search bar - this lets visitors search your blog for relevant topics. WordPress is made with a database which saves all your posts, so visitors can search for posts that can go back years.

“Recent Posts” shows the headlines of your most recent posts. They are links. Visitors can click on each and read that post.

“Archives” is a feature that takes your posts and puts them in timestamped folders. If you blogged in July 2012, you will get a page full of links to all the posts created in that month. You don’t have to create archives, they are automatically created when you post.

Categories: again, people can search by the topics you blog about.

“Meta” is a list of links just for you. “Site Admin” lets you login and out from the Dashboard. WordPress.com is, of course, the WordPress home page. “Entries RSS” and “Comments RSS” are meant if you want to set up a an RSS feed, but that’s another topic.

We are going to write up a blog post and publish it.

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Step 1Step 1: In your Dashboard, click on “Posts.” A list of all your latest posts will show up in the center, just like the latest pages. Find “Add New” to take you to the editing window.

Look familiar? It should. The only difference between this and creating pages is that at the top it says “Add New Post.” On the right you should have three new boxes: “Format,” “Categories,” and “Tags.”

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Step 2

Once you’re ready to post your blog, go ahead and click publish.

Step 2: Go ahead and create a post title (or headline) and begin to write your post. Make sure to click the category it belongs to. If it doesn’t fit any pre-made categories, you can always create one right from that box. “Tags” are keywords about your post. This helps search engines find your posts as well as visitors to your blog. “Format” is your writing style.

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Step 3

Step 3: When you’ve published your post, go ahead and check it out on your page. You should see it at the top of the page as the latest post. Below the post, you will see how it was categorized and what tags are associated with it, along with a timestamp. If it looks good, congratulations! You have made a blog post.

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That was easy!

The act of blogging itself is not difficult, and learning how to manage a blog Dashboard is equally easy when you see it broken down. Now we are going to look at adding photos to a blog post and some more settings options.

Adding photos to a blog post is an important part of reader engagement. Like reading a news story online or in a paper, photos help drive a point home. Adding photos to a post or a page is truly simple, akin to attaching photos in an email.

Add some photos.

In almost any post editor or a page editor, you will see the text “Upload/Insert” and three icons next to it. The first is “Add Media,” which lets you upload photos and music. The second is “Add Poll,” which lets you add a survey. The last is “Add Custom Form,” where you can make a form (like account registration forms) to harvest information. Click on “Add Media.”

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Step 1Step 1: Get a photo you want to post. If you have a photo you took yourself, great. Use caution if you want to post something you found online. The Internet runs rampant with people “borrowing” images from other sites. A lot of photos are copyrighted. Be careful of what images you post, because you can be tracked down to pay a fine for copyright infringement. You can, however, use free image sites that allow royalty-free use of images. www.sxc.hu is one such site.

Once you click “Add Media,” your screen will darken and this window will appear. Very simply, you can drag your photo into the area inside the dotted line, or use the more familiar “Select Files” button.

We are going to post this photo to our blog post. I have it saved to my desktop.

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Step 2Step 2: Once you upload your photo, the bottom portion of the pop-up will appear for you to insert information about the photo you have just uploaded. Title your photo (by default, the current title is whatever the photo was originally named) and make sure to put something in the “Alternate Text” box. Alternate text is helpful for visually impaired visitors. Their web browser will read the alternate text to describe the photo to them, so just type in what your photo is.

Adding a caption is pretty self-explanatory. When you write a caption, it will show up in a small box below your photo.

Under “Description,” you can simply copy and paste your caption. The description is how search engines read your photos.

“Link URL” is the location of your image in folder structure of your blog. As you add more and more photos, this URL is the location of where they sit. You’ll never have to worry about it. The buttons “None” | “File URL” | “Attachment Post URL” are also nothing to worry about.

“Alignment” is how you want your photo aligned in your post. Size is set up in standard pixel dimensions based off of your original image. Click “Insert into Post” and “Save all Changes” and close the pop-up.

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Wherever you placed your cursor in the post is where the image will be inserted. It looks strange with all that text sitting at the bottom, so let’s edit the settings. Click on the photo and it becomes outlined. Two icons show up, a small photograph icon and red icon. The red icon is to trash the picture. The small photo icon is how you access settings. Click on this to look at some more advanced settings.

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Step 3: Tweak your photo settings. When you click on “Edit Image,” a new pop-up will appear. I chose “Left” under “Alignment” so that way the text can now wrap around the image. I can even drop the size of the image a little bit more with the size percentage toggle on the left. Many of the edits in this window are the same as when you initially upload an image.

