Non-Traditional Media
The week in review - April 29, 2013.
Social media is constantly evolving, with vigilant bloggers following every new app, rule and Facebook flicker. We sift through hundreds of blogs weekly to keep on top of developments and seek out new client opportunities. It’s our job. And we like to share. So, don’t fret about what you might be missing. We’ve got your Cliffs Notes.
Why Social Media Fails Businesses
Brands have to know how to use social media correctly in order for it to yield results.
“Snackable” Content
Sometimes little “snacks” of content are more effective than long-winded posts since attention spans are so short.
Online Videos are More Effective Than TV Ads
The audience for online video is soaring, with 58% of the U.S. population streaming, up from 38% five years ago.
Big Brands Want Instagram Ads
Mark Zuckerburg disagrees with brands, claiming that ads could end up stunting Instagram’s rapid growth. Instagram is currently growing at a faster rate than Facebook did at the same age.
70% of Brand Engagement on Pinterest is User Generated
This study reveals the opportunity for brands to drive the conversation on visual platforms like Pinterest.
Instagram Adds Tagging
On Thursday, users can tag people in photos, and browse feeds of photos you and others appear in.
Healthcare social media review: Patientslikeme.com
A few weeks ago I reviewed Sharecare, a healthcare social media platform that I felt really didn’t deliver any true benefit to its users, let alone serve as a good example of a successful healthcare social media example. But while I was researching, I came across Patientslikeme, which was extremely interesting and unique, and from my introduction, seemed like a much better and successful example of how a healthcare social media platform can really change the world of healthcare. In fact, Forbes notes that the site is "producing some of the most compelling clinical data the healthcare industry has ever seen."
The idea of PatientsLikeMe.com came from three MIT engineers, who had a family member/friend diagnosed with a rare disease. They were having trouble finding research, data or even a network of people that shared a common diagnosis. With that, they developed a platform that has now grown and into the site PatientsLikeMe. Within the platform people can connect with others that share a similar diagnosis and track/share their own experience. While this may not sound very interesting, the greatest part is the data mining that happens simultaneously with the sharing. Throughout the whole process, the company is very openly gathering the stories and data to help with the future of these specific diseases – sharing it with researchers, pharma companies, providers, non-profits, etc.
My initial reaction to the idea is that of brilliance, but I wanted to test the platform. It was during this test and review that I continued to be Wowed. Below, I have highlighted some of the key areas of the platform for an in-depth review:
Create a profile:
I started with creating a profile, which took less than 5 minutes and instantly gave me a snapshot on my condition, how many within the network had the condition and a breakdown of other age/gender/diagnosis information.
Part of building your profile included questions about your history with the condition:
Connecting with Patients:
And then after that, I was quickly able to start using the site to my advantage. One of the greatest areas was the "find patients" tab, where you are able to search for patients like you to connect with and to read their stories.
Treatment information:
Another area that I found extremely beneficial was the “your treatments” tab that allowed me to enter in my personal treatment information and to read about other treatments reported by other patients of my condition. This area is complete with information from patients on how the medicines made them feel, benefits, drawbacks, etc. In addition to being clear and easy to understand, the network is actually large enough to make the data useful.
Not only did I find the site and the information relevant, useful and beneficial, it also made me want to share my story, which in the social media world, is the ultimate goal. The more that share their story, the greater the chance of making medical progress and advancements. I am truly impressed with PatientsLikeMe.com and believe that the site is one of only a select few of healthcare social media sites that understand how to leverage social media, ultimately making a direct change in the healthcare world.
The week in review - April 19, 2013.
Social media is constantly evolving, with vigilant bloggers following every new app, rule and Facebook flicker. We sift through hundreds of blogs weekly to keep on top of developments and seek out new client opportunities. It’s our job. And we like to share. So, don’t fret about what you might be missing. We’ve got your Cliffs Notes.
Creating Viral Tweets
This article is full of tips on how to create content that is forwarded and shared over and over again.
Twitter to Add TV
Twitter is close to reaching partnerships with TV networks that would bring more high-quality video content and advertising to the social site.
