As healthcare marketers there’s never enough time to get everything accomplished and our to do lists seem to grow longer and longer as demands in our time increase.  And now enter social media and the pressure for our hospital or healthcare organization to have presence and be active on social networking sites.  Pamela Vaughn posted “7 Social Media Time-Sucks to Eliminate Today” on blog.hugspot.com.  If we heed her advice it will eliminate some time that is commonly wasted doing social media marketing.

In inbound marketing, we talk a lot about optimization — optimizing your content for search engines, optimizing your website for lead generation, optimizing your social media presence. But another very important thing inbound marketers must optimize is time. Yes, compared to outbound marketing, inbound marketing saves money and is much more effective. But you also need to put the time in.

However, marketers often spend too much time on strategies and tactics that don’t make any real impact, particularly in social media. Don’t waste your precious marketing time on things that aren’t worth your time. Avoid the following 7 social media time-sucks at all costs.

7 Social Media Time-Sucks to Avoid

1. Stop feeding the trolls. On the internet, trolls are people who make it their mission to disrupt online discussions (whether it’s on a forum, in a blog post’s comments section, in a social network, etc.) with the goal of provoking an emotional response. Often, their comments are off-topic, inflammatory, and disruptive to the conversation. In general, don’t waste your time on them; it’s often better to ignore their remarks than try to reason with them. Do your best to recognize trolls, take a deep breath, and move on. If you perceive someone as a troll, chances are your other readers will, too, so don’t worry about trolls negatively impacting your brand if you ignore them.

2. Stop maintaining multiple accounts on one social network. You have one Twitter account for customer service, another for marketing, and yet another for Sales. Your Facebook presence is also spread out across multiple Pages. There are some cases when more than one account makes sense, but be reasonable. Consolidating your presence into one account will save you the time of maintaining multiple accounts, help you attract more followers, and centralize your web presence. You can always have multiple contributors/administrators for one account if you want representatives from multiple departments to be involved.

3. Stop spending time on social networks your target customers don’t populate. It’s an unnecessary time-suck to maintain a presence on every single social network that crops up. Before you sign up for a social media account, conduct research to determine if your target customers even congregate there. Furthermore, adjust the amount of time you spend on each social network accordingly. It doesn’t matter if Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are the most popular social networks overall. If your target audience spends more time on a niche social media platform specific to your industry than they do on a ‘popular’ one like Facebook, spend more of your time there, too.

4. Stop tracking useless metrics. At the end of the day, it’s all about sales. While there are definitely metrics that can be good indicators of revenue and sales, there are some that just generally don’t matter. In social media, these metrics include your number of fans and followers. Rather than obsessing over these useless metrics, measure social media traffic, leads, and customers instead.

5. Stop talking about your product. Don’t waste your time talking about yourself and your products or services, because, well, no one really wants to hear it. What your fans and followers do want to hear, on the other hand, is your thought leadership. Rather than spending time talking about yourself, spend time creating and sharing educational, remarkable content that people will care about and want to spread to their networks. This will extend your reach and actually generate results.

6. Stop strategizing, and start doing. Too many businesses waste time preparing over-the-top, extensive social media strategy documents. They spend time creating them, and then they spend even more time waiting for their approval. By the time they actually start executing, they could’ve already been generating results. Sure, it’s important to have a clear vision for your social media strategy, but getting things done and being agile enough to adapt to new trends and developments is more important than having a definitive strategy document.

7. Stop responding to EVERYTHING. As your business and social media presence grow (and, isn’t that the goal?), you’ll undoubtedly start generating more fans, followers, and as a result, more discussion around your brand. If you kill yourself over trying to respond to every single comment or @reply, you’ll never get anything meaningful done. While it’s absolutely critical to be an active member of your community and engage with your prospects and customers, always prioritize and spend your time responding to the conversations that are truly worthwhile.

Start eliminating these social media time-sucks and focusing on tactics that really matter. You’ll love how much looser your schedule becomes.

Companies in the midst of crisis and declining brand value have shown that a brand cannot only be brought back to life but can also thrive again.

Karen Post is the author of Brand Turnaround, a popular book about brands that have gone bad but have made a resurgence and returned to glory.  In the book she provides case studies on such brands as Ford, JetBlue, the Red Cross, Xerox, Dominos, Robert Downey, Jr, Michael Vick and Martha Stewart.

