Thing 5- Social Media#1

Everything in business is about overcoming challenges. We are in a constant state of planning and development, what worked 5 years ago won't work now and we need to be aware that no matter how good we think we are, it'll all change in another 5 years and 5 years after that.

Now.                                                                 In 5 years time.
We have a great workforce.                             do we still have them?
                                                                         what did we do to keep them?
                                                                         or why did we lose them?

We have a great reputation.                             Do we still have it?
                                                                         How did we lose it?
                                                                         How did we keep it?

Having a strategy for development is essential and that is obvious more these days than in the past.  Services such as SSSC, Scottish Care, the Care Inspectorate, Local councils have all completely embraced the Social Media phenomenon lately as a way of keeping directly in  touch with relevant sectors but also engaging with the general public and allowing them an insight into how things are progressing.  Care services like ours are also jumping on the Social Media boat but we have to be mindful of the risks involved in engaging with the public in this way.  Smaller homes won't have the behemoth of IT teams available to larger companies so we essentially have to police ourselves and our online conduct.  We do this, primarily, with a Social Media Policy.  

So far we have a facebook page, Twitter page, Instagram and our very own website (click here).

The pages are public but we monitor them to make sure nothing is posted that could be inappropriate and we tend not to over promote them, opting instead to direct our staff, residents and relatives to them by word of mouth or through email.  We have signed consent to use all the photos and videos we post and everyone is aware that they can withdraw consent at any time.  We also use WhatsApp as a private internal communication group for the staff.

It's become a very safe way of sharing what we do and so far there have been no issues with any of the sites.  We have a lot of relatives who live far away or cannot visit regularly so they are very positive about the pages and grateful they can see whats going on and be able to take part in in our overall activity programme.

Similarly, our current policy on Social Media holds up really well with staff and we have had no issues with their own personal posts.  All our policies are reviewed regularly to ensure they are adhered to and updated as required.

BM