by Michelle Munden, Web Marketer

Social media has exploded into the World Wide Web; Twitter alone averages about 40 million tweets per day. The genius behind social media is the blending of technology and social interaction to collaboratively create value and provide information. However, when it comes to health and wellness management and services, there are certain social outlets that are simply not the right destination. Choosing that destination is a crucial decision for your health and wellness company and there are substantial factors that prove dedicated portals is the best prescription for social health.

Outward reaching social media will fall short of creating a meaningful ongoing relationship with your patients and customers. Facebook and Twitter discussion feeds are essentially open to all, and provide little to no privacy. The public nature of such social outlets makes a health care discussion almost impossible. From the standpoint of privacy, broadcasting to the world the most intimate personal health narratives seems like the last thing patients would elect to do. It's not typical for one to wish to share his or her health challenges with old high school buddies. Moreover, such public outlets allow anyone to join in, thus rendering a lack as a reliable source of information, not to mention the mixed bag of conflicting discussions. This can be extremely confusing and present unnecessary privacy hassles and ultimately lead to a deficiency in engagement and retention.

Dedicated portals and communities, on the other hand, such as those created by Wellness Layers, can create solutions that offer the right destination for social health conversations. They can be specific as far as the topics discussed, and have the group privacy and security needs that make sense for health and wellness discussions.

Using hi-tech, hi-touch 2.0 elements, Wellness Layers creates personalized environments that are specifically honed for the special needs of the particular brand, service, or condition within health and wellness. This allows the conversation to be specific, and not require an expecting mother to be in the same social conversation as people working to lower their cholesterol. In addition, all the conversations within a Wellness Layers portal are private, secure, and relevant. This adds real value to the social experience in support of personal goals and support needs of customers and patients.

This does not mean that we do not recommend Facebook or Twitter for anything relating to health and wellness. They are great to provide easy accessibility and wide spread audience reach for news and promotions. However, in terms of managing health and wellness and having meaningful conversations about health, they are better leveraged for leading customers or patients to the right destination, rather than trying to compete with personalized, private online destinations. Not only can Facebook and Twitter serve as quick, go-to sources for patients and customers seeking the latest information, but they can also be integrated with a private or dedicated portal that offers the value added experience.

Dedicated private groups are the secret behind Alcoholics Anonymous and WeightWatchers' meetings and this translates perfectly well to the web and to dedicated online communities.