Learn About Diabetes
Thank you, Manny, for the interview you with us at Carebuzz. Manny Hernandez is the Founder of TuDiabetes.com. The Diabetes Hands Foundation was started in April 2008 a nonprofit with the goal of having no people with diabetes feel alone and people without diabetes learning more about what it’s like to live with diabetes. (I met Manny via Twiiter.com)
Tudiabetes - are you the only “social” site out here on the web for people living with the disease or condition?
Not at all. We were the first social network focused on diabetes, launching back in March 2007. Since then, the concept of social networks (think Facebook or MySpace) has become more familiar to more people. Nowadays, there are other online communities, such as DiabetesDaily and DiabeticConnect. Also, there are sites that focus on specific niches, such as ChildrenWithDiabetes and DiabetesTalkFest (for diabetes chats) or diabetes portals such as dLife and MyDiabetesCentral.
The information you give on food and carbs - it’s amazingly thorough and in-depth - where do you go to get all your valuable answers?
The vast majority of the information in the community is patient- generated, with some of it (videos, for the most part) coming from medically vetted sources. Because we are not a substitute for professional medical advice, it is important that people who join the community always consult with their medical team before changing their treatment.
However, the volume of useful information and tips that is shared by others living through the same challenges becomes a great resource that empowers patients and allows them to take a more active role in the management of their diabetes. So, the next time you see your doctor, you can come to the appointment with a list of things you learned in TuDiabetes!
How do you find your users/members?
Via Twitter and web. Do you advertise or is your site strictly word of mouth?
We don’t have an advertising budget. Initially, most of the growth in the community was through word of mouth, thanks to the comments made about it by bloggers, from one patient to another. Eventually, when we the membership was a bit more significant, with members contributing their stories, tips and information, we started becoming a site that appeared organically in Google results.
We have also gotten a significant amount of media coverage which has been very helpful. And clearly, our presence in Twitter, through my personal Twitter account (twitter.com/askmanny) and the one for the site
(twitter.com/tudiabetes) has helped drive traffic and membership (currently Twitter is the fifth most important source of visits for us).
What is your goal with the site?
We have two goals with TuDiabetes and all the programs we run at the Diabetes Hands Foundation (the nonprofit that I represent):
1) Making sure people touched by diabetes no longer feel alone. We seek to connect them with others they can relate to and connect with. What we’ve seen is that people with diabetes typically do not talk about their condition, which isolates them and ends up making them feel alone in terms of their diabetes.
2) Raising diabetes awareness: get diabetes the attention it needs to have, considering how many lives it touches (more than 24 million people in the US and more than 250 million people worldwide HAVE diabetes -that does not include those with PRE-diabetes or the loved ones of people with diabetes - so the impact is huge!)
What’s the symbolism of the hands?
People with diabetes test their blood sugar on their fingertips (typically). Hands represent unity, support, help… all of which you get through TuDiabetes.com.
Thank you again, Manny.. good information for people living with diabetes AND another example of “why” social media tools work!
