DCP Dialogue

Should Hospitals Use Facebook?

Hospitals are flocking to social media sites like Facebook and Twitter in order to attract consumer attention and to engage consumers in meaningful and ongoing dialogue. The attraction is obvious since millions of consumers turn to these internet communities to find information and local services. But special challenges are presented to hospitals on social media sites because of concerns about patient privacy and the limits participants have in controlling the dialogue.

In a recent white paper entitled "To Facebook or Not to Facebook: The question for hospitals today" the people at MyHealthCommunity Social Network, Inc. do a great job of framing the issues and offering sound advice for hospital marketers developing a social media strategy. You can download the white paper here.

In their conclusion, the authors offer a series of recommendations on how hospital marketers should proceed. One of the points that sticks out for me is that you should “use Facebook as a place to find your audience and direct them to the appropriate platform for communication.” Those appropriate platforms include the hospitals’ own websites. DCP helps hospitals build out sections of their sites where this more secure conversation can take place.

Omniture Survey Says…Online ROI Measurement is Important, But Hard to Implement

According to the results of the 2010 Omniture Online Analytics Benchmark Survey, the majority of marketers value the importance of measuring ROI from online marketing activities but 55% can’t effectively measure it. The survey results also reveal that only 14% of respondents currently use all three emerging channels (mobile, social media, video) in their marketing efforts.

I was surprised by these numbers! I expected that more marketers would be using emerging channels and would have systems in place for measuring results. Take a look at the highlights below or click here for more survey results. What's your reaction to this?

ROI
80% of respondents believe ROI from online marketing activities is important to measure, but only 31% of marketers can effectively measure it.

Social Media
69% of respondents are using social media in their marketing efforts however, 41% lack a mechanism to measure social media conversion.

Mobile
23% of respondents are currently using mobile in their marketing efforts. Of these people:

• 73% can measure if website visitors are coming from a mobile device
• 30% are able to measure their mobile app conversions

Video
43% of respondents are using online video in their marketing efforts. Of these people:

• 59% feel that post-video conversion is one of the most important video metrics, yet 70% are unable to measure post-video conversion.
• 40% are using online video lack a mechanism to measure video starts.

Conversion
86% of respondents think conversion rate from online marketing activities is important to measure, but 25% cannot effectively measure it.

Results of the survey included here are as of May 7, 2010.

Social Media Marketing: Not the Leading Marketing Tool

The title of a recent Junta42 Content Marketing blog entry caught my eye--“Five Reasons Social Media Marketing Comes Last”. When every other blog entry, email subject line, whitepaper, and webinar advocates the high priority of social media marketing, it was refreshing to read something different.

Based on an excerpt from Shama Kabani’s new book, The Zen of Social Media Marketing, this blog entry explains why social media marketing should come last in your marketing plan, yet why it must be there.

The main distinction Shama makes is that social media is a consumer platform, not a marketing platform. With a consumer-owned platform, you can listen and you can participate in the conversation but you don’t control what or how much is said. You still need a marketing platform—a one-way communication vehicle that enables you to deliver your marketing message to the consumers you want to reach.

Since social media is where your customers are, you have to be there. But don’t forget that while social media provides a great place to meet and greet customers, you still need traditional marketing platforms (i.e. advertising, websites, email, e-newsletters, PR, webinars, special events, catalogs, etc.) to communicate your comprehensive marketing message.

Enhance your targeting with smart Twitter searches

Since one of the biggest benefits of Twitter for business marketing is tracking what people are saying about your organization and your industry, honing your Twitter search skills is essential. Plus, smart Twitter searches can uncover prospective customers.

That’s why you should read this article “7 insanely useful ways to search Twitter”, written by John Jantsch. You’ll learn how to get the most out of Twitter’s advanced search functionality and how to combine Google and Twitter to find out not just what’s being said but sometimes more importantly, the characteristics of who is saying it.

These seven tips provide an effective way to stay current on who is talking about your business or industry and what they’re saying. You’ll also learn creative ways to search for Twitter users who could be prospective customers. I highly recommend it!

Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Oh My

Not sure where to start with your social media efforts? It’s always useful to read case studies of how other organizations are tackling similar challenges. On the one hand, it’s great when you can pick up a few valuable tips. On the other hand, it’s nice to confirm that you’ve already been doing things right.

That’s how I reacted to the lead article in the September/October 2009 issue of Spectrum, SHSMD’s bimonthly member newsletter, “Launching Our Hospital’s Social Networks: An Insider’s Perspective.” It tracks the steps that Swedish Covenant Hospital in Chicago took to develop a social media presence. Written by two of the hospital’s marketing professionals, Leigh Ginther and Laura Prusik, this case study presents an intelligent process and meaningful observations.

How To Measure ROI From Social Media

With all the hype about Facebook and Twitter, we marketers get that social media is the place to be. We’re repeatedly warned that if we’re not taking advantage of these new channels, we’re missing out on precious marketing opportunities. But with tight budgets, we need to prove that social media pays off before we can dedicate too many resources.

In his article Measure Social-Media Efforts to Grow Revenue, Lists and Leads, Dan Miller* boils this measurement process down to five manageable steps:

1. Set your goals (i.e. revenue, lead-generation, email-list-building, conversion goals)
2. Figure out how to measure your goals (i.e. what specifically are you going to track?)
3. Establish a baseline of activity
4. Create URL tracking parameters
5. Measure, study, analyze

It sounds easy enough, but you’ll need to read Miller’s article to get the details on specific ways to track activity and measure results.

*Dan Miller is professional services and sales engineering manager at Lyris.

Who Is Using Social Media and How Do They Use It?

