For part three, the plan is to get a little more specific in understanding doctor/patient relationships.  The relationship between a doctor and his or her patients is extremely important to the overall healthcare process.  It is important that patients have a certain level of trust in their healthcare providers.  I mean, this person is giving me advice, prescribing medicine, performing procedures that directly impact my health.  This should be an individual that I would literally trust my life with.  Let’s start with how patients can use social media to increase the value of their healthcare.

I remember when I was a little kid, I started going to a new family doctor.  I was about five years old at the time.  Naturally I wasn’t too eager to trust this adult that I had never met before.  However, after a few visits, I started to feel more comfortable around this doctor and after a few years worth of visits, I would say I really trusted this guy.  My trust grew as I got to know my doctor a little more, and as his health advice and procedures worked the way he said they would.  Let me make one thing clear: Nothing can replace this kind of relationship growth.  The best way to gain trust for someone is interaction over time.  But what should I do now?

I just moved to Kansas City, truly away from home for the first time.  For the first time in my life (at least what I can remember) I am looking for a new doctor.  I have absolutely no clue where to start.  I want to be sure to pick the right person, someone I can trust, but have no way of getting information about the doctors in my area without visiting each one right?  Wrong.  According to Q1 productions 60 million consumers interact and discuss their health-care online. Over 320 hospitals have Twitter accounts with almost 250 hospitals on Facebook.  In my research for these posts, I came across some pretty interesting resources for people in the exact same situation I’m in.  There is a great article on Mashable called Smarter Healthcare: How Social Media is Revolutionizing Your Doctor Visits. If you have a few free minutes, it’s definitely worth thumbing through.  The article mentions a few online services that help in finding doctors.  I’ve listed them below:

• Vitals- Will give you information about a doctor based on a variety of data, or will help you find the doctor you need
• HealthGrades- An independent healthcare rating organization that grades healthcare providers on a variety of variables
• Find a Doc- Service that helps you find the right doctor based on consumer ratings
• Rate MDs- Similar to Find a Doc, a service that lets you give your doctors a rating and allows you to view what others thought as well
• ZocDoc- Service that helps you find a doctor in the area and even lets you schedule an appointment online (unfortunately, this is only available in NYC)

In the first post, I mentioned some facts about how Americans search.  If you missed those, go back and look at them.  The bottom line is, people use the internet to research their health.  There are great sites like WebMD, Revolution Health and Yahoo! Health that provide accurate health information to individuals.  Chances are, a patient will feel much more comfortable asking a doctor questions if he or she has already done some research on their own.  Using these resources can help patients learn what questions to ask and what words to use when discussing an issue with a doctor.  There is also a large number of Facebook groups (roughly 1,200!) that advocate finding a cure for specific diseases.  This could be a great way to get information on a disease and learn how you can help find a cure.

So great, patients can use social media to strengthen the doctor patient relationship, but how does a doctor or healthcare professional do the same?  This gets a little trickier.  Recall the Children’s Mercy social media panel discussion I mentioned in the first two posts.  If you still haven’t watched the video, do so here.  Ben Dillon (Co-owner of Geonetric, a web software solutions company that focuses on healthcare) was one of the speakers.  He made some great points about how hospitals and doctors can use social media to the benefit of the doctor/patient relationship.  Mr. Dillon stated that a lot of Geonetric’s clients are hospitals trying to learn how to engage patients with social media and mentioned two specific ways that hospitals can leverage social media to increase benefits to patients.  The first is enlisting patients to blog about the hospital.  This is a great way to provide unofficial information about the hospital to potential future patients.  Brilliant.  This could ease some of the fears regarding regulations about what can and cannot be said by a healthcare professional.  It is also a great way to involve patients that were really satisfied with their care.  The second way was having doctors post a blog.  The idea here is to keep the topics general.  You don’t need to get specific or provide details.  This does two things: It gives the the patient a feeling of familiarity with the doctor and showcases the doctors expertise.

In the second post of this series, I mentioned a New England Journal of Medicine article called Practicing Medicine in the Age of Facebook. The author of this article presents some very real fears experienced when a former patient friended him on Facebook.  This is the type of situation that gives doctors and other healthcare professionals nightmares: Interacting with or mentioning patients accidentally online.  In fact, Mr. Dillion mentioned a client of his that had recently fired four nurses for talking about patients online.  The regulations are tight, there’s no way around it. An article on iHealthbeat.org entitled Social Media in Healthcare: Barriers and Future Trends makes a great point about hospitals walking a fine line.  The issue is that hospitals and doctors want to provide health care information online, but want to avoid giving healthcare advice online.  A doctor can be held accountable for healthcare advice, but objective information is less of an issue.  The article simply states that doctors have to be careful and make sure the information posted online is generic and information only, not advice.  This is not meant to scare anyone away from the space, the benefits are too important.  The more familiar a patient feels with his or her healthcare provider, the more likely it becomes that this individual will follow the healthcare provider’s advice.  In the same way, the more a doctor or nurse knows about a patient, the more individualized advice he or she can give to that patient.

If you have time after reading this post, please check out all of the links.  A lot of these resources provide some great information and insight on the issue.  Also, be on the lookout Thursday, July 15 for the final post of this series.  We’ll do a recap of what we’ve uncovered so far and take a glimpse into what the future holds for social media and healthcare.

Alright, time for round #2.  In the first part of this series, I talked about what’s currently being done with social media in the health care field.  It was A LOT of information.  If you haven’t checked it out, do so here.  After researching all of the really innovative ways in which hospitals and healthcare professionals are using social media, I began to wonder about how they do it.  So that is where we will be going today.  Hopefully by the end of this post, we will be able to see why social media in healthcare is such a intricate topic and how those who are already using social media figured it out.

