Meet Your Patients Where They Are: On the Internet

Your Free Medical Blogging Toolkit

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Table of Contents

What is a Blog?

How to Write for the Internet

What You Will Find in Your Medical Blogging Toolkit

Blog Post Ideas

Resources

Tools of the Trade 5

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Your Free Medical Blogging Toolkit: What is a Blog? 3

What, Exactly, is a Medical Blog?

Remember when you used to go to the phone book to find businesses in your area? You needed someone to trim your trees? You’d find them in the yellow pages. Not so much anymore–now we just go online and Google it. Over the last twenty years, the resources available on the internet have expanded exponentially and so have the users.

Today 90 percent of Americans use the internet. That includes nearly all young adults and more than half of all senior citizens. Where the people are, there too you’ll find marketers. Ads are everywhere on the internet. Sometimes one will catch your eye and maybe even result in a purchase, but they can be just plain annoying–especially the pop-ups that seem to have exploded in use recently.

Your Free Medical Blogging Toolkit: What is a Blog? 4

With this kind of traditional advertising, there is a big disconnect between the users of the internet and the people marketing to those users. We (the users) go online seeking information or looking for entertainment, for the most part. We are NOT going there to get the hard sell from a barrage of ads. We just put up with that because it allows the internet to be free. Yes, we pay for our provider but not the internet itself. What if you could bring the aims of the users and the marketers closer together? Wouldn’t this work a lot better for everyone? Yes, and in recent years, marketers have begun to use a more creative form of advertising to sell products and services that also provides value to the user–that is content marketing.

Content marketing is an advertising approach that uses the consistent output of high quality, factual, and useful information to attract customers. A blog is one of the best examples of content marketing in action.

Factual, Useful Info

Your Free Medical Blogging Toolkit: Tools of the Trade 5

The Basic Tools of the Trade

Website To have a blog, you need a website, and that requires a content management system (CMS). About 25% of all websites use Wordpress as their CMS. Other choices include Joomla and Drupal. These platforms have a lot of flexibility. They can be highly customized and tricked out by coding experts, or they can be more plug-and-play versions you buy off the shelf. The choice depends on your balance of time, money and technical inclination. WordPress is the most common and the one we recommend you get started with. It is easy to use, well supported, flexible, and FREE.

Word Processing/Editing To create content you need to choose word-processing software like Microsoft word, pages or Google Docs. Choose the software you are most comfortable with--you can always export to another format if you need to. All of this software has good editing capability, but if you want something more powerful, you can check out the Hemingway Editor or Grammarly.

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Image Editing A good image is one of the most effective ways to get someone to read your blog. Notice we said, a good image. Just about everyone has a camera on their phone, but not everyone is a good photographer. Knowing a thing or two about making the images you have better can be all you need. If you already know Photoshop that's great, but you don't need something that powerful to get a photo web-ready. We often use the simple tools available on our macs. Other good ones include Skitch, and PicMonkey.

Team Communication Unless you are a solo practitioner with a tiny practice, you will likely have some amount of teamwork to run your content marketing efforts. You need to have a way to coordinate projects and communicate with your team. When there are just a couple of people and a small number of projects, email, phone, and texting can be all you need. When things get bigger and more complicated, project management software can be a big help. Our favorite is Smartsheet, but Trello is a great alternative that is easy to use and much less expensive.

More Tools of the Trade

Your Free Medical Blogging Toolkit: Writing for the Internet

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How to Writefor the Internet

Reading on the internet is not comfortable. The glare, the small screen, the competing (and often flashing) ads, and the sheer volume of content to wade through on the internet means we often scan more than we read--and we move fast. We will stop and actually read an article, though, if the content is good and meets our needs. As content creators we need to remember to think like the content readers we are. This means that your article or blog post must be well written, easy to read, and useful to your readers. Easier said than done—we know, but we have a few tips.

Headline Your headline is your first chance to grab a reader. Only about one in five internet readers make it past the headline, so you want it to count. Image Images should be clear, well produced, and relevant to your content. You can be literal or metaphorical with them, just make sure you use them—you’ll get more clicks.

Components of a Good Blog Article

Your Free Medical Blogging Toolkit: Writing for the Internet

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Lede Your lede is the opening sentence or two that can pull the reader further into your article. Make the lede relatable and try not to flood it with too many medical terms or statistics. Nut Graph The nut graph comes next, here you give the reader the gist of what your article will be about. Body This is where you flesh out all your ideas and provide the meat of your content. The body should be full of useful or entertaining information. Call to Action This usually comes at the end of your post. The call to action is something you want the reader to do next. It can be a request to have your reader explore your website, make an appointment, or subscribe to your blog.

