Patient Advocate Tools #3 – Promotion
This is last in a series of common questions that I get asked, well, about being me!?This is for folks who are starting out in the health advocacy world or those looking to bump up their work a notch.
Send me a DM if you have other questions and I’m happy to add to this series!
I live in Canada and I’m a woman, so that’s two strikes against me for self-promotion. I was taught to stay quiet, be well-behaved and apologize for taking up space.
Well screw that.
After I wrote Bird’s Eye View: Stories of a life lived in health care, I had to make a decision. Was I going to put my book away in my nightstand, unread and forgotten about, written just for me. Or did I want other people to read it?
I wanted people to read it and talk about it, especially health professionals and students, to understand the caregiver and patient experience. I wanted to use the book to amplify my message about more humanity in health care for all.
If you want people to know about what you are passionate about, you have to tell them. More than you think - over and over again. Repeat the message is another lesson from my health communications work. Repeat, repeat, repeat.
This is called promotion. I find promotion extremely uncomfortable. I’ve been criticized for many things, including promoting my own book. I ask you this: if you spent years of your life writing a book, wouldn’t you want people to know about it too?
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The only people who don’t have to do active promotion are mega-celebrities. I am not a Kardashian so I have to do my own promotion.
(For those who say they don’t have to do any promotion and they just function by word-of-mouth, I say hurrah for you! But I have to talk about the work that I do in order to do more of this work. This is the reality for most folks).
This brings me to you. If you are an advocate in the health care world, please tell people about the work that you do.
Importantly, share the work of other advocates for we must lift each other up as we swim against the tide of the stagnant status quo.?
I understand if you are wary about promotion. It still makes me feel uncomfortable. Dr. Rana Awdish generously gave me this advice when my first book was published: Think of your book not as you, but as a tool for amplifying your message.
You want people to know about your passion, your reason for being, the good you've made out of a hard situation, right?
If you want your message shared, you have to tell the world about it with no caveats or apologies. Be proud of what you’ve done and shout it from the mountain tops. (Share your work with me and I will shout it from my mountain top too).
Co-Founder & Co-Moderator at #gyncsm chat
10 个月I love this>>>share the work of other advocates. It is so important that we raise each other up and help each other along the way. Another way to promote your book - walk into your local library and donate a copy of your book . When I went in with a copy of "100 Ques and Answers about Ovarian Cancer " a book I co-authored, the librarians were happy to add it to their collection. After that another branch in the library system added to their collection.
Healthcare Advocate | Patient Experience Consultant | Marketing & Bus. Dev. Professional | Author | Speaker | TEDx Speaker
11 个月Yes! So true. It's hard to get comfortable with promotion and sharing your own message. I found personally I had to make a choice that in order for me to be able to share my message (which was really important to me), the only way to do this was to: get on social media, make a website....all the great things you have listed. BUT, it took a little internal struggle first to get there. Great advice Sue!