For various reasons, I’ve been to my local emergency room quite a few times.  After talking with the nurse at the desk for what seems like an eternity to update all of my personal information, I’m always handed a packet of information about the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, more commonly referred to as HIPAA.  Do I ever read this packet? Absolutely not.  Usually, I put it back on the counter so they aren’t wasting the paper on me.  It’s not that I don’t recognize the need for the information, it’s just not the most captivating read.  For those of you getting ready to exit out of your browser thinking that I’m going to try and explain every aspect of HIPAA in the next couple of paragraphs, don’t.  I’m not even going to give it a shot.  I searched around on the internet, trying to find a quick overview of the legislation and couldn’t find a whole lot that was short enough.  I did find one article that summed it up fairly well, but I still don’t want to waste anyones time trying to explain it.  You can check out the article here, and I will summarize HIPAA as legislation that protects your personal health informtation.  Basically, hospitals and doctors can’t share your information with just anyone.

HIPAA creates a headache for hospitals and doctors when it comes to social media.  There are so many regulations regarding the methods by which a doctor can share information with a patient, that tweeting medical information is enough to give a doctor nightmares.  I came across an interesting article in The New England Journal of Medicine. The article is written from the prospective of a doctor who was sent a friend request through Facebook by a former patient.  From the perspective of doctors and hospitals, it is understandable to question the appropriateness of such a situation.  What if the doctor has pictures on his or her Facebook profile that aren’t very professional?  What if these pictures hurt his or her credibility as a physician?  What if the former patient asks the doctor a medical question through a wall post?  Would answering violate HIPAA?  These are all legitimate questions to ask and risks to consider.  Check out these quotes:

“Caution is recommended . . . in using social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace. Items that represent unprofessional behavior that are posted by you on such networking sites reflect poorly on you and the medical profession. Such items may become public and could subject you to unintended exposure and consequences.”- Harvard Medical School, Dean for Medical Education Jules Dienstag

“Programs/employers are increasingly gaining access to social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace to see what they can learn about candidates.” – Drexel University College of Medicine

These quotes may be alarming as they express concerns that all professionals should consider, in healthcare of otherwise. But take a closer look.  The one thing these quotes don’t do, is tell future doctors that they can’t use social media.  All that is suggested by these quotes is to use caution in what you post, something that is relevant to anyone using social media.  Take a second to look back over the previous post, specifically the 5 examples of how social media is already being used in healthcare.  Live procedures, training, crisis communications, research and education..important steps being taken by the industry today!  The potential benefits are extremely important to both healthcare professionals and patients.  It’s worth finding a way to use the platforms and still meet health privacy regulations.  I came across an interesting article on Top Rank Online Marketing Blog that attempts to make the case for social media in healthcare.  It’s definitely worth the read, check it out here.

So the fears are very real, that much is clear.  At the same time, use of social media in this field is growing.  So how are they doing it?  What type of guidelines are hospitals putting in place to monitor the activities of their employees online?  I found a post from Marketing Your Hospital titled Create a Social Media Policy for Your Hospital. This site has a lot of great information about using social media in a hospital, definitely take the time to read it.  This specific article has some great information about how to put together a social media policy for your hospital.  The writer suggests that hospitals should create a policy that covers both unofficial outposts such as personal blogs and official outposts such as an official hospital blog.  I’ve summarized the main points for each section below:

Unofficial Outposts

• Guide the employees on use of Social Media- You don’t want to scare them away, just teach them how to use it appropriately
• Remind employees that their posts reflect on both themselves and the hospital
• Work with your legal department to develop rules regarding the sharing of personal information
• Put a policy in place regarding discussions surrounding an individuals job (complaining or negative statements about the place of employment)
• Make sure employees understand what information they publish publicly and what information is private

Official Outposts

• Define the reasons for each outpost- what are the goals of the company Twitter account, blog, etc.
• Ensure everyone using a specific account understands how to do so
• Include the current policy for corporate branding and identity
• Teach employees how to handle negative comments/complaints through these accounts
• Put specific guidelines in place regarding patient information

This information should help anyone trying to figure out how to introduce social media into a hospital/medical practice and really any business looking to create a social media policy.  You can also check this list out for ideas of other businesses that have put social media policies in place.  You can also look through this list of Hospital Social Media Policies.

So that’s it for today, hopefully it’s easier to understand why social media presents such barriers for the healthcare industry.  On deck for next part 3 in this series is a deeper look into the benefits of social media in healthcare and the changes that are occurring with the doctor-patient relationship.  Look for that post Tuesday, July 13th.

Here is a list of links on this topic that may be helpful:

Top Rank Blog

ihealthbeat

PR Week

Social Media Today

Mashable

Social Media and HIPAA

Hospital Online Marketing Education

I.      Current Use/Statistics (7/6/10)
II.     Organization/Legal Issues/Fears/Questions (7/8/10)
III.   Doctor-Patient Relationship (7/13/10)
IV.    Recap/Look into the Future (7/15/10)

As I mentioned in the previous post, a lot of this information is drawn from a social media panel discussion hosted by Meers Advertising at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, MO.  If you haven’t already watched the recorded video of the event, you should definitely take a look here.  There is a lot of information to get through in four posts, so I figured we would keep it somewhat simple with the first post. The goal today is to paint a picture of how social media is currently being used in healthcare. The plan is to stay away from a lot of analysis or predicting, and really just get a feel for what’s being done in the field.  This is going to require looking at a lot of statistics, but please hang with me… having a better understanding of the status quo is extremely important in understanding why or why not social media will work for healthcare professionals and how it can best be used.