Components of a Good Blog Article

Your Free Medical Blogging Toolkit: Writing for the Internet

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Grade Level The average reading level of the American public is surprisingly low and even lower when it comes to health literacy. Aim for content written around an 8th grade level.  Learn more about this in our posts, Two Editing Tools for Writers That Will Help Your Content Sparkle and How to Blog Like a Person: 4 Tips for Doctors. Active Voice Keep your reader moving forward in your article with active verbs. Passive verbs and sentence structure is common in clinical writing but comes across as weak in a blog post. Read our post, Mistakes Were Made: Passive Voice and the Clinician Writer, to learn more.

Rules of Writing for the Internet

Your Free Medical Blogging Toolkit: Writing for the Internet

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Paragraph Length Keep your paragraphs to 3-5 lines deep. Nothing will repel a reader like a huge block of uninterrupted text. Bullets & More Formatting your post with bullet points, headers, indentations and font changes is one of the best ways to make your content easier on the eyes and more scannable (unless you over do it, so do use a little discretion here). Learn more about this in our post, Eight Ways to Get More Patients to Read Your Posts. Style GuideThe AP Style Book, written by the Associated Press, is the most commonly used guide for journalists, news outlets and marketers. Using a guide of some kind will help you polish up your post to make it more professional and easy to read. Read more about this in our post, Do I Need a Style Guide for My Medical Blog?

Rules of Writing for the Internet

Your Free Medical Blogging Toolkit: Writing for the Internet

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Stay on the Right Side of Medical Ethics Medical Ethics is a huge and complicated entity, where some of our hardest decisions are rigorously debated. You don't have to be an expert in this to produce medical content. But you do have to have a handle on some basic tenets and codes of conduct to do it right and to be successful.

Consider Your Audience

A Unique Audience Medical content, whether presented in a blog, an article, a condition page, or even a little tweet is serious in a way that knitting projects, falafel recipes, and build your own greenhouse plans are NOT. Many readers of medical content are potential patients or their loved ones. And since you can't possibly know who exactly will read what you write, to be on the safe side, it's best to treat them all as if they are your patients. This means employing a certain sensitivity to any fears, misinformation, and vulnerability the reader may be bringing to the table. Medical content writers who come from a clinical background have the advantage of years of trial and error to find out the most effective ways to communicate with patients. Even so, they often need to tone down the jargon and humanize their writing. Read our post, The Three Little Pigs of Medical Copywriting, to learn more.

Your Free Medical Blogging Toolkit: Writing for the Internet

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Stay on the Right Side of Medical Ethics Content marketing heavily leans on social media, whether via a blog, Twitter, or an ever increasing field of outlets (Snapchat, Instagram ...). The social nature of these platforms means that the lines between being a professional and being someone's friend can get blurry. It is also a little too easy to slip or inadvertently associate yourself with breaches of patient privacy. The best approach is to understand professional codes of conduct and to apply these as best you can. Many professional medical associations have issued social media guidelines that are publicly available. We have written a whole lot more about this and have a list of resources you can use in our post Don’t Blow it on Social Media: Resources for Healthcare Professionals.

Social Media Engagement

Your Free Medical Blogging Toolkit: Writing for the Internet

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HIPAA The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) is where the ethical rubber meets the legal road. This piece of legislation has taken what may have been a list of ethical standards and turned them into legal statutes that can get you into serious trouble if ignored. I am talking about huge fines and even loss of license. Of particular importance in medical content writing is observance of HIPAA's patient privacy laws. What this translates to most often is making sure you have a legally drawn up set of consent forms. Before you share one word about any patient case, whether you mention their name or not, you need these forms signed. Read more in our post, MedBlog Writers–Read this Before You Interview Your Next Patient.

Social Media Engagement

Your Free Medical Blogging Toolkit: Blog Ideas 14

Great Ideas to StartYour Medical Blog

Now that you know a bit about how to write medical content, you need to think about what you are going to write about. The key to this is answering this one question: Who am I writing for? Who are you writing for? Defining your audience is critical. To generate business, you need to write for the people who will benefit the most from your product or service. To help with this, marketers will often develop buyer personas. In your case, they would be patient personas. For an OB practice, for example, they would be women of childbearing years, and for a dance medicine clinic, they could be professional ballerinas. The more patient personas are fleshed out, the more targeted and effective the content can be directed. Depending on the practice, you can have just one or many personas. You can get more detail on this in our post, Jump Start Your Content Marketing Strategy by Answering this One Question.

Your Free Medical Blogging Toolkit: Blog Ideas

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Once the question of who is answered, you can get on with picking specific subjects to write about. You can start out general, for example a pediatric practice might choose childhood vaccines, but then you need to pick a specific angle to take. Something like, "Should your Child get the Flu Spray or Shot this year?" For a topic to be interesting to read, it needs to be narrowed down to support some kind of thesis. Instead of writing about the importance of good posture, for example, you could write about how teens today are suffering from increased neck and shoulder pain because of their ever-increasing use of smartphones. With that in mind, deciding on your subject is really only limited by your imagination. We have found several types of content that are particularly effective for medical practices.

