PediaStaff Social Media Expert Featured on Speech-Language Pathology Podcast
Tupelo, MS (PRWEB) August 21, 2013 -- As a guest on the Teach Me to Talk podcast, PediaStaff Partner and social media expert Heidi Kay recently shared strategies for using social media to advance the professional development of pediatric therapists, particularly speech-language pathologists.
PediaStaff is a nationwide, niche-oriented staffing company that focuses on the placement and staffing of pediatric and school-based clinicians. The firm places these clinicians in both direct and contract positions. Contractors are employed through the contract staffing back-office services of Top Echelon Contracting.
Over the past few years, Kay has led the firm’s effort to build up an extensive social media presence, which includes profiles on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest in addition to their blog.
“We have really tried to make it our business to engage the SLP (speech-language pathology) community online,” Kay said.
The podcast, hosted by Pediatric Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP) Laura Mize, served as a quick overview of the information PediaStaff presented at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) last November. The firm devoted an entire booth at the conference as a social media learning center where they shared their social media expertise with the clinicians and provided them with the “Essential Social Media Tools for SLPs,” which is now available on the firm’s website.
During the podcast, Kay discussed the unique professional development opportunities available through the most popular social media outlets. A good portion of the episode dealt with Pinterest, which is PediaStaff’s most active social media profile. They currently have more than 58,000 followers, 132 boards, and more than 20,000 pins.
“It’s especially wonderful for teachers of all kinds,” Kay told Mize. “And when you consider what we are doing with children and the pediatric community . . . we are all teaching. All though we are treating, we are helping these children advance their lives and their education. I consider us to be teachers, and so I feel that Pinterest is truly the perfect community.”
Twitter provides a way for therapists to network with other people in their fields, which is particularly helpful for therapists in remote locations who do not have a lot of professional support. SLPs have particularly strong network on Twitter, tweeting under the hashtag SLPeeps.
“The hashtags and whatnot on Twitter are ways that people are able to speak to one another as if we were all here on the radio together,” Kay said. “We don’t get enough of that (networking). We are too busy running from place to place, and the idea of having it online is that you don’t all necessarily have to be there at the same time.”
Kay also talked about how Facebook and Instagram can be used for professional development rather than just personal entertainment and shared strategies for using LinkedIn.
Julie Graff, Top Echelon Contracting, http://TopEchelonContracting.com, +1 (888) 627-3678 434, [email protected]
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