When I first started researching this topic for the social media panel discussion, I watched a short YouTube video called, “Social Media in Healthcare” that had some pretty interesting facts (you can view this video at the bottom of the page).  The original video is somewhat dated, but it has been updated with some new numbers.  I’ll sum up some of the key points below:

• 60 million consumers interact and discuss their health-care online
• Roughly 1,200 Facebook pages advocate finding a cure for an illness
• 72% of patients say they researched their symptoms before visiting their doctor
• 93% of e-patients say internet provided them with health care information they needed
• 80% of internet users have looked online for health information

Source: Q1 Productions

These statistics highlight a very important point.  Whenever I speak with a prospective client, I’m usually asked, “Why does it matter if I participate in social media?”  I always try to help those who ask this question realized one thing:  Your brand, your product, your service is already a part of social media.  The question those people should be asking isn’t why they should participate, but whether or not they are willing to allow others to lead the discussion regarding their brand, product, or service. Most of the time, that answer is “no”, and it’s clear from the above statistics that the same situation holds true in healthcare, even though the goals may be different from a for-profit business. Even if healthcare professionals don’t use social media, 60 million consumers make sure the conversation continues to take place online.

I also came across a great presentation put together by Carolyn Grisko & Associates, Inc. called “Healthcare & Social Media: 2009 Trends and Strategy” (You can view this presentation at the bottom of the page).  The entire presentation is great, but the information presented on slides 5-7 is key.  Look at these statistics regarding how Americans search the internet:

• 36% want to see what other consumers think about medication or treatment
• 34% use social media
• 46% use health care portals

Source:”How America Searches: Health and Wellness“- survey by Opinion Research Corp.

These two sets of statistics clearly show that people are using social media to get their hands on healthcare information.  But how have hospitals, doctors, etc. responded to these facts?  I stumbled across a great blog post on Top Rank Online Marketing Blog called, “5 Examples of Social Media in Healthcare Marketing”.

The 5 examples mentioned are:

• Live Procedures (This is something that we have been contacted about.  A hospital wanted to use our Intefy product to allow medical students to watch a live surgery and ask an observing doctor questions via Twitter or chat)
• Train Medical Personnel
• Reach Mainstream Media That Use Social Media
• Communicate in Times of Crisis
• Provide Accurate Information to Patients (With With such a large amount of health information available on the web, it may be hard to determine the accuracy or trustworthiness of a source)

There has also been a growth in Twitter accounts, blogs, forums, and networks focused on healthcare. It is clear that social media is becoming more and more important for healthcare providers. There are resources available at the end of this post.

Now that we have a little better mental picture and understanding of how social media is used by healthcare professionals, we can look forward to understanding how these professionals go about organizing a social media strategy and what sort of legal and regulatory issues must be considered by the healthcare field in regards to the use of social media.  Look for that post to be available on Thursday, July 8.

Matt

Healthcare & Social Media: 2009 Trends & Strategy

Blogs

• Diabetes Mine Blog
• Health Matters Blog
• NYT Health Blog

Twitter

• @livestrong
• @stupidcancer
• @backusHospital
• @healthsocmed- hosts an online discussion regarding social media in healthcare (#hcsm) Sundays at 8pm CST

Social Networking

• OrganizedWisdom
• Patients Like Me
• Nurses Recommend Doctors

Podcasts

• Johns Hopkins Medicine Podcasts
• Mayo Clinic

Forums

• Revolution Health Groups
• Google Health Group

Meers Advertising has put together a great panel of local industry leaders for the event including:

• Ben Dillon (@benatgeo), eHealth Evangelist and Co-Owner at Geonetric, a web software solutions company out of Cedar Rapids, IA that focuses on healthcare
• Lisa Qualls (@lqualls4444), CEO for Fresh ID, a Kansas City, MO company focused on experience design and helping businesses integrate technology to expand their brand and improve operational processes and customer communications
• Mike Lundgren (@mglundgren), Partner and Director of Innovation Strategy at VML, a full-service digital marketing agency out of Kansas City, MO
• Mike McCamon (@mccamon), Chief Community Officer at Water.org, a Kansas City, MO based nonprofit organization dedicated to providing access to safe water and sanitation for communities in Africa, South Asia and Latin America.

Sam Meers (@meerskc) is responsible for organizing the event and will also be participating in the panel discussion.  Sam is President of Meers Advertising, a local Kansas City, MO agency dedicated to helping their clients grow and maintain competitiveness in the ever changing field of advertising.  A strong proponent of advertising and Web strategy to build a brand, Sam has developed his marketing communications beliefs through experience. Founding Meers Advertising in 1993, he brings over 25 years of consumer and business-to-business experience to the company.

Meers Advertising has worked with clients such as National Beef, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City, Kansas and Oklahoma, Multi Service Corporation, Axcet HR Solutions, McCownGordon Construction, Human Factors International, Weight Loss Surgical Centers, WageWorks, Children’s Mercy Hospitals and Clinics, TransforMED and Geonetric.  The Meers agency was recently mentioned in Target Marketing Magazine for its work with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City.

The event will also be available live, online using our own product, Twitterface.  Those wishing to watch the discussion online can do so from twitterface.com/meersadv and join in the discussion!

Great line to remember: “Social media is bringing back humanity to all digital life. We are no longer users, consumers, shoppers. We are all people again.”

Amid the day’s hustle and bustle, she composes several 140-character posts a day updating the company’s 400-plus Twitter followers about available donut and coffee flavors, as well as new product offerings: “What if we take chocolate, add chocolate to it & then top with a little chocolate? Wait WE ALREADY DID! Try our Triple Choc Muffin today! ”

Amid the day’s hustle and bustle, she composes several 140-character posts a day updating the company’s 400-plus Twitter followers about available donut and coffee flavors, as well as new product offerings: “What if we take chocolate, add chocolate to it & then top with a little chocolate? Wait WE ALREADY DID! Try our Triple Choc Muffin today! ”

How to make social networking work for businesses

Businesses’ growing use of these services to communicate directly with customers has spawned an industry of social media marketing consultants, like Overland Park-based Evans Media Group. President and CMO Paul Evans said the company became an early adopter of social media about three years ago when it started advising clients to get on Facebook, FriendFeed and others.

Paxton and Evans said that by using social networks properly, companies can raise awareness and increase engagement of customers. “That’s the huge piece,” Paxton said. “The people who interact become brand evangelists so quickly. Others will say good things about you, and that’s the value of social media and what you can’t easily quantify or turn into an ROI.”