Mastercard and AmEx Feed Data to Advertisers
Credit Card companies are partnering up with digital advertisers, which makes some question the issue of privacy.
Facebook Will Debut Video Ads This Summer
It's assumed that the videos will auto play and will be presented in a video player that expands beyond the main news-feed real estate to cover the right- and left-hand rails of users' screens on the desktop version of Facebook.
A Facebook Fan is Worth $174
The study compared Facebook fans and non-fans based and their corresponding product spending, brand loyalty, propensity to recommend, media value, cost of acquisition and brand affinity to arrive at the figure, which is up 28% since 2010.
Instagramming Your Brand
Instagram is easy and engaging, so why wouldn’t you want to use it for your brand or business?
The week in review - April 12, 2013.
Social media is constantly evolving, with vigilant bloggers following every new app, rule and Facebook flicker. We sift through hundreds of blogs weekly to keep on top of developments and seek out new client opportunities. It’s our job. And we like to share. So, don’t fret about what you might be missing. We’ve got your Cliffs Notes.
Vine hopes to make exploring content easier with the launch of trending hashtags. The new feature allows users to easily see what the community is Vining about.
Brands Buy Real Time Mobile Ads Based on Weather
Twitter and The Weather Channel announced an agreement centered on a new weather-based ad-targeting product. Twitter says that 60% of its audience derives from smartphones—where users will be seeing Promoted Tweets thanks to the TWC deal.
“Home” lets consumers enable an ever-changing rotation of visual content from their Facebook friends called "cover feed" on their home and lock screens -- where ads will eventually also go.
More Customer Service Experiences are Being Shared via Social Media
With regard to wielding their social networks, almost half (45%) of respondents said they share bad customer service experiences via Facebook, Twitter, and other popular platforms, while 30% reported sharing good customer service experiences via social media.
Facebook Opens Up Advertising to Very Specific Targets
Over the past year Facebook has been expanding the data that can be used for ad targeting to include non-Facebook information like the sites someone visits outside of Facebook, loyalty program memberships and, more recently, the types of products they buy in a brick-and-mortar store.
A new music lover's space, a new advertising space, the New Myspace.
Justin Timberlake is back, but not just with a new album. He is the biggest supporter and face of a new networking site – the New Myspace. The fresh site is putting itself on the level of Pandora and Spotify and backing away from social networking giants Facebook and Twitter. The New Myspace won’t compete with Facebook anymore; instead it will provide content that can be shared via social media.
The new site is all about music and making connections. Users can connect to and get updates from all their favorite artists. You can even become a number one fan of an artist if you interact with them more than any other user. When connecting to friends, the New Myspace shows your “affinity” or commonalities in music with that person. You can also connect to mixes (playlists other users create), music videos and radios (artist based radios – similar to Pandora.)
It’s also all about being visual. The profile pages allow you to put a very large, high quality cover photo and then as you sideways scroll across, you can see smaller pictures of music, comments and connections. The homepage is also very photo based – giving you the latest news on your connections and the music world.
Other cool features include a large search toolbar that appears no matter where you are on the site and a music player that remains on the bottom of the screen always.
There is no advertising on the site right now, but it will be added over time. What does this mean for marketers in the future? It means connecting to a targeted demographic in a new way. When advertising does come to the site, it won’t be in the same cluttered way as the old site. Options could include pre-roll videos before music videos and branded content (articles, photos, etc.) The advertising would be more integrated in the site and not just a mess of banner ads.
Marketers could target a specific age group with specific interests easily. At first, the New Myspace will definitely skew to a younger demographic, but also might attract the original Myspace users who are a little older. As time goes on, more and more people of all ages will become users. You can narrow down who to target by what music they listen to and what they list as their interests – similar to Facebook.
Pandora advertising is taking off and the New Myspace could follow suit. Do you see yourself joining the New Myspace? Or more importantly, can you see yourself advertising on it?
Great healthcare marketing video.
