Social Media Etiquette in Pharmacy

Social media (SM) is great. It allows you to connect to a whole load of new people, people you’ve never met and engage in discussion about topics of interest. You can make new friends, contact employers, seek out information and so much more. I know I’ve been able to communicate and link up with majorly important people like Ravi, Ash Soni, and lecturers from different universities in order to have a discussion. There’s no denying, SM is fantastic!

However SM is actually a double edged sword. Look at this public Facebook comment by a fully qualified Pharmacist. The blurred bits are all swear words.

The full article can be found here. As you can imagine, this is a pretty disgusting behaviour. It’s all very well being opinionated and voicing your opinion, but calling your patient a ‘retard’ is unacceptable. As a healthcare professional, or a future HCP, it is essential to keep your SM clean. Comments like that above mean you risk never being employed ever again. Here are more examples, click these links about people fired, one even before they’ve started their job!

Link | Link

These are some I pulled in a 2 second Google search! Speaking to employers, they said they look up potential employees and pre-reg students on SM to understand their character. After all, an application only tells you so much.

Pharmacist’s Cafe’s Guide to Social Media Etiquette

1. Be clean, do not insult any company or person.

Imagine walking into an interview. You’ve spent days researching the company and are fully prepared, you’ve done your hair properly, and you’re wearing that brand spanking new Hugo Boss suit with oxford shoes only to find your interviewer hates your guts before they’ve met you for a post/tweet you made 2 days ago! You can pretty much guess, the interview is going to be pretty painful.

2. Never complain about your job — if you complain, please find a job you’d like

3. If you’re unsure about any post, think what would happen if a patient or employer saw that post — Treat SM as an extension of professional self

4. Engage in discussions

5. Follow @Phacafe

6. It’s okay to randomly join a tweeting conversation

7. Share articles about your interests across SM — it demonstrates passion beyond Pharmacy and you come across as a diverse individual

8. Have a LinkedIn account

9. Use your LinkedIn account

10. Never, ever link your Facebook to your Twitter and/or LinkedIn.

That’s all I can think of currently, thanks for reading!

This article was originally written on 17/6/2015.

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