“Advanced Settings” lets you do a lot of coding in HTML and CSS. You don’t have to worry about those settings at all. When you’re done, click “Update,” and you will be brought back out the editor page and view the changes. Update your post, and you’re all set.

Web term:HTML & CSS“HTML” is short for “Hypertext Markup Langauge.” It’s the language all websites use. To illustrate what we mean: go to a web page, right click anywhere, and choose “View page source.” A new page will open - it shows you what the code behind the website looks like. Web developers and some designers can write websites from scratch with HTML.

“CSS” is short for “Cascading Style Sheets.” CSS is used to make your website pretty. HTML is the skeleton and CSS is the clothes. The meat of the website is the content and other coding languages.

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Go ahead and check your post and you will see the changes you have made. At any point in time, you can always make edits to your posts and photos. Next, we are going to spruce up your blog with a new theme to make it stand out visually.

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Themes are pretty cool. They are pre-packaged design solutions, and there are thousands of them out there. Some themes are free, some you have to purchase. With themes, you can change the look and feel of your blog instantly. The rule of thumb is to find a theme and stick with it for a while (a year or so at least) - if you constantly change your theme, you make it hard for visitors to quickly locate things on your blog. When people make a visual connection, it quickly becomes familiar, so rapid or frequent change can be disruptive. Picking a theme is fun and expressive, and it should reflect you, your interests, your desires, and your goals for the blog.

Change the appearance.

Step 1Step 1: On your Dashboard, hover over “Appearance” and click on “Themes.” This will take you to the Themes page.

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This is the page that opens up when you click on “Themes.” You can see at the top under “Manage Themes,” we currently the “Twenty Twelve” in use. From here you can customize some features - and even some design elements - and install widgets.

Below, you will see a long list of themes, including previews. “Premium” themes are paid themes. Should you want to see what a certain theme will look like before activating it, click “Live Preview.” A pop-up of your blog will appear in the style of that theme. When you find something you like, click “Activate.”

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Step 2: Click on a theme you like to preview it. A page will open that will let you do some basic customization to the theme you like. Changing the colors to match your practice’s or hospital’s logo colors, for example, is a way of customization.

Once you get your customization correct, “Activate” the theme and close. Now, at the top of the Manage Themes page, you will see the current activated theme. That’s really it! No step 3!

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Check analytics.At some point you will want to see how much traffic your blog is getting. Having a WordPress.com account ties you into thousands (if not millions) of other blogs around the world. So the people at WordPress developed the “Site Stats” feature. “SEO” and “page ranking” (explained in the box below) are very important - many companies have been built around just these two principles. Site Stats uses an array of services to get your page ranking higher and optimize your blog so that it will appear more often in search engines. This is all a fancy way of saying that WordPress is trying to give your blog a leg up on the rest of the Internet. WordPress also offers a pretty neat tool to check how much traffic you get to your blog and to see how often your posts are viewed and commented on. Marketing people absolutely love analytics and “return on investment” (that is, “ROI”), and the Site Stats feature will give you a pretty good feel for your blog’s effectiveness.

Step 1: Click on “Dashboard,” then on “Site Stats.” This will take you the statistics page.

Step 1Web Term:SEO & page ranking“SEO” is short for “Search Engine Optimization.” It’s a practice of making your website or blog extremely friendly to search engines. They are tips and tricks to optimize your site and its reach, like coding strategies, alternate text fields, keywords, etc.

“Page ranking” reflects how well your site is optimized. When your site is optimized well, search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing rank based on your site or blog’s importance to the Internet on a topic.

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Step 2Step 2: Explore your stats page. “Visitors” are counted and tallied throughout the day. By hovering over the bars, you can see how many people visited your site that day. For some people, this is all the statistics they need to know. “Referrers” are blogs that link to yours - you can see show how many people visited your blog from theirs. “Top Posts & Pages” shows which posts and pages are visited the most. “Clicks” reflects how many links to other pages visitors click (that is, if you link to pafp.com in a blog post, this stat tracks how many people clicked on it). “Search Engine Terms” shows what words and phrases were used when people were looking for your blog. You can explore the summaries and really get a handle on your importance to your audience. This section is all about exploration. No step 3!

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Use widgets.Widgets are built-in, movable items you can show on your blog to give it more functionality and accessibility. Widgets are completely optional, but they can add interesting features and ease-of-use. With a WordPress.com account, you have a lot of the most popular widgets already installed and ready to add to your sidebar.