Here is the full excerpt of the email interview Lisa had with Katy:

1. What prompted you to become involved in social media?

I began participating in social media back in 2004 when I joined LinkedIn as a way to network professionally with colleagues outside my local area. I have always been one to enjoy connecting with others so participating in online communities was a no brainer for me. I love to learn from others, talk with others and share my opinion and social media enables me to do all three…sometimes at the same time! I’m a wife, mother and business owner so finding time to “read the world” and “engage” during normal hours is almost impossible. Social media is a 24X7 world letting me participate when it’s convenient for me. I also love the global aspect…it isn’t uncommon on Twitter to get in to conversations with people from Australia, England, or India to name just a few. To have the ability to see the world through their eyes and from their perspective is pretty powerful.

2. What role does an organization like SMCKC play in cultivating the local social media landscape, and how does it help individuals and businesses learn the social media tools they need to succeed?

SMC brings together people who are intensely and actively immersed in various aspects of social media for marketing, customer care, promotion, fundraising, employee communications and virtual networking, so that they can learn from each other and band together to achieve business goals. With over 1,000 members, SMCKC serves as a great resource for members, the community and local businesses alike to hear about the quickly changing landscape we call the internet and embrace new practices and tools to enhance and extend their brand. We have members who are respected as industry leaders and often speak at local, regional and national events sharing with others how best to adopt social media in to their day-to-day business operations.

3. What, in your opinion, are the benefits of a business using social media over more traditional forms of advertising?

It’s not an either/or… really, all forms of promotion – traditional, experiential and digital – are all needed. It’s just that companies now have more avenues available for budgets of all sizes, and the benefit of many free-to-use tools that allow them to both promote and communicate with fans and brand enthusiasts. It can be more fulfilling to do a Facebook campaign, or post an ad on YouTube, and get immediate response and sense of enthusiasm, than to put an ad in a newspaper and wait to see if anyone walks into the store or picks up the phone because of it. Organizations have to be prepared, though… the more passive traditional marketing and advertising methods don’t have the consequence of many people talking about them (both positively and negatively) and some companies handle this new realm of promotion better than others.

4. Are there any KC businesses that you think do an exemplary job of using social media?

I think what is most exciting is how Kansas City isn’t just doing a great job using social media but is well regarded as a strong leader in the industry. We have companies like H&R Block, Garmin and Sprint who are well-known and have been recognized for their social media efforts. What I think is even more telling is how our small businesses are benefiting from expanding their reach through social media. I love to use Grass Pad as a great example of how small businesses can leverage Facebook to connect with a bigger audience… they are a local small business with over 1,500 fans on their facebook page. You will see their Facebook Wall is buzzing with activity including questions, comments and an overall appreciation for how the company is helping their customers. What I think is great about social media is the numerous benefits it offers to businesses when they actively participate within the various communities, forums, and networks. Social Media is more than just a new form of marketing, it can truly serve as the catalyst to knock down the silos’ and help a business take better care of their customers during the entire lifecycle..from lead generation, service delivery, to customer care.

5. What’s on the horizon for SMCKC in 2010-11?

We have many things on our plate for 2010…in fact we just announced our annual membership plan at our breakfast this past Friday. We just recently put in place an Executive Board at the end of 2009 so this was a great exercise in thinking about our foundational elements. Our plan was built with three primary pillars in mind…our membership, our community and our businesses. We identified four goals; Establishment, Contribution, Outreach and Fun. We think developing our efforts in these key areas will help us mature as an organization (we are less than 2 years old) while holding true to our fun grass roots philosophy that we believe has been the primary factor in our fast paced growth.

6. Anything else?

Thank you for the opportunity to share a little bit about SMCKC and the world of social media in general. You can learn more by visiting http://socialmediakc.com

]]> http://freshid.com/kc-businesses-make-a-difference-to-bottom-line-by-getting-social/feed 2 http://freshid.com/information-vs-engagement-are-you-giving-people-what-they-need http://freshid.com/information-vs-engagement-are-you-giving-people-what-they-need#comments Sun, 24 Jan 2010 03:45:46 +0000 Kris Colvin http://freshid.com/?p=976 I don’t expect this to be an overly popular post – I have brought this conversation up several times – I even moderated the #sm42 chat about it, and it almost always results in a backlash of folks that claim all social media communication is about engagement, and I am wrong to think otherwise. But still… I think otherwise. I just can’t let go of the notion we can make social media work even more efficiently and effectively for all concerned.

I’m not against engagement and talking to people. Obviously I talk to lots of people who talk to me on Twitter, and do my best to engage both new people I don’t know and people I consider friends. As well as prospects, clients and various companies and brands. I am a user advocate, after all, so I get it. Using Twitter, Facebook and various other social platforms to develop mutually beneficial or even just interesting relationships with others is not new. Using these platforms to solicit web traffic, sell a book, product or service or promote yourself as a celebrity or expert of some type is really becoming yesterday’s news, as well. People are jumping onto these platforms by droves to take advantage of the marketing opportunities, and to provide a listening ear or customer support also. There is definitely marketing value, in listening to people and acknowledging what they have to say about your company… it takes finesse sometimes, which savvy social media marketers and community managers have (or anyone tweeting for your company) in order to read the needs and then meet them, for the particular individual you’re dealing with.

But I know there’s more we can do, with all the people, and the easy, instant access, and the short-burst communication and the open api’s and ability to integrate technology online, where it can be accessed from anywhere there’s a computer and internet connection. So much more. Some enterprising local companies are taking orders over Twitter and having food or drink ready for the person when they arrive. Delivery companies are finding ways to use Twitter. Cabs can be ordered and dispatched. Shipments can be tracked. I even had an interaction with a great company called Gourmet Library and they changed their site for me that night, to add a suggested feature. Now THIS, this is a beautiful way to use these unexpected (a few years ago) resources in ways that can benefit our bottom lines and improve our business processes.