Every brand faces a crisis during its lifetime.  Usually several. Practically every brand has some tough times.  This is certainly true of healthcare brands too.  Sometimes factors totally out of our control cause it. And sometimes it just lack of leadership or vision. But it happens.

Drawing upon lessons learned from the over 75 brands she’s studied, Post offers seven “Game Changers” which she has found to be important to resurrecting a tarnished brand.

1.     Take responsibility

When things go badly for a brand, denial only makes matters worse.  The brand must own up to it.  Admit it and take responsibility.

2.     Never Give Up

Most brands are worth fighting for.  They have flourished for a reason and to give up would be a mistake.  You must fight for the brand and for the brand’s resurgence.  It’s not easy but it’s worth the fight.

3.     Lead Strong

After taking responsibility it’s important to have strong leadership. From those who believe in the brand, those who care for the brand and who want to bring the brand back to life and vitality.  The work is not accomplished by the timid.  It must be done from a strong vision and purpose.

4.     Stay Relevant

As long as you have relevance you have a chance.  That means listening to consumers and hearing what they say.  And making sure the brand is relevant to their desires and needs.

5.     Keep Improving

The road to recovery is never easy or quick.  It requires a long concerted effort.  And it means pushing for improvement.  Improvement from staff and employees, processes, products, services, communications and throughout the organization.

6.     Build Equity

Brand equity is a valuable commodity.  And as you attempt to turn a brand around you must build band equity.  You must make sure the brand has value and customer loyalty again.

7.     Own Your Distinction

Every viable brand has a mark or characteristic of distinction.  A distinction that gives meaning to the brand. Being a commodity or doing it just like everyone one or being only as good as everyone else will not resurrect a brand.  Only by creating a true consumer-oriented distinction can you revive and sustain a brand.

Healthcare brands are vulnerable to crises, mishaps, bad publicity unanticipated negative situations.  Every brand will face them from time to time.  And how we handle them and deal with them will determine the life and vitality of the brand for the future.

.

An astonishing fact: there are 48 million people in the world who have mobile phones but do not have electricity in their homes.  That shows the impact of mobile on our lives.  It’s estimated that the off-grid, on-net population will reach 138 million by 2015.

Ann Tracy Mueller posted on healthcarecommunications.com statistics showing the use of mobile is growing exponentially. Citing Kevin Roberts from a Cisco report in his Blogging Innovation site, the case is made for the impact of mobile and the need for healthcare marketers to be mobile-savvy and mobile-ready.

• Global mobile traffic nearly tripled for the third year in a row in 2010.
• Mobile video traffic will exceed 50 percent of all mobile data traffic for the first time in 2011.
• In early 2010, iPhone use was at least four times higher than that of any other smart phone platform. By the end of 2010, iPhone use was only 1.75 times higher than that of number two, Android.
• There will be 788 million mobile-only Internet users by 2015, up 56-fold from 14 million at the end of 2010.
• There will be more than 7.1 billion mobile-connected devices in 2015, roughly equivalent to the world’s population by then (7.2 billion).

The numbers are staggering.  But they are understandable.  Think how much you use your mobile device.  How much you see the people around you using there’s.  How many people do you know who don’t have a mobile phone?  Probably not many.  The numbers are clear.  The stats are obvious.

As healthcare marketers, in the very least, we need to make sure our internet presence is mobile-friendly.  And we should be exploring ways to create and use mobile apps to market our hospital.  Information is being accessed from mobile devices, including information about one’s health.  We must make sure our health information and information about our organization and services are easily mobile-accessible.

Not convinced yet?  Here’s one more bit of information from Roberts that should remove any doubt about the need for our hospital to be mobile-friendly:

“The average smartphone will generate 1.3 gigabytes of traffic per month in 2015, 16 times more than the 2010 average of 79 megabytes per month.  Growth in the next five years will see global mobile traffic reach 6.3 exabytes per month by 2015. How big is that? It’s been suggested that every word ever spoken by human beings would equate to five exabytes. So six every month is a lot of chatter!”

Healthcare marketers are always looking for advice and ideas from experts.  Seeking new and better ways of doing things.  Or for confirmation of what we are already doing.  And sometimes we just need to be reminded of the basics.  We all need to step back and listen to others from time to time. Sharon Hudson, Vice President of MarketingProfs, recently published helpful advice from six leading social media experts.  Here are the their secrets to social media success.

