Author Archives: Jenn Riggle

Social Media May Be The Media Darling, But E-mail Is Here To Stay

March 18, 2010 – 6:50 am

By Jenn Riggle
We’re seeing the U.S. Postal Service reeling from the impact of social media. Whether it’s the popularity of online bill payments or the movement away from letter writing, “snail mail” just isn’t what it used to be – especially if it means the end of Saturday mail deliveries.
You have to wonder whether we’re [...]

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Seven Ways Hospitals Can Address Facebook Criticism

March 11, 2010 – 7:00 am

By Jenn Riggle

Honesty may be the best policy – but sometimes it can hurt.
While social media allows organizations to engage in honest conversations with their customers, it can also provide a forum for angry customers to voice their concerns. How you respond to these comments says a lot about you and your organization.
Online comments don’t [...]

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Singing the Praises of the Twitter Hashtag

March 4, 2010 – 8:35 am

By Jenn Riggle
In order to effectively use Twitter, you need the right tools. And for me, it’s TweetDeck and hashtags. 
You’ve probably heard your friends or colleagues complain that Twitter can be such a time drain. But as we all know, there’s No Pain, No Gain, and you need to invest time and energy in order [...]

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Sitting on the Fence: Twitter or Facebook

February 25, 2010 – 6:00 am

By Jenn Riggle
I have a confession to make – I’m not a huge Facebook fan.
Now don’t get me wrong, I have lots of friends who love Facebook. They’re always telling me how it’s changed their lives, making it easier to keep up with high school and college friends. By the same token, organizations have done [...]

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Are Hospitals Tilting at Windmills Searching for Social Media ROI?

February 18, 2010 – 6:30 am

By Jenn Riggle
How do hospitals measure their social media return ROI? Or are they tilting at windmills and trying to fight an imaginary foe like Don Quixote. Too often, we find ourselves counting the number of Facebook fans or Twitter followers or the number of people who viewed YouTube videos, trying to justify engagement in [...]

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Public Relations is Like a Clean Bathroom…

February 11, 2010 – 6:50 am

By Jenn Riggle

Why? Because it’s easy to take a clean bathroom for granted until you really need one.
It’s a well kept secret, but public relations is the driving force behind the majority of news stories. When you think about it, the only stories that aren’t PR generated are crime, traffic accidents and weather/natural disasters — [...]

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The End of Social Media Fiefdoms?

February 4, 2010 – 7:00 am

By Jenn Riggle
Like the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, we’re seeing the barriers between the different social media platforms begin to topple. I guess this isn’t surprising, as we see social media become more and more a part of our every day lives.
The good news is that this makes it easier to maintain [...]

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Is Social Media the “Road to Nowhere” for Hospitals?

January 28, 2010 – 8:00 am

By Jenn Riggle
It can be if you don’t know where you’re going.
And according to new research from Greystone.Net, this seems to be the case — only 1 in 3 hospitals have a social media plan.
I’m not quite convinced of the accuracy of this research, which reports that 9 in 10 hospitals/health systems are currently using [...]

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The Digital Kids of Generation X

January 14, 2010 – 11:57 am

By Jenn Riggle
Music soothes the savage beast – and my pre-teen daughter.
As the mom of two tween girls, ages 9 and 11, there’s always a lot of drama in my house. My youngest is a Chatty Cathy with an opinion on everything, while my oldest is a woman of few words – just eye rolls, [...]

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A Tale of Two HIPAA Violations

January 7, 2010 – 10:58 am

By Jenn Riggle 

It sounds like something out of a Charles Dickens’ novel. While most of us were busy preparing for the holidays, two stories were unfolding in different parts of the country where hospital employees lost their jobs because they of HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) violations.
The first story takes place in Houston, [...]

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