Remember how we changed the theme of your blog? The sidebar is almost always apparent. Compared to the “Twenty Twelve” theme, this new theme’s sidebar puts each widget in its own box. Here we have the widget for “Recent Posts,” “Archives” and “Categories” showing. Maybe you want Archives above Recent Posts? Let’s see how.

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Step 1Step 1: On your Dashboard, hover or click on “Appearance.” Then click “Widgets” to pull up the Widgets menu, where you can then explore the built-in functions that will extend your blog’s usability. Once on the Widget menu, you will see a plethora of available widgets and descriptions of what each one does. The “Sidebar” box on the right? This corresponds to the sidebar that visitors see. Below, you will see “Inactive Widgets.” Read over the widgets, and when you find one you like, click and drag the widget over to your sidebar. It will make room for your new widget to appear. You may have to adjust some settings on the new widget.

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Step 2 Step 2: Drag the new widget over to your sidebar and place it in the order you would like. When you place a widget, it will open up and offer settings to adjust. Some widgets needed to be connected to other outlets (Twitter feeds need to be set to your Twitter account, for example, so you will need to let your WordPress account access your Twitter account). Once you have made the settings, click on “Save.” In the top right-hand corner of the widget will be a little downward pointing triangle. Click that to collapse the widget.

Drag into place.

Make settings adjustments and save.

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Step 3 Step 3: Check your blog. After you have moved a widget over and configured it correctly, see how it looks. I took the Tag Cloud widget and moved it under Categories. What this widget does is list all the tags I have used, so far, in my blog. As I continue to blog and tag my posts, this tag cloud will grow and grow. If a visitor came to my blog and clicked on “Primary Care” in my tag cloud, the main portion of my blog will fill up with all the posts where I used “Primary Care” as a tag. Widgets add many different ways for visitors to explore your blog, interact with it, and find content on it.

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Change settings.


This last section will teach you to change settings that are global to your blog, meaning they will affect major sections of your entire site. You will visit the “Settings” area quite frequently throughout the life of your blog. You can constantly tweak these options to get things to work just to your liking. Many of the settings are pretty self explanatory, though some have a bit of a learning curve to them. Lets take a look at each option that is relevant to this tutorial. On your Dashboard, click on “Settings” to open up the options.

These options are rather advanced, and you can explore them once you have a handle on the top options. As you’re well aware, WordPress has many features - some you’ll never use, others you’ll rely on. Its friendly community of users can answer questions you may have on new features or functions you have never used.

We are going to go through each of these pages to show you how they are set up and what each option does for you. As you continue blogging, and as your site expands, you’ll return to and use these settings frequently.

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On the far right, you will see this box asking for a “Blog Picture/Icon.” This is the photo for your WordPress.com account profile. Whenever you will comment on a blog or respond to comment on your blog, it will have your photo next to it.

General Settings:You’ll only use this page to make sure that all your information is correct.

The top three options are the most important. “Site Title” is the name of your blog you set up at registration. The “Tagline” is the little headline below your blog name, you can change this once and be done. The email address is important.

If you forget your password, WordPress will email you a new one, so always make sure this is current. The rest of the timestamping functions are for timing out your blog posts. It’s automatically set to your timezone.

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Writing Settings:“Writing Settings” are pretty important. “Size of the post box” refers to the length of your post people can see. By default, visitors can read the first 20 lines of each of your posts - and we think 20 lines is a bit long. Our suggestion? Make it eight. This gives visitors just enough information to get interested in a particular post. After reading the eight-line preview, they can click the title of the post to read the whole thing. Let’s face it, some posts can be very lengthy, and you don’t want your entire blog to be one big block of text.

“Formatting,” just leave the way it is by default, unless you want your emoticons (like smiley faces) showing up as images. Same with “Default Link Category” - leave it be. In addition, don’t worry about “Press This” or “Post by Email.” These are advanced features.

“Default Post Category” is neat. If you think all of your posts are always going to be in the category “Primary Care” for instance, you can change the default from “Uncategorized” to whatever category you blog most about.

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Reading Settings:These setting will affect how your visitors will view your content. By default, your front page is your blogroll, where all your posts show up. You can change this if you want. Maybe you want a dedicated home page explaining what the blog is that includes some biographical information. You can make a new page called “Blog,” then rename your front page “Home” and your posts page “Blog.”

The option “Blog pages show at most” is the number of blog previews you’ll see appear on your page. A preview includes the blog title and the first eight lines of the entry. By default, WordPress is set to preview 10 blog entries. “Syndication feeds show the most recent” should match the number you enter for “Blog pages show at most.” Under the next item, “For each article in the feed,” click “Full text.”

“Enhanced Feeds” are for RSS Feeds. By default, they are turned off and you can keep them on this setting.