Still… people go on and on about engagement and almost can’t stand to have a conversation including social media that doesn’t put the total emphasis on that singular concept. I understand why – lots of companies and business people are on Twitter, but they don’t all do it like we wish they would. Some of them are stiff, not overly chatty or friendly. Some are defensive. Some of them have an account name and don’t even tweet or acknowledge things being said about them at all. Some users/customers/prospects DO choose another company based on the lack of interaction, by the way. Some send out automated, crappy sales solicitations and annoy you. Some just listen – you know they are – using all the real-time streaming as intelligence but they don’t deign to respond. Some intervene too much – maybe you want to vent about your hideous tasting sandwich from a fast food chain, but don’t want to be confronted about it in public. So all the advice and the opinions and feedback about how to develop these relationships online is definitely warranted.

But is “engagement” the ONLY need that people have? I’ve been thinking about this a long, long time. I believe people/users/customers/buyers/employees have needs, and engaging with a company representative in order to meet the need is only one facet of a holistic plan to be implemented.

For you, in your life, what’s the fastest way to go about getting a particular piece of company information? Say you want to know the hours and location of a company you plan to do business with later today. Do you…

• Ask a friend/spouse/coworker if they know?
• Look them up in a paper phonebook?
• Look them up in Google or online?
• Go to their site and hunt until you find the information on the site?
• Call phone information and ask for their phone number so you can talk to someone on the phone?
• Drive by the location to look at a sign on the door?
• Search for them on Twitter or Facebook, to see if the company is there and you can ask or see the info?
• Send an email to them to find out?
• Ask an intern/spouse/assistant or some other person to find out?

Different people will take different approaches, based on how they learn and gather information, and where they are at the time. If I’m driving, I might ask someone else to look it up for me, or I might Google a search at a red light. If I’m on Twitter, I might pop the name into search and see if the company is there, and take the lazy route of asking someone and waiting for the answer. If I want to see the company’s site, I might visit and poke around and eventually get to the info. But I want to be able to do any of these things, and come up with the answer fast… because I have a lot to do and this is kind of like “white noise” in my day – until I get the info I need, I can’t ignore it and so it’s on the mental task list until I can check it off.

Emarketer’s latest research offers reasons that people befriend or follow a company using social media. They say social media users are “interested in deeper engagement.” That seems to be somewhat true, but have we helped respondents identify what it is they TRULY need? Two of these categories are too vague (at least as represented in this simple chart.) Do they need a person from Whole Foods, Macy’s or Apple to address them? Or do they need a question answered, a complaint addressed, a suggestion for a feature or product acknowledged, some praise for an employee noted, a request considered, or some other, specific need answered, that may or may not involve “engaging?”

What requires unique answers vs. what could be answered in a FAQ or inventory call? Inquiring about known product availability is different than asking if the company even has a product that meets a particular need, or a service offering. Asking for hours of operation is different than engaging in a conversation about the best person to contact within the company to discuss a potential business deal, or an inquiry about a unique problem with a newly purchased product. Asking a Human Resources representative on Twitter about the most appropriate clothing choices for a new hire, is different than asking if there are job openings. One requires human engagement, the other can be answered by a machine. We don’t refuse to automate business processes inside the enterprise, or factory, or kitchen… wherever they make sense and are affordable. So why do we act as if some automation of information via a social platform is a crime against humanity?

As a user experience designer, I have seen that interactions inside a site or software system (or over a phone system) are also forms of engaging with your company and brand. The increasing popularity of making purchases online is a testament to this. You need to think of interactions and transactions as mechanical engaging, and you’ll see how important they are. People have good, bad and downright horrifying experiences, just like they do with your employees in person. An online experience with a site or ecommerce shopping cart can leave the same good or bad taste in your mouth, resulting in the same good or bad word of mouth sharing. If you have a crappy site, and are hoping your salespeople or customer support will make up for it (or vice versa), you won’t be fooling anyone, really. Customer care is a pervasive, underlying foundation or it’s not, and all aspects of your approach need to deliver on it. Social media is not a silo, your site is not a silo, your blog and community managers are not a silo, your managers, customer support handlers, marketing people, receptionists, retail floorwalkers, the lobby, restrooms and the parking lot are not independently going to carry the brand – it takes all of these pieces – human, tangible and intangible – working in tandem from the same value belief system, to satisfy prospects, buyers, partners and even former customers.

So instead of looking at the world of social media and thinking “Oh my gosh, how can I even go there? Our staff doesn’t have enough time as it is!” I am suggesting that you step back and ask yourself, what do people in your business ecosystem really NEED?

• What do prospects need?
• What do people appropriate for our products/services need, that don’t know about us yet?
• What do existing customers need?
• What do people with a return or complaint need?
• What do potential partners need?
• What do employees need?
• What do our salespeople need to close deals/do their job?
• What do company managers need?
• What do investors/stakeholders need?
• What do people we owe money to/do business with need?

Then look at your people, business processes and existing technological systems, and pinpoint where you can start to meet these needs. If you can honestly always answer “deeper engagement” for the myriad needs you will come up with, I’d be highly surprised.

We have got to separate true need of specific information (inventory question, process explanation, how to return something, what time a store closes, if something desired is in or out of stock, if a discount is available for bulk purchase, if sales or discounts exist) from ego gratification from need for positive acknowledgment (desire to contribute to brand growth or offer a suggestion) from need for issue acknowledgment (desire to be heard when customer has had a problem or complaint.)

