Fresh ID » social media

Malcolm Baldrige Introduces Social Media criteria in 2012

freshid — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 15:16:50 +0000

The Malcolm Baldrige program is the “nation’s public-private partnership dedicated to process excellence.” The Malcolm Baldrige is a customer-focused change agent that defines criteria to influence continuous business improvement and award performance excellence. There is a cost to apply for the award, however organizations receive at least 300 hours of review by a minimum of eight business and quality experts. Site-visited organizations receive over 1,000 hours of in-depth review. Every applicant receives an extensive feedback report highlighting strengths and areas to improve. An article in the Journal for Quality and Participation said, “The Baldrige feedback report is arguably the best bargain in consulting in America.” There are six eligibility categories: manufacturing, service, small business, education, health care, and nonprofit. I can assure you the application process is extensive, hard, long and worth every penny spent on evaluating and assessing your business to make it better. According to the Malcolm Baldrige program, there are seven integrated criteria categories that drive performance excellence:

Leadership
Strategic Planning
Customer Focus
Information & Analysis
Human Resources
Processes/Operations Focus
Business Results

The social media criteria has been included in the Customer Focus category, however as is the nature of the Malcolm Baldrige formula, social media impacts all 7 categories. The new criteria is as follows:

How do you listen to customers to obtain actionable information?
How do your listening methods vary for different customers, customer groups or market segments?
How do you use social media and web-based technologies to listen to customers?
How do your listening methods vary across the customer life cycle?
How do you follow-up with customers on the quality of products, customer support and transactions to receive immediate and actionable feedback?

We are quite pleased to see the emphasis put on “listening.” Even better is the criteria asks not only how companies are listening but more importantly what they are doing with what they are hearing. In Baldrige circles this is called making the “full loop” which is where so many companies tend to fall …they capture data but fail to analyze the data on what it is telling them or fail to make changes accordingly. I shared with the audience that never before have companies had access to the real-time data they have today but having access is only the start. Establishing a strategy that drives the organization to analyze what their customers are saying AND do something about it can be the difference between killing the competition and fading away in to the sunset.

Social Media in the News

freshid — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 00:13:32 +0000

You can tell that Social Media is now officially mainstream when you read the news. This week’s headlines include a Missouri state judge issuing an injunction against a teachers social networking prohibition law, social media use during natural disasters, and Britain political leaders meeting to brainstorm on how to use social media or limit others from using social media to curb civil unrest.

Missouri Court Injunction

The Missouri story is of particular interest as my husband happens to be a Missouri teacher. With a 15-year old daughter who also happens to attend his school, we were very concerned with this new law (Senate Bill 54, section 162.069) going in to effect. There was a real possibility that he would no longer be able to be “friends” with his own child. Thankfully we have a pretty good kid, but I would be lying if I didn’t admit to keeping a watchful eye on her posts and interactions. As a softball coach, I used Facebook to keep up with my players, make sure they were staying out of trouble (which sometimes they weren’t and we were able to address it) and get insight as to how they were handling the challenges of competitive ball. I was able to help parents know when to ask questions and play a proactive role in minimizing issues before they came to a head. I know many teachers who do the same…often times a student will express stress, pain, and/or staying out til 3 a.m on Facebook but would never saying anything to their parents…to prohibit one of the most popular communication channels today from being used to facilitate teacher and student interaction just didn’t make sense. It is refreshing to see the teachers have their voice heard. The law will be delayed 180 days or until the state legislature and teachers can work out an agreement. It is important to note that only section 162.069 will be delayed…the rest of the bill, which is a good bill related to prevention of sexual abuse will go in to effect as planned.

Hurricane Irene, Earthquakes, Social Media, Oh My!

Hurricane Irene along with the east coast earthquakes are creating shakes, waves and jiggles on the social media scene this week. (corny yes I know but I couldn’t resist). Many of the articles talk about increase mentions, is SM good or bad, and citizens relying on SM during disasters. Consumerreports.org noted some very interesting facts that were brought to my attention by David Erickson (fyi…David provides a great daily email you should subscribe to if you like stats):

24% of Americans would use social tools to tell people they are safe
1 in 5 would try an online channel if they were unable to reach EMS
80% expect emergency responder to monitor social sites
One-third expect help to arrive within an hour of posting a need to a social site

You have to wonder, does our police, fire and other emergency rescue services realize these kind of expectations exist? It is somewhat scary to think that people may be requesting help when nobody is listening. The Social Media Club of Kansas City had a great breakfast a few months ago where the Johnson County Sheriff department shared with us what steps they are taking to monitor and participate in social media. We can only hope that other community emergency services are adopting similar best practices.