“Follower Settings” are emails to people who subscribe to your blogs. They are automated and are emailed out to followers when you update your blog or when they are following a comment thread. You can personalize these emails below. Use these - they let people know to always head to your blog when it’s updated.


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Discussion Settings (top half):“Discussion Settings” are how visitors will interact with your posts and how your blog will alert you of changes. Most of these settings are pretty self-explanatory once you understand the nature of “comments.” People like to comment, add their own two cents and participate in a discussion. This is why blogs exist. Unfortunately, we know all too well that not everyone participates fairly in discussion, like spammers or people who use your comment space to advertise something. Discussing opposing views in comments sections is fine and even invited, but visitors who abuse blog for spam purposes are never welcome anywhere. Keep that in mind when you read through the options on this page. This is just the top half of the settings page.

Web Term:RSS Feed“RSS” is short for “Really Simple Syndication.” Since blogs are database driven, there are websites that aggregate blogs and deliver posts in short newsfeeds to users. Some visitors use RSS feeds to keep track of many blogs this way.


Discussion Settings (bottom half):This is the bottom half of the same page on Discussion Settings, starting with “Avatars.” Avatars are interesting. Visitors who use an avatar (a WordPress.com account profile photo) will be able to comment on your blog, and you will know instantly who they are and see their photo (it could be a portrait, an illustration, an icon - anything you want!). “Gravatars” are separate accounts that people can create and use on a whole host of blog websites including WordPress, Joomla, Drupal and many others. Many times, people who aren’t WordPress member will comment with no photo. The avatar settings help you to determine the visibility of avatars on your blog.

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Media Settings:“Media Settings” deals with your photos, videos, and music uploads. Remember the small, medium and large settings for inserting a photo in a post? Under “Image Settings,” you can choose the defaults for those settings. The “Auto-Embeds” feature has defaults for the size of the embedded media, like a YouTube clip. Here’s a tip: only change the height. If you define both width and height, you may get video players that looked truncated. “Image Gallery Carousel” lets you set up image gallery setting. You only need to really use these when you have multiple images you want to display nicely. “Video Player” is used if you upload a some form of movie file straight to WordPress without using a service like YouTube or Vimeo. Our suggestion is to have a service like YouTube host your video and just embed it. Video files can be very large and slow down your blog. It’s much better and easier to use a free service like YouTube to host your movie files.

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Privacy Settings:Pay attention to “Privacy Settings.” By default, WordPress.com make your site private from search engines. This way, you can set up your blog however you want, then “go live” when you’re ready for the world to see it. Once you’ve set up your blog and you want search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing to start indexing your site, go here and click on “Allow search engines to index this site.”

You may keep your blog private if you’d like, at the risk of making it difficult for the public to find. Remember your audience. People who have private blogs tend to keep them like digital journals or diaries, which is perfectly acceptable for them and their readers. Private blogs don’t show up in search engines and are only accessible by invitation from the blog owner.

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Sharing Settings:Now, we’ve come full-circle: back to Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter! By default, “sharing” buttons are turned on for both posts and pages. On this menu, you can change the order and number of the buttons you want to have link to various social media outlets. Naturally, you will want to link to what we call the “Big 3” (Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter) because they are the most recognizable and familiar social media platforms. Maybe you want to add Pinterest or Google+? In the gray area, drag the service you want from “Available Services” to “Enabled Services” ( just like you would drag widgets). You can adjust the button style below and where the buttons show up at.

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WORDPRESSThe verdict.WordPress. An intricate content management system that is used by all, from large enterprises to the 14-year-old kid who blogs video game reviews from his parents’ family room. If WordPress can be summed up in one word, it’s this: versatile.

Like we said in the beginning, WordPress is only one option of many blog solutions that are available to the public. Is WordPress an end-all, be-all solution to anybody’s website needs? No, but its a nice way to start out. With WordPress, you are right in the middle of the complexity scale. It’s more complicated than some solutions, less complicated than others. WordPress allows you to develop a set of skills that can easily transfer to a different platform.

By no means do we endorse WordPress as the only viable blogging platform for primary care physicians. But we believe it’s an effective tool that balances flexibility with user-friendliness to help you successfully connect with a large audience and tell your family medicine story.

You may be feeling a little bit burned out right now ... OK, perhaps even very burned out. That was a large chapter, with many sections to it. We hope that this guide will be a great point of reference for starting out using the technical features of a blog.

Is there more? Of course! We could do several guides on just WordPress alone. There are many other menus and items we didn’t discuss in our basic run-through. We believe part of the process of using these technologies should be discovery.

