10 Great Media Sites: Healthcare IT News

By Nathan Lipkin

A complete website overhaul and new social media campaign has paid off for Healthcare IT News. With a new platform, the publication has built an online community, which in turn helps supply a network of content.

Jeff Marion, senior project manager at Med-Tech Media, which owns the brand, said a switch from a proprietary CMS to open-source Drupal has been the biggest contributor to recent success. “[The open-source technology] makes it very easy for us to take community-driven developments and plug them right into our site,” Marion said.

A social media campaign focused on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter has also benefited the website. Jack Beaudoin, CEO of MedTech Media, said the social networks help the site serve as a hub of an online network—not as a standalone platform. “We have a social media coordinator who evangelizes our content and works with our communities to find information they're looking for and to connect with other members of the community,” Beaudoin said.

Healthcare IT News has also built an online community with a blog made up of experts from the industry and multimedia content. “The healthcare IT community is a specifically active community and people are always trying to hear about what other hospitals are doing,” Marion said.

Originally posted on: 6/10/11