Britain Meets with Twitter, Facebook and Blackberry

You know you are beyond early adoption when the Queen comes knocking on your door. Obviously the Britain riots are no laughing matter and I think it is an important step by leaders to acknowledge the role social media may play in not only creating civil unrest but possibly calming it as well. There are many of my peers in this industry that may interpret the Britain conversations as an attempt to prohibit free speech. However, if there is a main channel that is causing destruction don’t we have to ask our leaders to take a responsible look and understand how that channel functions, how to minimize the risk and ultimately how to shut it down in the event that it leads to wide-scale tragedy? Many of the uprisings we have seen this year have led to freedom but we would be naive if we didn’t respect the potential for technology and new media to be just as dangerous as they are liberating. This is the kind of topic that makes for great happy hour conversations! What a crazy, wacky week …we hope you were able to experience more positive than negative and wish you the best of fun, safety and enjoyment this weekend! Cheers, Lisa

How We Create a Social Media Campaign

freshid — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 05:23:01 +0000

We are often asked, “How do you go about creating a social media campaign? Where do you start, what do you do, how do you know if it is working?” We decided to share how we answer these questions with all of you to get your feedback on our approach and hear from you on what you may do differently. Hubspot recently recognized our John Deere/Chip Foose campaign as one of their 11 online marketing success stories so thought that would be a good one to use as our example project.

Campaign Backstory John Deere had selected Chip Foose, of the famous Discovery channel Overhaulin’ t.v. show to turn a legendary Big Buck 4020 tractor in to a one-of-a-kind hotrod. To help bolster their 1Q purchase incentive, John Deere decided to add a contest to the mix with the big winner taking home the tractor. Before we came on board, the advertising/PR team had already decided on an online multi-webisode video effort to show Chip Foose customizing the tractor over time, along with a variety of banner ads, traditional PR releases, and official website landing page to support the campaign. The campaign started in November 2009 with the contest winner scheduled to be announced in late summer 2010. The “new” Big Buck overhauled 4020 tractor would be unveiled at the Commodity Classic in Anaheim, CA in March 2010 and then would go on tour as part of the annual Drive Green tour through July 2010. The John Deere Drive Green tour showcases new equipment at various local dealerships throughout the country.

Begin with Corporate Strategy & Support What is your client trying to achieve? Do they have goals/key performance indicators defined? If not, you need to start with helping them identify these goals. In the case of the John Deere Big Buck 4020 campaign they had the following determined:

Maintain 1st quarter market share (in the years prior they had experienced a slip in 1st quarter market share)
200,000 contest entries (all entries had to be submitted through the local dealership)
Increase foot traffic to local dealerships

What resources/content are available? In our case we understood we would be working with an online partner, a 10-14 day release of 7 webisodes, pictures, limited access to in-house writers, support from PR, and would need to drive traffic to the main corporate website. What rules/policies are in place? At the time of hiring, John Deere was in the process of hiring a corporate social media agency of record so we were not able to utilize any social network profiles with the exception of a newly created you-tube account. We created a risk management plan that clearly defined what we could reply to online vs. when/how we would engage John Deere resources. We also defined our monitoring and response guidelines. Who are you working with? We partnered with the department PR agency and worked through them in our interactions with all corporate departments including PR, Marketing, and Advertising. It is important to know your decision makers and key influencer’s and communicate accordingly…and often. Develop Social Media Key Performance Indicators Now that you understand your corporate direction, goals, resources and policies you can begin to develop your social media plan. Our first step was to define our key indicators:

Number of mentions
Frequency of mentions
Audience reach
Multi-media views
Back-links

Social Media Plan Now that we had the goals in place we could develop our plan. Our plan incorporated the following:

Research, identify and engage with Top 50 influencer’s
An exclusive online media site
Online live unveiling
Community calendars

