Community Health Centers really embraced using video to tell their story during National Health Center Week (NHCW) this year, as evidenced by the more than 40 videos added to the NACHC YouTube “National Health Center Week 2010” Playlist! You can also view these videos on the Community Health Center Facebook Page “NHCW Videos” tab. Does your health center have a video from Health Center Week? Send it our way! Whether your video is on YouTube or another video sharing site, please email the link to grassroots@nachc.com.
Tagging YouTube Videos
Making a video and uploading it to a web site does not ensure that anyone will ever see it. You can help people find your video by using “tags”. When you upload a video to a video sharing site, such as YouTube, you have the opportunity to add descriptive word “tags”. Don’t lose this important opportunity to make your video easier to find (see picture at left). For example, if you search “National Health Center Week 2010” on YouTube the entire first page of search results lists videos with descriptions or titles using key descriptor words for NHCW. Other key words you may want to consider always including in your health center video tags include “fqhc” and “health center”.
Helping People Vote!
Speaking of Facebook tabs, have you seen the new “Vote!” tabs on the NACHC and Community Health Centers Facebook Pages? Community Health Vote, an initiative of NACHC, offers free, health center-specific materials and resources to assist your health center in promoting voting and voter education. Check out the Vote! tabs for more details.
Helping People Find Your Center with Facebook Places
One of the latest features on Facebook is “Facebook Places”. In addition to having an Organizational Facebook Page, now your health center can have a “Places” Page on Facebook. This new tool is similar to sites such as Yelp and Google Places, which pinpoint your address on a map and allow you to display additional information, such as your phone number. Facebook Places is sure to become a viral hit, as people use their cell phone to tell their friends where they are. This is known as a location-based check-in. If someone “checks-in” at your health center’s location, their Facebook Friends will see the location on Facebook – what a great way for existing patients to spread the word about your health center!
If your health center already has a Facebook Page, check out Places and “claim” your health center’s location(s). Click here to read the Facebook Help Center’s Using Facebook Places to Promote my Business for information on how any why you may want to claim your health center’s “Place”. Claiming a Place is fairly quick and easy, giving you the added benefit of listing details such as a health center’s hours of operation, and another way to be viral and visible on the web. “Places” is already designed to interact with other location-based applications and sites, such as Foursquare and Yelp. You can find out more about marketing strategies using “Places” in this piece from Huffington Post and see a step-by-step guide in this blog post from Nonprofit Tech 2.0.
From YouTube to Facebook, new opportunities are constantly developing to make your health center more visible on the web. Whether you want to recruit new patients, providers, or supporters, the odds are a good that some of your audience is searching for your services online. The question is can they find you?
Have social media questions? Attend the Social Networking and Health Centers session, Tuesday, September 14, 1pm-2:30pm, at NACHC’s Community Health Institute in Dallas, Texas or email us at grassroots@nachc.com