Okay, get “prepped” for this. The Pink Glove Dance goes Colonoscopy. Humor is tricky to carry off, but Dr. Rosenfeld of Simi Valley, California, nails it. This proctologist’s Bowel Prep Shuffle (remix of Pitbull’s Give Me Everything), will have you laughing out loud. Especially if you’ve ever had a colonoscopy.
Irreverent? No, a brilliant healthcare marketing strategy using humor to break down barriers and lessen patient discomfort in discussing a difficult topic. All the while making the doc seem more like a “real person”.
I will say no more, except you need to watch this. And share in honor of Colon Cancer Awareness Month.
Innovative healthcare marketing example #16.
It’s always been tough getting Medicaid moms to their prenatal and well–baby visits. Which is why UnitedHealth’s new game, called Baby Blocks, is a great idea. When moms attend prenatal and well-baby check-ups (which is easier said than done), they get to unlock “blocks” in the game. And voila, they are rewarded with gift cards for much-needed baby related stuff. Like maternity clothes, diaper bags and baby apparel. Pretty spot on for this younger, low-income, yet gaming-savvy, target. And it seems to be working, as 2296 members used the Baby Blocks pilot in 2012, logging 7098 prenatal appointments (an average of 3.1 prenatal blocks per member).
The rise of healthcare gamification can be attributed to the rise in smartphone and social media use and related desire for engagement. “Using motivational techniques from games is part of it, as is creating engaging experiences for people,” says Kevin Werbach, Wharton professor of legal studies and business ethics. In the Pew Future of Gamification report, neuroscientists claim that "interactive design elements can cause feel-good chemical reactions and in certain situations can improve learning, participation and motivation."
That’s the intent behind HopeLab’s Re-Mission, a video game developed specifically for adolescents and young adults with cancer. Nanobot, Roxxi, travels through fictional cancer patients destroying cancer cells, battling infections and managing side effects associated with cancer and cancer treatment. Research shows the game has been an effective tool for young cancer patients, now distributed to over 185,000 patients worldwide.
A related tool worth applauding is the pain diary app, called The Pain Squad, developed by The Hospital for Sick Children. This innovation was designed to help pediatric cancer patients track and address their pain. How intense it is, how long it lasts, where it hurts, how it impacts their mood and daily activities, and what helps to treat it. Since inadequate assessment and patient reluctance to report pain are the biggest barriers in pain treatment, the goal is to make it easier for kids to track their symptoms by using technology that’s fun and familiar. And the hope is better pain management and quality of life for these youths.
It seems in many cases the ramification of gamification in healthcare is improved health status. Let us know if you have any favorite healthcare games or apps that are helping people.
Social media and the Olympics: what we can learn from our biggest winners' losses.
Well, the Olympics have come to an end (sigh). The closing ceremonies are over and have successfully spiced up my life. But the completion of the games have left a void in my nightly television routine I have gotten quite accustomed to over the past two weeks. I’ve now had some time to reflect on the proud moments, the incredible athletes, and, of course, the tear jerking Olympic commercials that oftentimes deserve gold metals.
What struck me the most was the huge role social media played in this year’s games. The New York Times even referred to it as the “Socialympics”. There have been some highlights (following the athletes as on their road to Olympic stardom was inspiring), but there have also been some social media mishaps.
Here are some of the lessons we have learned that can be applied to your business or brand’s social media so that you don’t accidentally commit “social suicide”:
Greek Olympic triple jumper, Voula Papachristou, was ousted from the games and was ineligible to compete after tweeting racially hurtful comments about fellow African athletes. Not only did she get the boot, but she put a rather large dent in her personal brand.
Dick Raman, CEO of BrandReact, says, “the lesson here is think before you tweet. Because social media is instant, people sometimes don’t realize that things written in the heat of the moment have a lasting effect even in the Twitterverse.” Remember: social media is instant and permanent. This also validates that age old adage: If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.
Photographs by Stanley Chou/Getty Images; Michael Buckner/Getty Images.
