APMA News - October 2011 - (Page 36)

Technoﬁle Your Techno Questions Answered In this installment of Technoﬁle, we answer a few of your questions about technology, social media, and digital communication. member your audience: If you want to draw in patients, don’t use too many confusing medical terms or graphic images of foot or ankle problems. Don’t forget to tag or categorize your posts. Your blog software should allow you to create a variety of categories for your posts. When you create a new entry, you can assign it to one or more of the categories. This step helps organize your blog and helps users find the content they’re most interested in. A new blog doesn’t gain followers on its own. Promote your blog posts through your other communications chan- QUESTION: I am new to Twitter. I see many “tweets” that include a word or phrase preceded by the “#” symbol. What are these, and why do people use them? ANSWER: You are referring to what are called “hashtags.” Hashtags help Twitter users categorize their tweets and allow other users to find tweets about the same topic. For example, APMA used the hashtag #APMA2011 for all tweets related to our 2011 Annual Scientific Meeting, and we encouraged other users to include that hashtag in their tweets about the meeting. If a user clicked on the hashtag in a given tweet, he or she would see all the other tweets that included the annual meeting hashtag. Hashtags can be particularly helpful for podiatrists who may be tweeting about their practices or a particular foot health topic. If you want your Twitter followers to be able to see all your tweets related to sports injuries, for example, create and use a hashtag like #sportsinjuries every time you tweet about that topic. Just don’t overdo it. Twitter recommends no more than three hashtags per tweet, and we suggest being even more conservative—two at the most. Otherwise, your tweet becomes hard to read. Blogging is a great way to share information with patients and potential patients, the media, legislators, and other stakeholders. It’s relatively easy and costeffective to set up a blog, even if you are a tech novice. nels. Share the link on Facebook, Twitter, or other social media platforms; highlight it on the home page of your practice website; and advertise it to patients via signage in the office or your business card. Good luck and happy blogging! QUESTION: I have a practice website, and I would like to add a blog. Can you give me some guidance on how to get started? ANSWER: Blogging is a great way to share information with patients and potential patients, the media, legislators, and other stakeholders. It’s relatively easy and cost-effective to set up a blog, even if you are a tech novice. Find out what your website developers can incorporate into your practice website, or investigate some of the free blog software you can find on any search engine to set up a separate blog. There are many creative design “themes” available for most of those software platforms that allow you to apply an attractive, ready-made design to your blog. Don’t forget to include photos of yourself and any staff members or colleagues who will be posting. Once you have set up your blog, post short, interesting articles that showcase your expertise and experience. Re36 APMA News October 2011 QUESTION: More and more often, I see square blackand-white images that resemble bar codes. They are in advertising, on packaging, and in publications. What are they? Sample QR code ANSWER: These codes are called QR (quick response) codes. The codes are designed to be read by smartphones. Smartphone users who have an app that allows them to use these codes can scan a code to get more information about a product or service, access a website, or even download contact information. If you have a smartphone, download a QR code reader app as you would any app (there are many free QR code apps available), and try scanning the next code you see. n Do you have a question about how to use technology to advance podiatric medicine? E-mail pstresky@ apma.org.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of APMA News - October 2011

APMA News - October 2011
President’s Message
Contents
ICD-10 in Practice: Coding for Fifth Metatarsal Injury
ICD-10 Benchmarks and Timeline
Team APMA Runs Away with the Show
Medical Mission to Costa Rica: Identifying Fungal Infections of the Foot
Federal Advocacy Forum
Resolutions Submissions
IT Consultant
Can They Really Do That?
Reimbursement
Members Who Know Media
Technofile
Young Voices
Small Business 101
APMAPAC Chair Report
APMA All Stars
In Short
Worthy of Note
Affiliates Corner
List of Affiliated Organizations
Insurance Advisor
New Members
Death Notices
Annual Scientific Meeting Registration Form
Annual Scientific Meeting Sponsors
APMAPAC Update
Development Update
Classified Advertising
Dates to Remember
Advertising Index
10 Questions

APMA News - October 2011