Influencer’s – We chose to target 50 influencer’s (bloggers, forums, communities) in a wave approach. Understanding that this would be a six month campaign, we elected a wave approach to build momentum, learn and adjust to what wasn’t working, and work with the always changing landscape of influencer’s. We engaged with a new set of 10-15 influencer’s approximately every 10-14 days. We chose influencer’s based on the following criteria:

Number of readers
Number of back-links
Number of blogs listed on blog roll
Number of groups linked to blog
Alternative forms of content (i.e. podcasts/video blogs)
Post schedule
Location
Sharing venues (i.e. facebook, twitter, friendfeed, etc)
Sentiment analysis
Number of readers in other venues
Access to writing for other venues (i.e. one of our blog writers was also a writer for a major online magazine)

Online Media Site – Early on we recognized the need to provide our influencer’s exclusive content that was not available to general public. In order to quickly adjust to corporate and blogger requests we also needed a way to update content fast. These two factors led us to developing a wordpress site. This site allowed us to offer content that was easily sharable, could quickly be updated and track back-links/rss feeds. Online Live Unveiling - There were many John Deere employees who were involved with the planning and execution of this campaign and were interested in seeing the unveiling. In addition, the webisodes had built a strong interest in seeing the tractor completed. In turn, we encouraged the corporate team to consider a live unveiling online. We utilized our Intefy platform and John Deere selected the Ustream Watershed video solution to stream the video live. This live video garnered thousands of views during and within days of the unveiling and was Agwired’s most watched video of 2010! Producing a live unveiling was the campaign highlight and resulted in a significant online response with mentions across the globe. Community Calendars – As we transitioned from the Big Buck 4020 creation to the Drive Green tour we also transitioned our engagement plan. We continued to support our Top 50 but also began leveraging local community sites to post Drive Green tour information. This tactic allowed us to promote the tour details in a multitude of sites without having to rely on others posting for us. The Drive Green tour experienced a 30%+ increase in foot traffic year over year…never underestimate the power of community sites! Monitor, Analyze and Report We learned quite a bit with this campaign but our biggest lesson was the need to report and communicate on a recurring basis. Don’t wait for the client to ask for an update…you should create a report schedule and stick to it. Even if the client seems busy with other priorities and/or doesn’t schedule recurring meetings, you should still send them ongoing reports. It is also important to be clear with definitions, explanations, and strategy/tactic reminders. You live this world everyday…your client doesn’t. Be prepared with the “so-what” and recommendations to improve results. Our monitoring tools included Scout Labs (now Lithium), good ol’ Google Alerts, and quite a bit of manual intervention. We tracked everything in a spreadsheet and summarized our reports in Excel charts and Powerpoint. We also shared our Google Analytics reports we used to track the blogger wordpress site. The more charts we could provide the better! We also discussed corporate goal tracking to understand relationship and to make sure we were on track with the ultimate objectives. At the End of the Day Company goals:

Maintain 1st Quarter market share; Result – Company experienced a 5 point market share increase
200,000 Contest Entries; Result – Company experienced 3X the goal: 600,000+ entries
Increase Drive Green/Dealership traffic; Result - Company experienced 30% increase

Social Media goals:

1.25 million audience; Result – 24 million+
125 mentions; Result – more than 1,100 mentions across the globe
5,000 media views; Result – 135,000 (not including JohnDeere.com media views)

It is hard to summarize a full campaign in one blog post so if you have questions or would like more information feel free to leave us a comment or use our contact form. We would love to hear from you! Be who you are and learn to be better, Lisa

Holiday Homework for Website Owners (including me!)

