Our members give us a glimpse of their personal lives every single day when they share through their PatientsLikeMe profiles, and as the days tick down until Thanksgiving and Christmas, we’re getting into the holiday spirit by sharing a little about ourselves with you.
Jesse Smith is the Social Media Specialist on the marketing team at PatientsLikeMe, and the Boston college alum/avid chef recently sat down and answered a few questions about her PatientsLikeMe experience.
How did you first learn about PatientsLikeMe? What led you to join the marketing team?
I first learned about PatientsLikeMe when I was looking for positions in health marketing. I saw their posting for a Social Media Specialist, so I looked into the company. I was immediately impressed and excited, and started reading and watching everything I could about the company. It turned out that a fellow Boston College alum, Lori Scanlon, was the VP of Marketing and Communications, so I sent over my application to her right away. I was thrilled when I was offered the position, and couldn’t wait to get started!
Tell us a little bit about you. Rumor has it that you’re quite the cook.
I’m no Julia Child, but I certainly love to cook. Once a week, three of my friends and I get together to cook new recipes. It certainly makes things easier to have 8 hands working in the kitchen! I also love to play tennis whenever I get the chance. I need to practice as much as possible so that I can soon beat my boss, Brian Burns, who sadly took me in a 6-3, 6-2 game earlier this summer. I’m also a big BC Hockey fan, cat-lover and singer.
How do you see social media contributing to the future of medical research and PatientsLikeMe’s vision of changing healthcare, for good?
Social media is a valuable tool for moving the vision of PatientsLikeMe forward. PatientsLikeMe is committed to openness, and social media helps enhance our ability to be true to our core value of transparency and add to the collective knowledge of our social community. On Facebook, we’re able to connect with members and build a relationship that compliments the conversations happening on our site. The fast-paced world of Twitter allows us to enter into conversations with non-members, members, and industry leaders all together in real-time to get them the information they need in an easily digestible and shareable form. For example, we recently participated in a live tweet event around a Google hangout on the topic of sleep, which let all our followers and non-followers see the exciting new findings from PatientsLikeMe on stress and insomnia. That type of message would have been a lot more difficult to get across to multiple populations in the same way with more traditional marketing techniques. Social media is fun, fast and easy to use – so it’s the perfect way to connect people to each other, to us and to our mission.
What’s your favorite part about working at PatientsLikeMe?
Call it a cop-out if you will, but I can’t pick just one! I love the freedom I have in my position to be creative, the opportunity the company provides to learn anything I’d like and the ability to work with patients to advance healthcare on a daily basis. I truly appreciate that the people who work here are smart, dedicated and value a work-hard, play-hard culture. All the snacks in the kitchen and awesome places to walk to for lunch don’t hurt either!
We’ll be continuing with more “Day in the life” portraits featuring PatientsLikeMe employees from different departments, so stay tuned for more! You can also check out some of our previous entries by clicking here.
Interested in joining our engineering team and making a difference in patients’ lives? Check out our Careers page to see our current job openings.