Here’s another example: Olympic Soccer player Hope Solo and Brandi Chastain got in a twitter cat fight over Brandi’s guest commentating during a match. Their back and forth was more painful to watch than the final seconds of swimming.
The lesson here may be obvious, but it’s vital: don’t talk smack about your competition. You’re better off letting your brand, products or services speak for themselves than bashing your competitors. Keep it classy.
I’m already looking forward to the next round of Olympic Games and all of the glory and controversy it is sure to bring. Until then, I’ll be keeping an eye on my social media and carefully monitoring my twitter posts.
The Hunger Games teams up against hunger.
Like everyone else's kids, my twelve-year-old daughter is crazy about The Hunger Games. She devoured the book trilogy and she's been making plans for the big opening day for weeks.
I myself have been kind of indifferent to the Hunger craze. I was only grateful that there weren’t any vampires involved. But then I spotted a Hunger Games promotion that made me a fan, too.
As the poster says, the world really will be watching when this much anticipated movie hits screens. So instead of just doing the usual glamorous premieres, magazine covers, and other ways to drum up ticket sales, the film is using its fame (and its theme) to do some good in the world. Through the Facebook page, people can make a donation for food distribution by the World Food Programme,internationally or WFP and Feeding America in this country.
To further entice fans to learn more about the very solvable hunger problem, the site features a quiz that includes facts like:
- “1 in 7, or close to one billion people, go to bed hungry every night.”
- “Hunger kills more people every year than AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis combined.”
- “There is enough food today for everyone to have the nourishment needed for a healthy and productive life. The problem is access.”
Finish the quiz—and learn an important thing or two—and you’re entered to win a signed Hunger Games poster.
To me, this is cause marketing at its best. The film not only gets its publicity, it also harnesses all that fan love to do, good work. It’s a win-win. And it’s made me—a formerly indifferent Hunger Games bystander—volunteer to chaperone seven girls to the movie on Friday night.
Sara Blakely, Saving the World One Booty at a Time.
Not so long ago, if you wore a girdle, you didn’t want anybody to know it. Now girlfriends (including the Grand Girlfriend of them all, Oprah) love to dish about smoothing their muffin tops or rounding out their booties with sexy, slimming shapewear.
And it’s all because of Spanx.
Founded 12 years ago, Spanx sells (and sells and sells) not just because it works wonders on women’s bods, but also because it does it with winning sass, from the naughty name to the cute cartoons on the packaging.
And that’s all because of Spanx founder, Sara Blakely. Her force of nature personality, relentless work ethic, and most of all, true understanding of women, have made her a newly minted billionaire at age 41. She’s the youngest self-made woman on Forbes magazine’s “Rich List.”
She’s also my latest girl crush. (For other strong, entrepreneurial women I admire, see my blog post on Sheryl Sandberg and check out my mentor and founder of Brogan & Partners, Marcie Brogan.)
I love Blakely’s back story. She started Spanx with $5000 of her own money. She had an idea to improve upon control top pantyhose and had to practically storm a hosiery mill to get them to make her prototype. She wrote her own patent to save legal fees. She hand-sold Spanx at a folding table at Neiman Marcus using picture of her own disappearing panty lines and stayed up all night filling her own mail orders.
Now that her company—which is debt-free and privately owned—has hit it huge, Blakely’s personality still charmingly infuses everything Spanx does, especially its savvy marketing. The company’s staff is dominated by women who put themselves out there as much as Blakely does. On the Spanx blog, “The Rear View”, for instance, staffers pose for before and after photos in Spanx nipping and tucking swimsuits.
And in a section called “Spanx-Giving,” we hear about charitable work staffers have done for organizations like the Foster Care Support Foundation’s Prom-A-Palooza.
Blakely also gives back with motivational speaking, largely aimed at women, and impulsive gifts of joy, like treating everyone in her favorite restaurant to dinner.
A cute cartoon of Blakely herself, wearing a long blond ponytail, is perched at the top of the every page on the Spanx website. It’s clear that, while her ragtag underwear company has changed immensely, Blakely has remained true to her very feminine self. And that’s the best recipe for success I can think of.