1. Start with the Right Strategy

“Align with the goals of your department. That’s a good starting place. In most cases your department strategy should also align to a larger corporate strategy. We don’t want a communication strategy that is at odds with our service strategy.” (Shannon Paul, Blue Cross Blue Shield)

2. Know Your Objectives

“Tie your social media activities to existing objectives, such as increasing online sales, driving web traffic or boosting attendance at your next webinar or offline event. Set a reasonable target, see what happens and use it as a benchmark for future campaigns.” (David B. Thomas, Radian6)

3. Deliver Relevant Content

“Deliver the right content, at the right time, in the right channel to the right customer (or partner). Relevant content happens as a result of listening, thought leadership, Google insights, and community sentiment.” (Michael Brito, Edelman Digital)

4. Develop Meaningful Relationships

“Use social media as a platform for developing relationships. Show your thought leadership by answering questions on LinkedIn and Quora—it could lead to new contacts and leads.” (Shashi Bellamkonda, Network Solutions)

5. Integrate into Your Marketing Mix

“Don’t leave opportunities on the table; explore how you can extend your marketing effort by integrating social elements into your PR, events and customer support activities.” (Jane Price, Marketing Consultant)

6. Measure What Matters

“Distill social media measurement down to core metrics that your company is already measuring that have history behind them. When you show what social media is or isn’t delivering there is a conversation that can take place.” (Nichole Kelly, Full Frontal ROI

These are some very helpful suggestions that can be applied to hospital marketing.  The points are fundamentally sound.  The challenge is to implement them effectively in our own healthcare setting.  The more we adhere to these basics, the more successful our social media efforts will become.

Sixty-one percent of adults under 30 who read newspapers read it online.  Compared to just 39% who read a printed version.  Additionally the average income for those who read it online is 20% higher than those who read the printed version.   More astonishing is that adults under 30 who earn more than $100,000 annually are 82% more likely to read digital news content than print.

According to a survey of 5,034 households conducted by Pulse Research, online readers of newspapers are younger, more affluent and better educated.  The survey showed the average age of print readers is 51 compared to digital readers at 44.

Digital readers are 22% more likely to have a college education.  Additionally 48% of the digital readers have children at home compared to 32% of print readers.

While circulation of daily newspapers continues to decline, the print and online audience is substantial and desirable.   To penetrate the younger, more affluent, better-educated audience with print we must adopt an online strategy.

The chief problem with this for healthcare marketers is the options online are not nearly as attractive as those provided by newspaper print versions.  Traditional print offers good real estate, which can create impact and allow a brand to develop and tell a story.  Online options provide very little more than name recognition and a brand statement.  Until newspapers decide to offer significant space in their online content, newspaper advertising will continue to be less and less attractive.

Many marketers are shifting money away from newspapers because a significant portion of their audience is going online for the content, but offer limited advertising options for digital marketing.  Newspapers will have to address this issue as they provide little more than billboard advertising but with a much smaller reach and frequency.

Social media sites reach 82% of the online population and Facebook reaches over ½ of the world’s population.

Social media continues to show amazing growth.  In “It’s A Social World”, ComScore has issued a report concerning the growth and impact of social media.  Without a doubt social media has become the most popular online activity.  In 2007 social media represented only 6% of online activity but that has now increased to 20%. Over 1.2 billion people globally use social media sites.

The report verified that women spend more than 30% more time online than men.  Social networking is no longer a young person’s activity as the participation now spans all age groups.   And Facebook now reaches 55 billion people, which is more than half of the world’s population.   Despite the hype for mobile access and marketing, it still captures just a fraction of the fixed-line connection.

The study just proves again the impact of social media.  The extensiveness of social networking.  But it does not answer, for healthcare marketers, the question of how to take full advantage of this massive audience.  Savvy healthcare marketers have experimented with some success.  But there are so many unanswered questions. We continue to learn and hopefully grow smarter.  But with limited resources and some of the limitations of healthcare marketing, it’s still a learning process.   There is still much to be explored as we attempt new tactics and new ideas.  Stay tuned….there will be much to come.

In a recent issue of Ragan’s Health Care Communication News, Scott Bille contributed an article on how to create effective landing pages.  The article has some very useful information and is republished here:

Now that people are coming to your website, the next question most marketers ask is, “How can I make the site work harder for me?”

Take a look at these ideas.

1. Identify business goals.

Before you can figure out how to make a landing page work harder, ask yourself, “What was the business need behind the campaign?” Lead generation, patient education, engagement? Answering this will help define a call-to-action (CTA) to engage visitors on the landing page. It will also help you find effective ways to measure how well everything is working.

