Blogging in Public Health

Today I read a post made by Toby from Diva Marketing entitled "Blogging in Public Health." You might remember Toby from when she spoke to our class via Skype a few weeks ago. I really enjoy the Diva Marketing Blog because the topics are always different and interesting, and the layout and design on the blog really appeals to me.

This article in particular discussed the issue of blogging when it comes to Public Health. Since the internet is now a big web of connected social networks, even the topic of Public Health is frequently broached on the internet. Toby provided some examples of Public Health blogs and then discussed the presentation she made for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Her presentation included this list of "10 Benefits of A Social Media / Blogging Initiative":

1. Tell stories from the heart
2. Humanizes a complex agency
3. Tell your story in your voice/s – no media filter
4. Create relationship with millions of people
5. More people hear your story – search engines, viral marketing
6. Many voices help tell your story – bloggers linking
7. Tell your story when you want – instant, easy publishing [audio (podcast), video (vlog)]
8. Feedback and conversation – increased value and additional information
9. Online information travels offline
10. Mainstream media is turning to blogs for story ideas

I thought this list was great- it stressed several concepts that we have talked about in class and also listed some benefits of social media that I hadn't thought about before. Though I thought many of the reasons listed were great, #2 was my favorite. "Humanizes a complex agency"- I think this concept can be so important. It is really easy to think of big organizations or agencies as impersonal and full of red tape, but when an individual human being is blogging, people can connect better and this definitely gives the agency a more human feeling.

Overall, I think this blog post was great and gave a different application to concepts we have discussed in class.