2016 HealtheVoices Conference

Disclaimer: Janssen Global Services paid travel expenses for my attendance at the conference. All thoughts and opinions expressed here are my own.

 Skeptical at first

When I was selected to go to HealtheVoices 2016 I was a bit skeptical.  What exactly was this all about was my question.  But then the excitement of the event began to build.  I leaned that being selected meant that someone else thought what I do for advocacy and blogging was worth enough to invest in.  I was amazed at how smooth the preconference arrangements were made.  I thought even before I arrived this would be a first class event.  It was more than that.

What really made the experience special was hearing that other advocates face similar disappointments and breakthroughs.   I guess what I never expected was how similar I am to other advocates.  The feelings of isolation, the boost a good word gives me, these are all similar for advocates regardless of which health community one blogs about.

Top seven things I learned

So if the experiences are similar then so too are the methods to be used to better our content and increase readership.   I am amazed at how useful these techniques can be. Here are a few of the things I learned:

1. Almost everyone who blogs longer than a few weeks is seeking ways to improve their platform,
2. Community is important to advocacy. Blogging is really about building community.
3. Advocates face a high rate of burn out, if they do not step away and recharge,
4. Content need not be perfect, but it does need to be relevant,
5. Video is likely the wave of the future, and the content length for best viewership is 6 seconds, 15 seconds is next best and after that you must rely on people going to external service (YouTube usually) to view what your produce.  That means in order to get into video I need not be long but I do need to be on point.
6. There are ways to keep content fresh, I need to use them better
7. As a content provider be genuine, and if despite your best efforts that does not build an audience, then at least you made yourself happy and in the end that is the most important person.

Those things may not seem to be earthshattering revelations, but they are validations for me personally and I received many wonderful ideas about new areas of content.

Perhaps most important for me, I got to recharge and listen to ways others are working to improve their offerings.  This in turn gave me an added boost to do new things with my blog and advocacy.  I am very excited for the coming year.

This was a great conference and if you ever have the opportunity to attend you should.

Other shout outs this week:

Wednesday April 20, 2016 is #IwishPeopleKnewThatDiabetes day on Twitter.  Take your advantage to make statements about diabetes all day with the hashtag #IwishPeopleKnewThatDiabetes.

For example: #IwishPeopleKnewThatDiabetes means I have to pierce my fingers 10 times a day so I can test my blood sugar.

People will be tweeting things about this in the hope of helping others understand that those of us with diabetes still face many difficulties.  In my opinion, some of the best of these tweets are from parents of children with diabetes who often are in the thankless position of managing and worrying about all the usual things of childhood plus the fear of low and high blood sugar.  I hope you will join the effort.  If you need additional instruction, head over to Kelly Kunik’s page Diabetesaliciousness© for more specifics; otherwise join on Twitter April 20th.

Also, May 6 is the Indiana diabetes advocacy event training being held in Greenwood Indiana.  It will be good fun, so please consider registering and joining us.

Take away for April 19, 2016

• The HealtheVoices 2016 conference was amazing. If you are interested in advocacy and social media look for an opportunity to go next year.  It is well worth attending.
• Advocacy invovles many of the same hurdles regardless of community.
• Please tweet for #IwishPeopleKnewThatDiabetes on April 20, 2016.
• Please sign up for the Indiana diabetes advocacy program May 6, 2016.