What to Write About

Patient storiesWhat’s in the news (or Piggy Back Posts)Controversial medical topicsCommunity involvementStaff and clinician storiesLatest researchProfessional activities

You can learn more about these in our post, The Seven Best Blog Topics for Your Medical Practice.

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Most of us have old unused prescriptions in our medicine cabinets. The old idea that you should flush these pills down the toilet is out. Be a resource for your patients and write a post about proper drug disposal. Suggested points to cover:

Why proper disposal mattersEnvironmental impactGuidelines for drug typesLocal locations for drop off

Resource: US Food & Drug Administration Guide for Drug Disposal

#1 HOW TO DISPOSE OF UNUSED PRESCRIPTION MEDICATIONS

Use this image for your medical blog: Image by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash.

Here are five blog post ideas you are free to use:

Your Free Medical Blogging Toolkit: Blog Ideas

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Most often it's not necessary to see a doctor for back pain. But here are five signs that it is time to make that appointment. Suggested points to cover:

Numbness and tingling down your arm or leg or in the groinDifficulty walkingDifficulty urinatingUnrelenting pain for three daysHistory of cancer or osteoporosis

Resource: American College of Physicians Clinical Guidelines for back pain

#2 WHEN TO SEE YOUR DOCTOR ABOUT BACK PAIN

Use this image for free on your medical blog: Image by Wolfgang Claussen from Pixabay.

Your Free Medical Blogging Toolkit: Blog Ideas 18

This is valuable information at any time of year, but it might be particularly pertinent during back-to-school season, during the holidays, or when people are traveling. Suggested points to cover:

Wash hands-- keep scrubbing while you sing happy birthdayCough into your elbow, not your handWipe down your steering wheel and other shared surfacesDesignate your own towelDon't touch your face

Resource: Center for Disease Control Stopping the Spread of Germs at Home, Work & School

#3 FIVE TIPS FOR KEEPING YOUR COLD TO YOURSELF

Use this image at no charge on your medical blog: Photo by Matthew Henry on Unsplash.

Your Free Medical Blogging Toolkit: Blog Ideas 19

Inadequate sleep has been connected to a number of health issues, including obesity. Help your patients benefit from a good night's sleep by sharing important sleep hygiene tips with them. Suggested points to cover:

Keep technology out of your bed.Avoid screens that emit light right before bed.Keep a notepad and pen by your bed.Drink water in the earlier part of the day, stop two hours before bed.Start a meditation practice.Create a bedtime routine and stick to it.

Resource: MayoClinic Sleep Tips, JAMA Meditation & Sleep Research

#4 FOUR SIMPLE TRICKS FOR GETTING A GOOD NIGHT'S SLEEP

Use this image for free on your medical blog. Photo by Alexandra Gorn on Unsplash.

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With this information doctors can act quicker, and make more informed decision so you get the best care. Suggested points to cover:

List of prescription names and doses.List of all your doctors names and phone numbersList of allergies--codeine, sulfa drugs, eggs.List of current medical conditions.Keep this list where you can find it.Give a copy to a close family member who can act on your behalf.Don't forget to keep it updated--revisit every six months to a year.

Resource: How to Maintain Emergency Medical Information

#5 HOW TO MAKE A MEDICAL EMERGENCY LIST

Use this image for free on your medical blog: Photo by Adolfo Félix on Unsplash.

Your Free Medical Blogging Toolkit: Resources 21

Resources to Use for Creating Content

Writing and Editing

Microsoft WordGoogle DocsHemingway AppGrammarly

Team Communication

TrelloAsanaSmartsheetGoogle DriveDropbox

Free (or really cheap) Images

PixabayUnsplashDeath to the Stock PhotoCreative Commons

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More Resources

SkitchPhotoshopPixelmatorPicMonkey

Image Editing

Educational Resources

CopybloggerContent Marketing InstituteLynda.comPurdue Online Writing Lab (OWL)

Medical News

NEJM Journal WatchKaiser Family FoundationMayo Clinic NewsNew York Times HealthWall Street Journal Health

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And Even More Resources

WordPressStudioPressBluehostSiteground

Website Hosting and Tools

WordPress Plugins

AkismetWordPress SEO by YoastJetpackTestimonial BasicsExplanatory DictionaryHTML5 Responsive FAQ Email List Management

MailChimpAWeber

Your Free Medical Blogging Toolkit: Resources 21

Need HelpCreating Content?

We hope this toolkit is a valuable resource as you begin your journey into creating content to promote your practice and improve communication with your patients. But we know it's not always easy to carve out the time or energy to make these things happen. At CB Medical Marketing, we specialize in expertly crafted medical content. We pour our years of experience as medical professionals and as medical writers into writing the highest quality, evidence-based materials, all designed to appeal to your audience - the patient. If you would like to know more about our services, please click here to contact us!

Bliss Mishler, MSPT & Amy Rogers, MD