How Nurses Can Utilize The Power of Social Media For Innovation & Professional Development.
Nurses can use social media platforms to connect with one another, collaborate on research, and offer professional support. The article will provide you with information on How Nurses Can Utilize The Power of Social Media For Innovation & Professional Development.
How Important Is Social Media?
How Nurses Can Utilize The Power of Social Media For Innovation & Professional Development.
Social media is an Internet-based technology. It has become an integral part of our daily lives. How Nurses Can Utilize The Power of Social Media For Innovation 2022
We almost can’t live without it [I bet you can’t go three days without checking your notifications on your phone’s screen & scrolling to see updates, messages & newsfeeds].
Social media occupies a large portion of our daily routine, taking up big chunks of our time [the average user spends about 145 minutes on social media daily].
And to many, it is their source of income [they are people who literarily depend on social media to make a living].
How Nurses Can Utilize The Power of Social Media For Innovation & Professional Development.
Can you imagine a world without social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, and LinkedIn? [yeah, right, I can just imagine, it would be super boring].
People have built business empires on the social strength of the media [Facebook alone has over Two Billion Users!]
With the help of social media, we have been able to turn the world into a global village. Making it possible and easy to communicate with people who live in other parts of the world; sharing ideas & opinions; attending meetings; learning; being entertained, and contributing significantly to the economy of our countries.
“More than 4.5 billion people use social media, as of October 2021.”
Media For Good
Will you be surprised if I suggest that access to the Internet [social media] can be likened to access to basic human desires, like electricity, clean water & shelter?
It is considered a basic human desire to be connected to the world via the Internet. The need to connect and interact with people anywhere and at any time.
Media That Sustains
With social media, we can communicate the purpose & content of the Sustainable Development Goals to everyone everywhere on the face of the planet.
With it, we can follow up on progress and assess and analyze how countries and regions are adopting the vision of Sustainable Living.
You may ask how? It’s simple, through the people who interact on the Internet using social media platforms, they are the ones who can give good & accurate feedback, all made possible because of the Internet and Social Media.
A comment was made by a participant in a debate-like discussion of the United Nations Institute For Training & Research during a learning course on “Social Media & Web 2.0 tools for development” on the roles of these innovative tools [the internet & social media] in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
I would like you to take a look at it:
“Without knowing what is out there people cannot make up their minds on what they want, what they value and want to achieve. Access to the Internet is key to this end, since it provides the greatest repository of information on Earth! It is because of this that governments limiting the use of Internet or social media violate major human rights.”
There, we see the importance of the Internet & social media, and how it has evolved to become a force for human development.
Now…
How can Nurses strategically utilize the power of social media?
Utilizing The Power
Connect Yourself
Nurses must strategically connect themselves to the energy flowing on the Internet, primarily through understanding the dynamics of social media so that they are equipped with the knowledge that will enable them to build resilient healthcare infrastructures that have foundations deep in innovation and sustainability.
And how can they achieve this feat? It’s pretty simple, by utilizing the community power available on social media platforms, through active collaboration, continuous learning, leadership & mentorship, and professional networking.
Build A Personal Brand
With the strength of social media, nurses are exposed to the tools & connections needed to build powerful personal brands that resonate with their passions and are consistent with the Universal Vision of the nursing profession.
Building a personal brand is a new idea that many are adopting, especially in the professional world.
Developing [building] personal brands make it easier for you to communicate your values and display your strengths & interests to the professional community and the world.
One platform that Nurses can utilize to display their personal brands is LinkedIn, a social media platform designed with the professional in mind.
If you have not yet started making use of LinkedIn, then you are missing a lot.
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A lot of Nurses have turned LinkedIn into a sort of magnet that has attracted amazing opportunities that helped them to propagate their visions for the profession, and alongside providing them a platform to collaborate with other professionals who share their interests.
Recognize Opportunities
There are tons of innovative ideas that have been nurtured to reality and onward to greatness because of social media & the internet.
Nursing Innovators have been attached to initiatives on social media that have inspired them, mentored them, and some have even gone to the extent of assisting innovators with the necessary resources needed to scale their ideas.
What ideas have you been nurturing?
If you desire to let those ideas out, the best medium to use is social media.
You can start by becoming a volunteer. As a volunteer, you are exposed to learning opportunities that can give you the platform to also start developing your own ideas.
What Will You Do With This Power?
When we talk about Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure, our plans, strategies & discussions are incomplete [and ineffective] if we are not putting into consideration the important roles that the internet [and social media] have to play in making sure that we achieve our aims under this part of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Fortunately, more nurses have started realizing this truth, and are beginning to also learn how to utilize the power of social media to their personal advantage and to that of the profession.
Nurses all over the world are amplifying their voices with the help of social media.
Different forms of Nurse-led innovative initiatives are springing from all over the place, and gradually, governments of nations that never placed a premium on the welfare of nurses are beginning to see the reasons why they must pay closer attention to them.
The Influence
There were a handful of campaigns on social media that became so powerful that policies were enacted that favored nurses & healthcare due to the sheer strength & influence of these well-executed social media campaigns.
And there are ongoing campaigns that are gathering momentum enough to unseat policies that have hindered the growth & development of the profession for decades — especially in developing countries and regions.
If you have a unique idea [or an idea that can improve on an already existing idea] that you think will help the profession in any way, nothing is stopping you.
All you need to do is to get out there and let the world hear and see you.
There are strategies that you can employ.
Time may not allow us to dive deeper into this topic. Nevertheless, we must have it at heart that the most important points cut across the need for sharing ideas, seeking mentorship, and getting involved with online communities that share your dreams.
In Conclusion
Social Media is free, all you need to access the world of social media is a device that can connect to the internet & a data subscription [for some].
What have you been using it for? Entertainment? Well, it’s good to be entertained [we all need to have fun and relax], but you must also know that the same tool that you are using to just have fun can change your life and the life of a lot of people if you know how to utilize it.
I will suggest or recommend that you begin to start being more intentional in your use of social media.
If you are not learning something new you are trying to connect with someone who can teach or mentor you. Or, you are looking for people who you can teach or mentor.
You have something to give, all you must do is look within.
This is a big, wide, and deep topic, one post will never be enough to cover it all. I hope to write more about it.
Anyway, I hope you have been able to seize one or two lessons from this post. And you have also contacted enough inspiration to set you on the right course and make you start a new journey in the world of social media and the internet at large.
I write on Care City, and you can subscribe to my free personal newsletter Unbounded here [I write about Nursing & Healthcare leadership, Digital Health & Healthtech, Personal & Professional Development, and lots more]. I am also available for freelance writing gigs. Should in case you want me to work with you, I will be glad to contribute to the wonderful work that you are doing. And I also guest blog, you can reach me via a tiny mail here, or follow me on Twitter.