All of us that do marketing consultation and act as social media advisors need to be careful tossing around terms like “deeper engagement.” What does that mean, anyway? I have deep engagement with my closest friends and family – not so much with Freshbooks, though I sure think very highly of them and recommend them often (for example.) It makes people feel good when a company rep or major brand responds to them, but why? Is it because they are perceived as being busy/important/popular and the name-dropping in our direction impresses others (and maybe delights us. It can be fun when someone you admire responds.) But is our ego drive to be acknowledged an unacknowledged driver behind the call for engagement with brands and companies on Twitter? Or do people need access to information, that may sometimes includes a person and sometimes an automated FAQ or inventory tool? What makes interacting with Sally Smith (a random person – like any of us) any different than interacting with Mark Parker (the CEO of Nike)? Do we value a brief interaction with Mark Parker, who we don’t know, more than with a beloved friend who lends us a word of encouragement, or a mate who declares undying love in public for all the world to see, or a boss that gives us an ‘atta boy’ in front of our peers?

If people aren’t accessing Twitter accounts for fast info now, is it because that type of interaction doesn’t much exist today, so there’s no precedent to believe they can do that? Or because they don’t want to? (The classic chicken and egg question.) I would much rather hit Twitter (where let’s face it, I am 75% of the time off and on) and ask a quick question and get the answer now (automatic response) or later (via a nice human) than dig through a company site full of information and FAQ’s or support questions. It might be the height of laziness for me, but it’s the art of providing convenience and engagement (even if automated!) for savvy businesses who have the foresight to see it now, because it WILL come eventually. Our processes for automating certain interactions are more clear inside the company than on these social platforms, I think. We haven’t built them yet, but we can and we should go further than the “social” in social media and include opportunities we have to meet and answer needs in a number of cool ways.

Maybe it’s just me, but…

• I would greatly prefer to order some of my food and beverages directly via Twitter and then go pick them up (like Coffeegroundz in Houston wisely initiated early on – I was longing for this just the other day from Moe’s in Shawnee, KS)
• I’d love to be able to sit on my rump in Twitter and ask an Amazon account about a book someone mentioned, and have the link to it sent back to me, instead of going to the site and searching
• If I have an Apple Mac issue (I have multiple Macs and an iPod), I want to be able to hit a knowledge base with my question from Twitter. It may work or may not, but it seems easier than going and digging up the info at their site. It’s just one more hook, but for me, mentally massively more convenient.
• Someday I want to ask for hairdresser (lawn care, dry cleaner, nail salon, doctor, air conditioner repair, etc. recommendations and receive a nice link back to a list of known folks reviewed near me (or the city I will be going to.) I don’t want a special, local Kansas City site – I want to ask the world at large, from where I hang out (my site, Twitter, Facebook, etc.)
• I’d like to be able to tweet a preferred appointment time to my nail lady, doctor’s office, chiropractor, etc. and get an answer back – an automated return of “Yes, that time’s available, would you like to schedule” or “No, I’m sorry, it’s not” is no less valuable coming from a software system than it is a human being. Either way, I get the appointment – engagement and customer care happens with the practitioner I am going to see and the people who take my money at the door, in addition to the software system they set up to meet my needs.
• If my internet goes out, or the electricity, I want to tweet an account and get a status update back.
• I want to ping my gym and find out what classes are being taught at 5:30 pm (because I realize that’s when I can go.) Or I want to know when Thom or Martha are teaching, or some other schedule related question.

Ask the question OUT, get the answer back IN is the future of cloud computing. Right now, I have to do a lot of work, despite how much more convenient things are now than they were 5 years ago. I have to know the places to go, or ask people and find out, and then go to the sites, and then do a search, and maybe they have or don’t the info I am looking for in THEIR particular database. If they don’t I have to start over.

But these social platforms have opened a new door – they offer new horizons of people-powered comments, reviews, praise and complaints to work with. With links mentioned, people recommended or disputed, reports posted, analytics tracked – this is incredibly valuable to the humble person overworked, underpaid, and with the ambition to pack as much productivity into a day as they can.

Forrester, who many companies rely on to separate the good from the bad data and information, has recently added a bucket of “conversationalists” to their social media persona ladder. But… I think this needs more work. I’ve added a couple of notes in green:

This chart just doesn’t address people who are seeking information vs. the need to engage, in any of these areas. The RSS feed comment is mildly confusing – I assume they mean these collectors aggregate feeds into a feed reader or something, or maybe mix them, but not sure. “Inactives” may not appear to be doing anything, but we can’t know that – after all, they signed up for some reason… maybe they are self-educating or scouring for deals or seeking specific information.

Why aren’t we building databases based on social queries? Is it because we are so focused on people, and people who need people (LOL!) that we are totally overlooking an entire segment of socialization? Once I asked @WholeFoods if they carried Nutella – someone answered and said no, it does not meet their ingredient quality list. That answer could be popped into a database for a future automated query, so the next time a Nutella addict wants to know it could be answered automatically. The supplements questions alone (if anything like the quantity we got in the store) could result in a big time-savings for the human staffers.

Similar questions as an example: take Cost Plus World Market – do they have a location near me, do they carry Fat Tire Beer (at my location, or nearest?) Does LifeTime Fitness have a tennis center at a gym in Kansas City? (No, automated answer.) Will they ever have one? (Requires human answer with explanation.) Can I tell someone who will listen/respond at LifeTime, how much I wish they would bring Tennis to a KC gym? (Human answer with link to ideas site or direct forward to tennis program director, preferably on Twitter, or Facebook, or wherever I have initiated this conversation.) Do they have any recommendations for tennis in the Kansas City area then, given they are not meeting my need as an existing customer? (This is where the company could go the extra mile in their answer/recommendation, resulting in customer loyalty, user retention or positive WOM benefits.)

I am not saying the people running branded accounts on Twitter aren’t doing a world of good for their companies, customers and brands. I have no idea why, but one day someone mentioned to me she had a big problem with a seatbelt in her Ford. Not knowing how I could help, but having a passing acquaintance with Scott Monty, Ford’s very socially present PR person, I forwarded her issue on to him. He got the right people involved apparently, and a few days later she told me Ford had contacted her and was resolving the problem. Now, while I was glad this was the case, I don’t know why her efforts to reach them on her own had failed. These are the kinds of customer care issues all companies have to examine and correct where they see failures. If there were only automated systems, this would not have been possible, and I am not recommending we replace the people spearheading social media efforts at the groundbreaking companies that are here now, with automated systems. In fact, to know how to deal with people who request things and ask questions of you on Twitter, you need to BE an active Twitter user, so don’t even think about planning automated services without being immersed in the social culture, or you will likely pay for it in negativity.

