Thursday, January 21, 2010

Randall Wong, MD: Ease into social media using PowerPoint

Using the Internet, Web 2.0 and social media can be as easy as using PowerPoint. Want to try? Web 2.0 and social media are pretty hefty terms to define in just one post, but let's chip away at it by using the example of a PowerPoint presentation.

Most docs are used to giving presentations. We give them to our colleagues, staff (in-service), patients, etc. More formal lectures are given at our medical and scientific meetings. Most of the time we use PowerPoint.

Web 2.0 is about sharing and collaboration. Take one of your PowerPoint lectures and upload to the Internet. There is a social media site call Slideshare. As YouTube is for videos, Slideshare is for presentations; Adobe, text, and PowerPoint.
Read more
Signing up for Slideshare is easy and free. Create your own user name and password, and upload your presentation. You need to type in your title and description. "Tags" are similar to keywords. It helps interested readers find you, both within Slideshare, and outside. You will also choose a category and then decide if viewers can download your presentation.

That's it! You are done! You are now using social media to contribute to the Internet. Using Web 2.0 philosophies, you are sharing your information, inviting others to review it and contribute.

Instead of giving your lecture to a few or hundreds, your lecture is now available for an unlimited number of people to view. You can also choose who is able to view your presentation by keeping the presentation private. If you want collaboration, you can allow people to download your file.

I created the presentation "Social Media: Why Not?" for medical practices. The presentation was uploaded several months ago. My social media for medical practices presentation was created on PowerPoint, and the SlideShare presentation is exactly how I formatted the lecture on my computer and works as easily as PowerPoint. The web site tracks all kinds of stats, such as the number of views, etc.

People interested in social media will search within the SlideShare.net website and might discover my presentation. Similarly, as the files are indexed by Google and other search engines, the lecture may appear if you were to Google about social media.

Best of all, people may share or tell others about your lecture by e-mail or social media. How?

By using a link to your presentation, people can use e-mail to share the link and your presentation. E-mail has its limits. Generally e-mails are shared between only two people; the sender and the receiver.

Instead, you or others that find your presentation interesting could post the link on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social networks to broadcast or share with others. Using these media, many can see your presentation simultaneously as all people subscribing/following/friends of the sender will be able to view the link.

Your message can become viral — and all you did was use PowerPoint.

1 comment:

  1. That sounds like an interesting site. I will have to try it out. I have some power points that could use some worldwide exposure.

    ReplyDelete