2. Define a target audience.

Your next question should be, “Who can help us achieve those goals?”

3. Develop marketing tactics.

Once you know whom you are targeting, you need to ask, “How can I get my message in front of them at decision-making time?” It may be that you have a few targeted messages for subsets of the audience. This leads to another vital piece of this step—setting up a plan for reporting on individual tactics (messages, creative and placements).

4. Drive visitors to unique landing pages.

Sure, when someone clicks a link in one of those places, you could send them to the home page and they should be able to find the desired content. But why make them work that hard? You have a specific message—why not send them to a landing page focused on that message?

Now the fun begins. How can we make the landing page convert visitors into action-takers?

5. Deliver on off-page promises.

Since you built the marketing campaign driving traffic to the landing pages, you know what visitors were reading immediately before they arrived. Your page title, URL, headlines and body copy should all relate directly to the message that got someone to the landing page.

This will help them quickly realize that they are in the right place and prevent high bounce rates (people leaving the page without taking any action). It will also boost your quality score for pay-per-click (PPC) ads like Google AdWords, which could save you money on your ad bids.

6. Don’t make visitors think.

Keep the message on the page focused and simple. Eliminate distractions (too many choices, navigation to the rest of your site, etc.). Create a bright shiny and irresistible call-to-action.

If visitors came from an email, chances are you might know some of their personal info. Talk to your IT team to find out if they can pre-populate the form fields in the landing page’s CTA. At AB&C, we have had conversion rates of more than 50 percent by pre-populating form content.

7. Build trust.

Bounces can be caused by failure to establish trust. Web surfers are a savvy bunch and will bail out of any site that feels like a spam trap created to get their personal info.

When visitors hit your landing page, you need to assure them that they arrived at a legitimate destination. Tell them where they are. Show your contact information, accreditations, awards, etc. to help create a sense of authenticity.

Avoid over-use of capitalization and punctuation. “AMAZING!!!” Or “NEW!!!” Might as well read “SPAM TRAP!!!” “RUN AWAY!!!”

8. Optimize Call To Action.

OK, you have identified the right people, driven them to the landing page, given them a concise message. Now, how do you get them to take action? On the web, it’s often a lead-generation form. Here are some tips to make that form process simple for your visitors.

• Outline the benefits: Let visitors know why they should fill out the form. What’s in it for them?
  • Keep it short and simple: I always start by asking, “What fields can we remove from that form?” If you don’t have an immediate use for every piece of information you’re asking for, remove them. More importantly, remove any field that might make visitors ask, “Why would they want that?”
  • Create a simple scan line: Line up fields and titles to keep the user from having to jump around to understand the form. This will help even complex forms to feel less daunting.
    • Make the form easy to read: Make the type large enough for your target audience to easily see (the older the audience, the larger the font size).
    • Don’t skimp on white space: Let your form have room to breathe. It will make it less intimidating.
    • Identify required fields: This shouldn’t be necessary if you have done your job in eliminating unnecessary fields. But, if only some of the fields are mandatory, mark them.
    • Inline validation: Don’t make visitors hit the submit button before they find out that they didn’t enter a valid email, or they skipped a required field

9. Measure results.

If you are using Google Analytics and have properly tagged all inbound links, it should be fairly easy to see what tactics are driving the best traffic. Look at how many people hit the site versus the number of completed actions. Now, ask yourself, “What can I do to get more people to convert?

10. Test, test, test.

Try some variations to the page to see how they affect conversion rates. Fight the urge to test multiple variations the same time. If you do, how will you know which one made the difference? Run A/B tests to two variations; observe and refine as you learn from visitor responses. Here are some variables to throw into your A/B testing.

• Headlines
  • Graphics and other images
  • Multiple CTAs: Some people will click the first shiny object. Others may read through your content before deciding to get involved. Make sure that second category doesn’t have to hunt back up the page to find your CTA. Sometimes a secondary CTA could work for someone who isn’t fully committed
  • Button colors: Try colors that blend with the page’s palette, and colors that contrast. There is no perfect formula. Some say that green means “go” and red means “stop.” Others say red evokes a strong emotional response. Some say blue is the standard link color, so use that for buttons. Whatever color you choose, make sure it looks “clickable.”
  • Button text: Label your button something that ties in to your CTA like “Request an Appointment” or “Apply Now.” Avoid labels like “Submit” or “Go.”
  • Form variations: Try your full form. Then, try simply asking for a name and email. Somewhere in between lies the perfect blend that doesn’t scare people away, but still gives your staff the info they need to follow up.

