Thursday, June 13, 2013 Social Media WCVM Writing Tools Workshop for Research Summer Students

Social Media | WCVM ✤ Western College of Veterinary Medicine @VetTopics ✤ Facebook: WCVM alumni, WCVM prevet students, WCVM Today, One Health Leadership Experience. ✤ Flickr: WCVMToday ✤ YouTube: TheWCVM ✤ Podcasting

Social Media | Dr. Chan ✤ Dr. Melodie Chan (WCVM ’02) Genetics Business Lead and Manager, Veterinary Services, Cattle Division, Zoetis Canada ✤ Regular Twitter user ✤

Social Media | Dr. Creelman ✤ Dr. Cody Creelman (WCVM ’11) Veterinary Animal Health Services (VAHS), Airdrie, Alberta ✤ Regular Twitter ✤ vahs.net | ✤ HealthServices HealthServices

Social Media | Dr. Chan ✤ General rule of thumb: ✤ Facebook: For people you know. ✤ Twitter: For people you would like to know. ✤ LinkedIn: For people you work with. ✤ Pinterest: For people who like the same things.

Social Media | Dr. Chan ✤ Food animal production: Twitter delivers fast and easy to read information. ✤ Equine: Large number of horse people are females (ages 45-55). Facebook is the best platform. ✤ Small animal: Twitter and Facebook ✤ Research/academics: Twitter

Social Media | Dr. Chan ✤ Q. Why are you involved with social media? ✤ Proactive in getting the right information out based on science and fact. ✤ Be part of the conversation, be a trusted information source. ✤ Provide people with the facts so they can think critically. They may not agree with the science, but at least they have access to it. ✤ Great way to understand what our audience is thinking. ✤ Challenges veterinarians to continually improve status quo.

Social Media | Dr. Chan ✤ Q. Why are you involved with social media? (cont’d) ✤ Maintain/improve consumer confidence — food production, animal husbandry practices. ✤ Urban/rural divide, fear of the unknown contributing to miscommunication, misunderstanding. ✤ “The more we can be transparent and increase our approachability, the more we can contribute to understanding where our food comes from.”

Social Media | Dr. Creelman ✤ Q. Why are you involved with social media? ✤ Effective means of advertising: Social media is still new among producers, but chance favours early adopters. ✤ Advocacy for agriculture industry: Openness, transparency, education to combat misinformation. ✤ Customer service: Efficient means of client education. More interaction with owners, manager and employees of farms that we deal with.

Social Media | Dr. Creelman ✤ Q. Why are you involved with social media? (cont’d) ✤ Student awareness: Connections for fourth-year rotations, externships, job opportunities. ✤ Personal education: Improving our knowledge base. ✤ Community: “Through social media, a new form of comradery has developed.”

Social Media | Dr. Chan ✤ Q. Why do you take time to be involved with social media? ✤ Twitter: Availability of information at your fingertips. ✤ “Tweeporters”: Tweeting information from conferences — return the favour. ✤ Contributing to the larger “Twittersphere” community. ✤ People appreciate the effort: “thank yous” from followers.

Social Media | Dr. Chan ✤ Q. How does social media benefit your job/practice? ✤ As Zoetis technical services veterinarian: bringing information to the industry (vets, producers, industry). ✤ As private practitioner: Well positioned to provide fact-based information relating to animal agriculture. ✤ Applicable information: not information read off a fact sheet. ✤ Helps establish credibility within agriculture community as a reliable information source. ✤ Keeps internal audience informed. Gives Zoetis a human voice.

Social Media | Dr. Chan ✤ Q. Any examples of linking with key people through social media? ✤ “Virtual” meetings with veterinarians, producers and others in agriculture industry: Expanding network of contacts. ✤ New acquaintances: Looks them up on Twitter. ✤ Fun to look for “Tweeps” at conferences and meetings. ✤ Reciprocal relationships: I help you, you help me. ✤ Use Twitter to ask collective group of people for information.

Social Media | Dr. Creelman ✤ Q. Any examples of linking with key people through social media? ✤ VAHS: becoming well known across veterinary/agriculture communities that are connected to social media. ✤ Producer groups and media: Contacted VAHS for articles, involvement in stories, conferences. ✤ Helps to market VAHS’ services to potential clients, creates more followers, draws more people to VAHS site. ✤ Web site analytics: Local, global visitors interested in what we do.

Social Media | Dr. Chan ✤ Q. What works? ✤ Twitter handle: Pick one that’s concise and easy to remember. ✤ Describe yourself well in your profile. ✤ Keep tweet length to 120 characters or less (to allow for RTs and comments). ✤ Tweeting photos: Good way to draw in people. ✤ Tweet links to relevant articles that are easy to read on mobile devices.

Social Media | Dr. Chan ✤ Q. What works? ✤ Write stand-alone messages that don’t require followers to read several tweets in a row for context. ✤ Ask questions and respond to tweets to engage others. ✤ If you start a tweet with only people who follow both you and the other person will see your tweet. ✤ #FF: Follow Fridays. Great way to promote people to follow or to thank people who have helped you over the week. ✤ Occasional personal tweet: Makes yourself appear human.

Social Media | Dr. Creelman ✤ Q. What works? ✤ Content is KING: Without fresh content, you slip into oblivion. ✤ “If you are not going to commit, then don’t even bother. If you aren’t going to bother, then you will be left behind. ✤ Be creative, innovative, curious and not afraid to fail. ✤ “Yes, I think I sound stupid when I hear my own voice talking about a certain disease or case or what have you, but I have committed to promoting my business, so I have to try.”

Social Media | Dr. Chan ✤ Dr. Chan’s final words of advice: ✤ You control how much information you share — both personally and professionally. If you don’t want to share it, don’t! ✤ Once you put your tweet out there, you can’t take it back. Maintain professionalism with any social media communications that you engage in.

Social Media | Questions?