Kristi — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 15:42:42 +0000

It’s the last week of the year and I always feel a surge of energy at this time, for the coming year and our business. And then I realize I want to clean up some things around the site, make some long thought about improvements, and get ready to open the doors to a fresh new Fresh ID in the new year. Combined with several of our clients needing significant home page improvements, I’ve got a little checklist of site and marketing things I am going to address this week and I challenge you to use it if needed on your own sites. Let’s be fresh together in 2011! 1. Is your homepage in need of an update? If it’s static, meaning, it doesn’t incorporate real-time or dynamically changing elements to keep it fresh, you need to change it at least monthly to create new experiences for repeat visitors. You can also do coding to have content rotate randomly so the mix of content feels fresh, and you can add real-time updates from Twitter or Facebook or YouTube so that users are presented with constantly changing content. 2. Is the content you have in your site, hitting the mark? Using analytics you can determine what’s read, what is never read, and make choices to streamline your navigation and pages of information so that you have less to maintain and dig through, but visitors have more to read and look at that pertains to their needs. 3. Is your marketing copy up-to-date and clear and compelling? Ours is getting a fun re-do and we are going to focus on the “sweet spots” of what we offer (things we love to do + we are good at) and we are going to offload the rest to a simple, comprehensive list (we CAN do a ton of stuff… So much that it can be too much to absorb.) 4. Do you have links on the site that don’t have content? We’re guilty of this and need to get the content there, or delete the links and references to it until it is there. 5. Are there things you want to do that you haven’t done yet, but feel passionate about? We have several things we will do in 2011 that are new for us and will be adding that information to our site so we can get started. 6. Have you been procrastinating about getting marketing tools in place that you need to, including, but not limited to: a Twitter account, an email newsletter or campaign, a landing page to promote something, a Facebook custom tab to take your business page to a new level, a thorough scouring of Google to see if there are business directories or review sites where you should list your company, a Foursquare and Gowalla presence if you are a retail, food or hospitality business… In other words, if you are in need of more business, are you doing all you can to be found online by people who are searching? If not, this week is the time to get things done! 7. Is your portfolio updated, if you have some type of creative service business? 8. Is your ecommerce store updated with all the products you sell, and out of stock products noted, and unavailable products deleted? 9. If you need to be found online, discovered and trusted as a viable consultant or designer or writer or accountant, etc. are you blogging? People who don’t know you will get to know you and familiarity breeds trust to eventually do business with you or recommend you to others. You aren’t doing yourself any favors if you are capable of writing and aren’t blogging. I am the worlds worst offender on this and it is my solemn vow to blog more in 2011 because I know it leads to direct sales, and it helps me to articulate my voice and opinions and our ongoing mission as a company. 10. Are you having fun in your business? If not, are there things you could change to make it more fun, or less stressful, or more easy to accomplish? You know in your heart and head what you need and would help your workday be more sane. Make the plan to make the changes you need to make work a more pleasant place to be. I’d love to know what you’re working on this week. I better get busy! Lol! ~Kristi

Social Media in Healthcare…Medicine for the Masses: Part 3

freshid — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 21:59:25 +0000

It’s time for installment number three of our blog series discussing social media in healthcare. Quick recap, in our first post, we took some time to get a full picture of how social media is currently being used in healthcare. If you missed that post, check it out here. In the second post, we looked a little more closely at the reasons it is challenging to use social media in healthcare and some of the fears hospitals and doctors have in regards to social media. If you missed that post, read it here. 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.

Social Media in Healthcare…Medicine for the Masses: Part 2

freshid — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 22:44:41 +0000

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

Social Media in Healthcare…Medicine for the Masses: Part 1

freshid — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 20:28:07 +0000

Today, we kick off our blog series regarding social media and its uses in healthcare. This is the first of four posts on the topic, and I think it makes sense to layout a roadmap so we can all understand where this blog series is going. Below is a brief outline of what each post will touch on, just so you don’t get the idea that I’m rambling without a goal or purpose. 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

Twitter

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

Social Networking

Podcasts

Forums

Social Media Panel Discussion for Healthcare Professionals

freshid — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 16:19:41 +0000

We are very excited that Fresh ID’s CEO, Lisa Qualls, has been given an awesome opportunity to participate in a social media panel discussion hosted by Meers Advertising at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, MO on Thursday, June 24. The panel will discuss topics relating to social media strategy as it relates to not only healthcare, but business in general. 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!

How Social Media Has Changed Digital Design

Kristi — Mon, 31 May 2010 16:11:06 +0000

This is an amazing presentation, well-designed itself, about how social media adoption in mass numbers has changed the way we designers approach projects, solve problems and meet needs these days. 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.”