I’m suggesting we (my company and others who think about technology and integration and business processes non-stop) help these Twittering employees and companies by coming up with new solutions. New ways of approaching the needs. New ways to scale and manage the requests. I hope that’s clear, if you read this far!

I leave you with two things. Tonight I asked the question “If you have recently interacted with a brand/company on Twitter, what was the nature of your interaction? Question/comment/issue?” and I got a lot of neat answers and opinions, which I have starred as favorites. I recommend browsing these comments for insights.

New friend @CariEllison gave me a link to a related article that’s interesting, so you might want to check it out also.

Want to discuss this? Tell me I’m full of smack? Need help with an integration plan or process? Let’s talk about it. I’m curious to know what other folks think of the idea of mixing automation (for utility, aid and response, not marketing – huge, huge difference) with people on social platforms.

I’m the host, but this is YOUR social media tweetchat. A topic has been decided, the questions have been picked, and we will be discussing the business of socialization… what to do to get started, how to deal with issues of going social inside your company, what social integration looks like and what can be gained by socializing your sites and processes.

So put your thinking caps on and get ready for Tuesday. This should be a really fun, interesting discussion about both the human and technical aspects of socializing your business. Hope to see you Tuesday!

Handy links:

• Hashtag: #sm42
• Tweetchat Site: http://hashtagsocialmedia.com
• Watch the chat at: http://www.twitterface.com/freshid
• Follow all participants at once using: http://blastfollow.com

I’m not talking about making a bunch of strict guidelines. You can do as much or as little as you feel you must, given your customers, public or private holding status, your industry, etc. But unfortunately, especially for a lot of younger people, they need guidelines in common sense so they don’t unnecessarily tarnish your brand. And if they deliberately tarnish your brand, I’d show them the door. Too many great, displaced, laid off workers are out there and you can do better.

A link is going around right now to a blog post called Starbucks Employees Publish Inappropriate Pics of Customers Online. Apparently an employee has a Flickr set of personal photos called “87th & Sunset: Life at Starbucks.” It should be noted that these photos are several years old – I think this employee has moved on and left these in his archives. I don’t have any idea whether Starbucks has a training program for all employees in place or not, now. This scenario is a great example to learn from.

While it’s within an employee’s right as a human being with free will to document photos and put such captivating captions on them as “You’ve got to take a few ass shots on unsuspecting hoes, you know?” I question whether a brand like Starbucks should reward this fella with a job. (He was working for them when he posted to this collection regularly.) Starbucks, it’s no secret, is already struggling to survive the economic downturn. They need no help from an uninterested, apathetic employee to tarnish their brand in my opinion. If your employees don’t have your back and you need to make some changes in your approach and culture, listen to them and do it. But you don’t have to put up with providing continuous fodder for people you pay to damage your brand with. Write a final check and cut the documentary photographer free so he can take photos of people doing other things, like job-hunting with him or struggling to pay bills.

I feel horrible for the customers he served at this particular Starbucks. Imagine knowing how bitter the people serving you are, and how little they actually like you? I am not a stranger to this chain – I visit the drive-thru as often as I go inside and have probably hit a Starbucks in every city I’ve ever traveled to. I certainly would feel funny knowing some smartass barista or anyone else who worked there was snapping my picture, making hateful comments about me or laughing and pointing out my many obvious flaws. After all, we go in for a cup of coffee or maybe a snack, not for a blow to our self esteem. I pay way too much for what I get there to put up with that!

The dude, for reasons I can’t imagine, that posted these to Flickr said he had an obscenely long career at Starbucks. Was the manager that out of touch with his attitude about working there? One can sense the disdain for both his employer and his customers in a matter of moments looking through the photo set. This is what happens when you do NOT institute broad-based employee training and ask them to clean up their online act.

It’s unreasonable to expect:

• Employees not to tweet, post to Facebook, Flickr, YouTube or any other social site
• Employees not to occasionally have a work gripe that gets aired
• Employees to turn over the keys to all their social sites so you can monitor them like Big Brother
• Employees not to want to share/bond with colleagues via pics, funny videos, etc. (not all the pics in the Flickr set used as this bad example are inappropriate or problematic)

It is reasonable to expect:

• Employees will not deliberately bash your brand on public forums and if they do they run the risk of losing their jobs
• Employees will make sure their personal artifacts online don’t tarnish your brand and they will clean up what does, if their name is associated with your company
• Employees will realize they are representatives of your company whether they’re on the clock or not, and behave with some decorum
• Employees won’t bash, disrespect or call customers names
• Employees won’t threaten customers
• Employees won’t do things to deliberately humiliate customers, such as take their picture or video them without permission

There are only 3 months left in this year. If you do NOT have a training program in place, get it in place by 2010. You don’t have time to waste, and it doesn’t have to be hard. You can make improvements as you go along. Start with your managers and make them responsible for ensuring employees do the right thing when it comes to both playing online AND collecting a paycheck from your company.

If you just don’t know where to start, contact me. My team or some of my colleagues can help you get something in place swiftly. No excuses… stop harmful stuff like this dumb Flickr set before it hurts you. These pictures were taken in 2005-2006 and yet they’re making the rounds today, three years later on Twitter. Social media monitoring can make finding online assets easier and quite a few products exist to help you do this.

If you don’t think you need a social media training program, you need to ask yourself this: Is losing one single customer worth not asking an employee to show reasonable restraint online? I don’t think so. I value the people that hire us to do things for them. People doing business with you is an honor – they have choices and other things to spend money on. Make sure every last employee knows and cares about that, or replace them.

