Mayo Clinic has gone YouTube.
"Mayo Clinic's YouTube channel was quietly launched about a month ago, and has typically been in the top 30-40 channels among nonprofits," said Lee Aase, Mayo's manager for syndication and social media, who blogs at Social Media University, Global (SMUG)
The channel's description says it's "a place to see what makes Mayo Clinic special, and to watch videos about Mayo's latest research and treatment advances."
The channel has racked up more than 3,000 views.
Mayo launched the YouTube channel "to make its videos more accessible to a broader audience and to help raise Internet visibility," the clinic told employees in a newsletter last week.
The channel touts itself as the 33rd-most viewed non-profit channel on YouTube this month.
Mayo continues to reach out to patients in new and different ways. In February, the clinic launched a Facebook page that encourages past patients to share their stories. Mayo on Facebook now has more than 1,200 online "fans" who have added the clinic's Facebook page to their user profiles.
Mayo also offers a podcast blog with in-depth information about topics like heart failure, celiac disease and surgical safety. Mayo has gone YouTube partly out of necessity.
"A recently published study indicated that about 37 percent of all videos viewed online are seen through YouTube," Aase said. "We need to put Mayo Clinic video where people can find it instead of just expecting them to come to our Web sites. But the YouTube channel does have a link to mayoclinic.org, and through that to other Mayo sites, so sharing in this way should lead to more traffic."
The YouTube channel will help build Mayo's name recognition and reputation, Aase said, because Web surfers will become more aware of Mayo's research and treatment advances.
"We think we will build awareness of Mayo by 'word of mouse' in the 21st century, much as word of mouth was chiefly responsible for building Mayo's reputation in the 20th century," he said.
What's next for Mayo online?
"We can't discuss online projects that aren't ready yet," Aase said. But he noted Mayo's popular health blogs, like the Mayo Quit Smoking Blog.
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