Use of social media in my work

I work in Mehiläinen, a company providing private social and health services. My department, Digital Health services, is relatively new. Our department has grown exponentially even in the five years that I have been working there. At first we were there merely to book appointments and give advice, but in time we grew as a department both in size and in diversity of our tasks. Now what I do is basically assessment, advising patients and guide them to correct place of care. The patient group that I work with is occupational healthcare patients. I connect with my patients either by phone or by chat in the digital clinic, I never actually meet them face to face. My work relies completely in digital ways of communicating. We already use many tools of social media in our work, such as Skype, Instagram, Facebook, Slack, Microsoft Teams, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, HeiaHeia and Whatsapp. Mehiläinen also has a podcast related to mental wellbeing (Pääasia -podcast), and a blog. Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Instagram are mostly used to tell the general public about our work, our company and sometimes of our campaigns. They are also a way to get feedback from our clients. Skype, Slack and Teams we use in our internal communication between teams, coworkers and in meetings. HeiaHeia is a wellness app that we use during workdays to have short brakes during which we exercise at our desks. Whatsapp is used both communicating with patients, and with each other. Important in using all communication tools above, is to remember that their platforms are not secure, and we don’t communicate in writing any confidential information, not even between coworkers. In our company’s YouTube channel there are short snippet videos with information about illnesses and our coworkers telling what it’s like to work in Mehiläinen, to mention a few topics. I don’t personally use many of the tools mentioned above in my work, basically only the internal communication channels plus the wellness app, since we have a whole team concentrating only to the many social media tools used by our company.

Pros and cons of social media

Social media is somewhat of a double edged sword. On one hand, we are able to connect pretty much with anybody, from anywhere in the world. We can share our talent, our life, our stories with the world. We can form friendships that might otherwise had never happened. We can spread crucial information on national level with a push of a button. On the other hand, we have to worry about phenomena such as cyberbullying, anxiety caused by social media, security risks, grooming and the need to always be available, at any time be it day or night. People often act differently online than they would if they were actually talking to you in person. They can be meaner, more direct and even aggressive. This must be considered in our professional use of social media also, since anything we put out there can be spread around in seconds. Any comment or post even slightly out of line, can turn out as a huge PR mess.

New ways to utilize what we already have?

This assignment was HARD. Our company already utilizes so many of the apps in the list given in the assignment, that at first I didn’t know where to start from. I however, tried to think new ways of my department to utilize these tools in the future.

Jodel – I myself don’t use Jodel, but I have many friends who do, and I know that it is quite popular app especially in the younger population. I had a thought that we could issue out information in Jodel about our waiting times in the chat or on the phone lines. Especially since the covid-19 broke out, our lines have been extremely blocked at times. It’s impossible to change outgoing messages in all channels in real-time, and obviously patients are not always happy about that. If we would release information, say hourly, patients would maybe be able to time their contacting of us to the times of day that there is a lull on the lines to our services. We are there in the middle of it all, so we are a better source than most to inform patients about the current situation in the lines. This could also be utilized in Twitter.

TikTok – Sometimes we have patients that are, lets say “less than polite” when talking to us healthcare workers. It’s understandable that when there is pain, worry or discomfort, that one might get angry, and then one has to unload those feelings. It is however, all too common that patients resort to personal insults, even threats when doing this. If we would make videos about artificial situations that are based on the real situations that we deal with, and publish them in TikTok, maybe insert some humor in the videos, perhaps people would take a small moment to consider how they talk to the person on the other side of the situation. This could also be utilized in YouTube.

Discord – This tool was not in the list, but I use it when gamin with my friends. It is a free app with the possibility to chat with video an audio. We could use discord similarly to slack. Slack is a little confusing in my opinion when there are 20+ channels witch we have to follow. I find discord to be more simple and easier to use. There would also be the option to chat with voice or even video, that slack doesn’t have.

Blogger – As I mentioned, Mehiläinen has a blog that on the organization level. I think it would be awesome to also have a blog about my department. It could even be just for the internal communication, so that other departments would know what we actually do.

Todoist – I haven’t ever used this tool, but after checking out the page, but I think that It could be useful. We don’t really use any that type of tools right now, other than basic Outlook calendar. I feel that Todoist, or some other similar type of tool, could be really useful, especially to the supervisors of our department. They have a lot of meetings and deadlines, and this might help them to stay on top of everything.

Self evaluation

This assignment was great! I actually found out more about the company I work for, I had no idea how much we have visibility in the social media. It was nice to try and figure out new ways to utilize social media in my work. I think I might bring some of these ideas to the next monthly workplace meeting also. It also got me thinking about how I utilize social media in my personal life, and I think I must really evaluate my use of time in the web.

I have learned a lot on this course, mainly I think I’ve learned about my self and my attitude and relationship with thecnology and social media. I am so happy that I chose this course as one in my multidiciplinary studies.