I was surprised by a few statistics quoted in the recent DMNews article, Boomer women get social. According to Facebook, since September 2008, the fastest-growing age group on the site is women over 55. And according to Forrester Research, more than 60% of boomers—both men and women—are regular consumers of social media.

This data motivated me to investigate Facebook demographic trends over the past few years. According to iStrategyLabs’ 2009 Facebook Demographics and Statistics Report, in the past year there has been a 276% growth in 35-54 year old users and 194% growth in the 55+ group.

This means that the percentage of Facebook users who are 18-24 years old is rapidly declining:

• In 2007, 62% of Facebook users were 18-24
• In 2008, 54% of Facebook users were 18-24
• In 2009, 41% of Facebook users are 18-24

So what does this trend mean for marketers? In this article, you’ll gain many interesting insights from Carol Orsborn and Mary Brown, the co-authors of the book Boom: Marketing to the Ultimate Power Consumer – the Baby-Boomer Woman. Some of the key points are:

• “Boomers interact differently online than younger generations.”
• “Content is key to drawing this audience into social networking conversations.”
• “Boomers take more time making connections, with longer emails or texts.”
• “Content is king—it leads to social networking, not the other way around.”
• “Boomers are outspending younger consumers two to one.”

The bottom line is that our social media marketing strategies today need to target all age groups, and organizations targeting women over 35 years old should consider social media as a viable vehicle.

How Can My Social Media Efforts Support My Email Marketing Programs and Vice Versa?

We’re all trying to figure out exactly how social media fits into and boosts our marketing efforts. Last week, I highlighted a Q&A with Paul Gillin, where he touched on the overlap between social media and direct marketing. Today, I’d like to point out two interesting articles from DM News that address ways that social media and email marketing support each other. They are:

• Problem Solver: “How can I integrate social media with my email marketing program?” by Nicholas Einstein

• “How to use social media to grow your email list” by Morgan Stewart

Here’s what I’ve learned from these articles. Email (one-to-one personal communication) is the preferred vehicle to convey promotional offers and drive transactions. Social networks are a great platform from which you can provide customer service and collaborate with fans. Ideally, people will follow you in both channels. Therefore, you want to use each channel to drive your audience to the other channel.

I’ve summarized the synergies between social media and email marketing into four main beneficial actions:

1. Listen to and learn from your social community—let your fans help you hone your marketing message (same point that Paul Gillin made for direct marketing).

2. Deepen communications with your audience by giving them multiple ways to converse with you. If people find you on social media, make it easy for them to link to your email programs. If you reach them via email marketing, encourage them to join your social communities.

3. Make it easy for your audience to spread the word and tell others about you by adding a “share-to-social” function in your email communications.

4. Encourage people to subscribe to all types of communications with your organization. Make sure members of your social networks know they can stay in touch via email subscriptions and invite people to join your social communities via email messages.

The bottom line is, we want to have as many conversations with our audience as possible and we want to encourage them to share these discussions with their friends.

Where Do Social Networking and Direct Marketing Overlap?

If you’ve ever wondered, “What on earth does social networking have to do with direct mail?”, you must read this Target Marketing Q&A between Paul Gillin, author or the recently released “Secrets of Social Media Marketing: How to Use Online Conversations and Customer Communities to Turbo-Charge Your Business!” and Ethan Boldt, editor-in-chief, Inside Direct Mail.

Throughout these seven questions and answers, Gillin presents numerous examples of how these marketing functions are starting to come together and support each other. To me, the most hard-hitting point in the dialogue was Gillin’s statement:

“We don’t control our brands anymore. Brands are controlled by our constituents. We have a role in shaping the brand, of course, but branding is now a process of constant back and forth with the people who will interact with these brands.”

Given this development, Gillin suggests that direct marketers use their social community to help refine their marketing message. Let your community tell you what messages work and don’t work—they’re a great testing ground.

But read the article to get other ideas of how social marketing can support your direct mail strategy.

To Allow Comments or Not To Allow Comments...

If you have a blog, you know how exciting it is to receive a comment. It confirms that someone out there is reading what you have to say and they too have a strong opinion on the topic. That’s what blogs are supposed to do—inspire people to share their opinions. But why would a traditional newspaper allow anyone to comment on news stories that appear on their website?

According to Ryan Kim, Chronicle Staff Writer, “The ability to comment on news stories at Web sites for established newspapers, such as The Chronicle, USA Today and the Washington Post, has invited a wave of input from would-be pundits, class clowns, provocateurs and regular Joes.” In his recent article, "Comments on news stories a double edged sword", Kim introduces us to two regulars who comment on SFGate articles about 16 to 28 times per day, on average.

This recent trend is a major commitment for newspapers since comments have to be monitored carefully. The more politically charged the article, the nastier the comments can get. Perhaps that’s why not all newspapers offer it. NYTimes.com, doesn’t typically allow comments on news stories. The Austin American-Statesman has had to shut down the commenting feature several times when comments got too vicious.

Then why do newspapers bother to allow online comments? The answer is simple. Enabling readers to voice their opinion so easily is the best way to energize and engage them and it helps newspapers develop even stronger relationships with their audience. Statistics prove that online comments keep readers on the site longer and boost page views by 5 to 15 percent. The commenting feature builds social communities, makes a website more relevant and current, and can generate more money through advertising.

According to Ryan Kim, “SFGate averages almost 4 million page views a month for comments. Prior to turning on comments for news stories in the summer of 2007, there were only about 30,000 page views a month for comments, mostly on staff blogs.”

Some of DCP’s clients are starting to add the commenting feature to their online magazine websites. Soon we will be able to report the direct benefits of this capability.