I witnessed a train wreck this weekend. Not a physical one, but an online version involving a social media company, a respected business consultant, an advice video, blog comments and a Twitter battle that led to harassment via direct messages and support tickets being filed.

I don’t want to call out the particular players in this incident and add fuel to the fire, but I do want to talk about this because the whole thing was completely avoidable.

A video and graphic formula was posted on a niche site that focuses on selling social media and online packages to a particular audience, on the subject of social media ROI. It was the opinion of some folks I know, that it was not accurate or sound in its theories. (I agreed with their opinions.) Blog comments were posted Saturday night, opposing the theories and asking hard questions about the formula and claims being made.

MISTAKE 1: The site owner removed the harshest comments, which I noticed and mentioned on Twitter. This got our group’s attention as we all tested various browsers to see if the comments were really removed or not. They were.

We can debate whether or not someone should step into another person’s environment and “spoil their soup” so to speak, but I personally think the nature of a blog and commenting system is that it invites conversation… and that conversation may not always want to be what you want to hear. You should let it happen anyway, and respond the best you can, with graciousness. (Excepting obvious troll or spam comments, which are deliberately thoughtless and should be deleted rather than posted to keep the experience of your site positive for readers.) The spotlight is on YOU when someone is calling you (or your company) out, and you are being watched to see how you will respond.

THE OTHER OPTION: The site owner should have responded to the questions and comments on the blog, in an open exchange of ideas. If he did not have enough data points to defend the formula & video (he did not produce them) he should have stated that and deferred to the person who came up with the theory, and let her respond when she was next online. (And not remove the comments.)

MISTAKE 2: The site owner got VERY testy on Twitter with the people who posted negative comments on his blog. When I say testy, I mean loose threats were issued. Dozens of defensive tweets were posted. Some were ultimately deleted. This is NEVER acceptable and can hurt your brand for far longer than you think statements will be remembered. To react in this way leaves an indelible impression.

One reason for the anger was that the site owner felt people were “picking on” his author. I saw the comments and understood where he was coming from, but rather than take it personally and threaten everyone not to mess with his “family” he should have corrected people that were making personal slams (pointed it out to them) and kept feelings about that separate from the questions the business consultant raised about the data presented.

THE OTHER OPTION: The site owner could have responded on Twitter about receiving the comments and stated that he would have the author of the theory respond when she was online, and thanked folks for leaving a comment. This is definitely taking the high-road, especially when you feel attacked, but when you’re focused on protecting the livelihood and reputation of your brand, the high-road is something you should be considering.

MISTAKE 3: Due to peer pressure on Twitter, the site owner displayed the missing comments again, but failed to address them on his blog (and they contained direct questions.)

THE OTHER OPTION: This was a good rectifying step, but the failure to acknowledge that there were questions on hold, waiting for an answer, made folks jump to conclusions. Among them, that they had no good answer to defend their theories, that perhaps the site owner didn’t know how to defend the data, or that perhaps he was just rudely ignoring what he felt were non-important questions. Answering the person who posted them, on the blog, would have led to a conclusion for the time being, at least, until the author showed up to defend her work.

MISTAKE 4: The site owner sent threatening DM’s to the respected business consultant Sunday afternoon, who promptly posted them public on Twitter and asked what the recourse was regarding physical threats and Twitter’s abuse policies.

This is completely and totally unacceptable for any company who wants to do business online. This is not a teen forum of high-school people who are hanging out after school. I guarantee anyone who witnessed this after-effect of the incident from Saturday night, on Sunday, will go out of their way to make sure people don’t do business with this social media company if they can help it. This was extraordinarily damaging.

THE OTHER OPTION: Obviously, (to me) the site owner should have dropped the issue, or followed up with his author to address the questions asked by the business consultant. Sending a direct message to the consultant regarding blog comments being answered would have been a nice touch, to show follow-through and acknowledgment that the questions raised were heard and addressed.

This entire incident bothered me a lot. Not just because some of my friends were involved, though obviously I defend their actions and statements because I feel they were accurate. But this social media company, in an industry that suffers from vagueness to begin with, undefined roles, and more questions than precedence has delivered answers for, completely FAILS to understand the most elemental aspects of how to do business using social media channels. And the people they service, their niche audience, are busy people who are like not overly technical and don’t have a ton of time to set up their personal brand elements and social presence, so they rely on this company to be honest, deliver value, and know what in the world they’re talking about.

If you are in the social media space, espousing theories, sharing ideas, making bold predictions, stating claims… expect debate and non-agreement. If you don’t want it, write a more traditional article and not a blog post with comments. This space is NEW. In some ways, it doesn’t feel like it, because those of us involved with discussion boards and various web applications for years don’t feel social networks are that different than what we’ve dealt with forever. But mass adoption, careers in this space, consulting, advertising and helping clients market themselves on social platforms is fairly new territory. So if you are going to claim you have the answers, prepare to defend them, explain them and talk about them.

From the Motrin Moms outrage to the Pepsi Can Suicide scandal, these trainwrecks keep happening online, often on the weekend when people are “off-duty”, and usually fueled by the source not knowing how to handle and respond to criticism and backlash. Even if you’re a small business, if you have a blog, if you do things “in public” such as post comments on social sites, create videos and invite comments, etc. you are going to need a plan in case things go pear-shaped.

I recommend reading the following two articles by Olivier Blanchard, aka The BrandBuilder, and then coming up with your own customized plan so that when times are tough, and you feel your blood boiling, you can follow the plan and not end up careening your brand over a cliff unnecessarily. It’s easier to prevent problems than fix them… your brand is the “baby on board” that you need to take care of like it’s a precious thing, or risk it being damaged beyond repair faster than you can save it.

» Digital Crisis Management (Part 1)
» Digital Crisis Management: Putting Things in Context (Part 2)

Study how to deal with blog or brand criticism:

» Dealing with Detractors
» Handling Blog Criticism (For Brands)
» Dealing with Negativity: Handling Criticism Effectively Online