KC Businesses Make a Difference to Bottom Line by Getting Social

freshid — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 05:57:25 +0000

KCFreePress.com and contributing writer Katy Ryan released an article today highlighting some local KC businesses that are seeing a positive difference to their bottom line due to their online efforts. Our CEO Lisa had the pleasure of working withKaty to help prepare the social media and marketing strategy portion of the article. She was kind enough to include a quote from us so we wanted to return the favor by posting her article. In case you’re interested we added the full excerpt of Lisa’s interview with Katy following the conclusion of the article.

And Tweets to be Tweeted, of course.

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! ”

Welcome to the new world of small business marketing. Benjamin is among a growing number of small business owners who find themselves spending a large part of their days dedicated to communicating with followers and friends on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook.

“It allows us to connect with our customers and members of the broader community in a real-time fashion and in an authentic way,” Benjamin said. “It lets us come out from behind traditional push advertising to simply talk and listen to the people we work, play and live with.”

Leroy Shatto of Shatto Milk Company has long prided himself on personally connecting with customers and local suppliers on a daily basis to ensure product satisfaction and to answer any questions. Now armed with a Facebook fan page, Shatto Milk Company reaches more than 8,000 fans who get updates about Shatto products, flavors, farm events and other company information, combined with an even greater level of transparency that allows customers to more easily contact the company.

Greg Morey, the Marketing Manager of Cafe Trio on the Plaza, said he spends a couple of hours a day maintaining the restaurant’s Facebook page, which currently reaches more than 1,500 fans. On the Facebook page, Morey frequently rewards fans with gift certificates and other give-aways. To enter one of the contests, fans have to guess a number in a specified range. It’s a dual strategy that rewards fans for their loyalty, and also ensures that the winners will tell others about Cafe Trio, thereby increasing their prospective customer base.

“These contests have helped expand our fan base exponentially,” he said. “The activity keeps us in the news feed and hence in an ever-growing stream of awareness. When I post a comment about a special cocktail, menu item, or event, fans may not post a comment, but a few might make that snap decision to drop by that day or within the next few days. It’s about keeping the brand near the top of the choice list.”

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.

As use of the sites has grown, Evans and Sara Paxton, the company’s managing partner and CTO, have developed increased expertise on how businesses can turn social networking into increased revenue. They say that engaging in and maintaining a conversation is one of the most important parts of social media for a company, regardless of the service or platform — but that it can’t be all about the business.

“Imagine dating someone self-involved who talks about him- or herself the entire time,” she says. “You don’t want to put up with that.”

And that’s why Paxton and Evans suggest the following formula for social networking success: businesses should make 90 percent of their posts about the business or links to content, and the other 10 percent should be fun posts on other topics to help give the business a personality.

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.”

Yet for those unexperienced at social media, the opposite can happen as account operators send needless or irrelevant information into cyberspace.

“This is supposed to be an interactive, engaging session,” Paxton said. “Social media isn’t just an extension of an ad or web site, and that’s the one mistake we see small business owners make.”

And although social media may be more appealing than traditional advertising channels (based in large part on the fact that most social media services are free), Fresh ID CEO and Social Media Club of Kansas City President Lisa Qualls thinks a combined approach is still a company’s best weapon for success.

“All forms of promotion—traditional, experimential and digital—are all needed,” she said. “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 an immediate response and sense of enthusiasm, than to put an ad in a newspaper and see if anyone walks into the store or picks up the phone because of it.”

In a larger sense, the inherent appeal of social media is that through the Internet, the world becomes a smaller, more manageable sphere throughout which interaction is possible regardless of physical location.

“The whole point of the Internet is that it levels the playing field,” Paxton said. “It doesn’t matter if you have an NYC office or you’re in Manhattan, Kan. If all of these outlets online are consistent, no one really knows the difference.”

By Katy Ryan, February 10, 2010 – As president of Verona Key LLC, the family-owned operator of Kansas City’s sole Dunkin’ Donuts franchise, Jennifer Benjamin has a full schedule. There are logistics to be sorted. A staff to be managed. Deliveries to be scheduled.

And Tweets to be Tweeted, of course.

How to make social networking work for businesses

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.”

Yet for those unexperienced at social media, the opposite can happen as account operators send needless or irrelevant information into cyberspace. “This is supposed to be an interactive, engaging session,” Paxton said. “Social media isn’t just an extension of an ad or web site, and that’s the one mistake we see small business owners make.”

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