When it comes to deciding if you want a blog, the technical portions are really secondary. The main goal of blogging about primary care is to connect with an audience and talk about what it means to be a family physician and the challenges and triumphs you face in your speciality. Your voice is more important than just the look of your blog or what photo you use as an avatar. Your peers are out there right now blogging away on important issues ranging from the use of EHR technology to the Affordable Care Act - and they’re making a difference in the process.

Your voice as a blogger adds to your already growing social media presence. You can consider your blog as your digital grocery store or airport. Visitors come to your blog, pick up some useful information that they want to share and off they go, spreading your message to millions of others.

Blogging and social media combined are powerful allies. Ask yourself: “How do I want to make an impact in the world?” Then, go do it!

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Fellow health care bloggers, assemble!We spoke a lot about other primary care physician bloggers. Here is a list of some prolific physician bloggers who have mastered blogging and social media to bring awareness to their speciality and the topics that are important to them. Of course, this is only a short list out of thousands of great blogs. Take a look at these sites, the layouts, the color schemes and themes, and the bloggers’ writing styles for ideas, tips and inspiration. Notice the layout of the sites and how they follow a two-column format that is so recognizable in current web design.

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Musing of a Dinosaur

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WORDPRESSDesigner or no designer?We mentioned at the beginning of this section that, with WordPress, you can build an entire site. This is not a bad thing to consider if you need a website for your practice. If you are a primary care physician who is based in a hospital, chances are good that you don’t need a website. Having a talk with administration to make sure the family medicine department has a page on the hospital site is a good way to make sure you have a presence within the hospital’s larger web strategy. Maybe your hospital has some social media guidelines and will consider letting you starting up a departmental blog. In the hospital setting, you have more resources to pull from in the information technology world to make systems smooth and operational.

For the family doctor who is solo or in a small- to medium-sized practice with several other physicians, you have some great do-it-yourself methods at your disposal. In these situations, whether it’s just you or a handful of physicians and staff, having a website can be vital to the

success of your practice from a business standpoint. We aren’t telling you anything new here, but many changes to the Internet over the last few years tilt the odds of do-it-yourself success in your favor: while in the past, hiring and maintaining a web designer and a developer was a long, tedious, and often expensive endeavour, the advent of easy-to-use services like WordPress means you can maintain a web presence without breaking your budget or never getting a good night’s sleep.

If you feel this guide has given you the knowledge to create a great website on top of just a blog, excellent! Maybe you just feel comfortable with just a blog, and that’s also wonderful.

Maybe you need help in tackling a full-fledged website. If so, you’ve got plenty of options. You can always contact a local designer. Reach out to area schools and contact student relations departments, where you can get a recommendation from a school official or an instructor on a recent grad. Alternately,

you can check your circle on LinkedIn and find local designers through social media. Don’t be afraid to ask friends and colleagues, either. Word-of-mouth counts for a lot in the design community!

These days, a designer is prepared to handle both sides of design and development. You’ll have to think hard about what you might need a designer for and what budget you have to work with. Designers want to see you succeed just as much as you do: they want to show the quality work they have done for you off to future potential clients. If they do well, so do you, and vice-versa.

Our suggestion? Read this guide and explore the options available to you. Once you get the hang of the Dashboard the features on WordPress, building a site yourself is achievable down the road. Watch videos, Check out the Lynda resource we discussed, experiment. Start off small and build up. It’s exciting to know you have more tools available to you now than ever before!

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COMMUNITY SUPPORTWow ... that is a lot of new technology to get a handle on.

Exactly. This guide was huge. Obviously, we hope it included everything you need to be successful with YouTube, Skype and WordPress. We understand that it is a lot of information to absorb, and we hope you took your time reading it! We feel this guide is most effective if it’s open and available when you’re actually getting acquainted with these new technologies - we don’t expect you to be able to memorize it.

There are many more tutorials online available for even more in-depth uses of these technologies. You can always contact our Graphic Design and Social Media Specialist, and resident tech geek, Tim for any question you may have, and he’ll point you in the right direction.

Tim McKennaGraphic Design and Social Media Specialist Pennsylvania Academy of Family Physicians and Foundation

email: [email protected]: www.facebook.com/tim.mckenna.969twitter: @PAFPandFlinkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/timothy-f-mckenna/21/8a0/a30 (connect with me as a colleague at PAFP)

Our branded social media effort. Whenever you see this logo attached to any PAFP material, you can be sure we will be discussing it on those three channels.

So what’s this logo?

Documents

PAFP Big 3: Primary Care & Advanced Social Media