Scott Bille is the interactive director at Aloysius Butler and Clark.

1. No, we don’t know every journalist everywhere across the universe. Even journalists whose weddings we were in will turn down our pitches occasionally.

2. A good publicist doesn’t have to be based in New York or Los Angeles to be effective. Ever heard of this crazy thing called email?

3. Few things actually warrant a press release …

4. … And a creative PR professional can still brainstorm ways to achieve your goals without one.

5. Stop insisting we call the media. Most of them hate this and specifically request we contact them exclusively via email.

6. PR is not free advertising. PR is not free (or cheap), period.

7. Don’t ask us to pitch an idea and then not be available for an interview. If you want the press, we need you to be ready to talk to the media at a moment’s notice.

8. What matters most to you may be totally irrelevant to a journalist. Remember that it’s what they—not you—think is important that matters in the end.

9. Publicists cannot control the end product. It is unethical for us to ask, to see, or to proof a copy of the story beforehand, or to dictate what the reporter can and can’t say. Doing so will backfire—trust us.

10. Social media is more than Facebook and Twitter.

11. If you insist on running all tweets and posts past the legal department, don’t expect results from our social media strategy.

12. If a journalist says he or she is not interested in a story, that person means it. Reaching out again will further annoy the reporter and guarantee we’ll be ignored the next time.

13. Don’t measure PR results in ad equivalency rates. Do you want to know you had $500,000 of ad equivalent value in negative press, or would you rather know 80 percent of the press you received was positive in tone and accurate in its messages?

14. No, we’re not writing any more “…pleased to announce…”

15. Ditto for “We’re so excited/thrilled/happy” CEO quotes. Pretend you’re explaining the story to a friend over drinks, and then give us that quote.

16. There’s no need for a logo and boilerplate for anyone who so much as breathed in a room where the project was discussed.

17. PR is a process. You know who hits it big overnight with a story on the “Today” show? Criminals, naughty celebrities, and shark-attack victims. Do you want to be one of them?

18. You can’t “make” something go viral. That’s why it’s called “going viral.”

19. An ethical PR pro is not a spin doctor. Do not ask us to lie, spin the truth, evade the press, or hide your dirty laundry.

20. We love our brand. You want the very best for the organization.  We dedicate our time and unique talents everyday to improve and enhance the brand.

This was adapted from an article written by Elizabeth Friedland, a senior public relations manager at Bandy Carroll Hellige in Indianapolis. She also blogs for Talent Zoo Media, where a version of this story first appeared.

Business Insider  revealed two infographics that indicate just some of the things that happen on the internet – every 60 seconds.  Perhaps nothing is as invasive in our lives as the internet.  It’s truly amazing!

Recently Facebook made changes to its social network’s interface.  This was closely on the heels of earlier changes that Facebook users weren’t even used to yet.  And users were not happy.  Then Netflix customers who were already unhappy with a price increase were then angered more when the company announced it was separating its streaming video offering from its video rental business to create a new company.

Two very successful corporations who had great loyalty and good will but unilaterally made decisions, which were good operationally without considering the impact on consumers.  It’s a mistake many companies make.  Although not as widely discussed and criticized as these two.   Both of these companies thought they could do anything they wanted and consumers would accept it.  They never even considered what the consumer would think.  It was good operationally for each of them and that was the basis of their decision.

So a management decision that made complete sense internally backfired because no one bothered to consider or ask what their customers thought. And now they’re paying a large cost in public perception, consumer loyalty and sales.  Their brand has been tarnished.

Healthcare organizations sometimes make the same mistake.  In an effort to cut costs, improve efficiency and increase productivity, hospitals and healthcare organizations make decisions that make sense internally but may not be received well by patients.

It proves that we need to listen to the consumer and evaluate every decision from the customer’s perspective.  In a very competitive marketplace with pressures on the bottom-line organizations can ill afford to alienate customers.  Decisions made without considering the consumer may save money but it could cost far more in business, consumer locality and brand perception.

Of course we know this.  But sometimes we forget.  We look at decisions from every angle except from the viewpoint of the consumer.  Sometimes it takes highly publicized snafus like Facebook and Netflix to remind us that what our customers think is of extreme importance.  May we not get so removed from our customers that we repeat the mistake.