The social media revolution is the defining communications trend of the third millennium. From blogs to Facebook to Twitter to YouTube, the power of worldwide broadcasting and publishing is now available to anyone. Organizations of all types need to at least take into account how these technologies are likely to affect them. Better yet, they should proactively explore how they can use these tools creatively to accomplish organizational objectives. In this presentation, Lee Aase, director of the Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media, will share how Mayo progressed naturally from traditional media relations to direct-to-consumer news delivery to giving patients a platform for their stories. He will describe the steps taken, safeguards developed and concrete results achieved. Finally, he will share Mayo Clinic’s vision to move social media use beyond marketing, applying these revolutionary tools to improve health and health care for people everywhere.
Lee Aase is director of the Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media, a first-of-its-kind social media center focused on health care, which builds on Mayo Clinic’s leadership among health care providers in adopting social media tools. Mayo Clinic has the most popular medical provider channel on YouTube and active, popular outposts on Twitter and Facebook. Mayo Clinic is a pioneer in hospital blogging, and last year launched an online community for patients at http://connect.mayoclinic.org/ and a heart health awareness campaign. By night, Lee is Chancellor of Social Media University, Global (SMUG), a free online higher education institution that provides practical, hands-on training in social media for lifelong learners. Prior to joining Mayo Clinic in 2000, Lee spent more than a decade in political and government communications at the local, state and federal level. He received his B.S. in Political Science from Mankato (Minn.) State University in 1986.