Give Healthy Brands a Boost- How To Make The Most Of Your Content Plan This Year

Okay, so it’s week two of the New Year.  For some people, resolutions are starting to wane, but it’s important to stay motivated.  One of the most important tools in the toolbox for today’s healthy brands is deploying a robust content strategy.  Here’s a guest post by Kuhn & Wittenborn’s Matt Bartlett about how to get organized to make the most of your content plan this year.

Planning season is upon us, and if you are like me, you are scrambling to put together plans, schedules, estimates, etc. for your clients. One piece I struggle with every year is putting together content calendars. It’s not that the content isn’t there, but organizing a full year’s worth of content can be a huge (and stressful) challenge. It seems like I try a new format every year and always end up piecing together a document from a number of different sources for each client.

I recently ran across this article on the social media and content marketing strategy website Convince and Convert. Not only does it include a free template, it serves as a great reminder of the importance of a thorough, well-planned content calendar. The author notes, “the further ahead you plan your digital content publishing the better placed you are to produce a consistent flow of content.” I think that is a great reminder as we plan out the year for our clients and ourselves.

If you try out the template, let us know what you think in the comments. Or, if you’ve seen success with a different method, feel free to share.

Food Fraud and Cardiovascular Marketing

I’m on a bit of a rampage. I was discussing the importance of relevant, dynamic content for brands that help people improve their quality of life with a couple of my industry colleagues. And here’s the rampage: how can we be sure the tips we’re presenting are accurate when there’s so much fraud in the food industry today?

Especially when we see things like this infographic.

Shameful. It really almost makes me want to hurl my lunch across the room (except I know it was prepared from all-organic ingredients from my local CSA).

This certainly impacts us as cardiovascular marketers looking for dynamic and engaging content to share because, like most of my clients, some of the most popular content involves tips on healthy eating.

I know cynics may think the food fraud headlines are a bunch of hype, but I think it bears careful watching. What do you do to ensure the resources you use for cardiovascular marketing content are relevant and safe?

Social Sharing Best Practices for Cardiovascular Marketers

Subtle shifts in how and when you share social media content can make a big difference in your engagement with patients and prospects.

A recent study by content platform, Compendium, examined 200 companies’ social sharing statistics.  Here’s what they found for business-to-consumer content:

• Ideal message length
  • LinkedIn: 21-25 words
  • Twitter: 1-5 words
• Using a question mark
  • LinkedIn:  45% fewer clicks if include a ?
  • Twitter: 52% fewer clicks if include a ?
• Using an exclamation mark
  • LinkedIn: 27% more clicks if ! is used
  • Twitter: 8% fewer clicks if ! is used
• Using hashtags
  • LinkedIn: 20% fewer clicks if hashtag is included
  • Twitter: 82% fewer clicks if hashtag is included
• Using a number
  • LinkedIn: seems to have no real effect one way or the other
  • Twitter: 3.5% more click if number is included
• Best time of day
  • LinkedIn: 9 a.m. – 11 a.m. and again over the lunch hour
  • Twitter:  10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
  • Facebook: during the lunch hour and the late afternoon
• Part of the hour
  • LinkedIn: fairly even, but avoid sharing content 10-15 minutes into the hour
  • Twitter: top and bottom of the hour
• Day of the week
  • LinkedIn: Monday
  • Twitter: Monday and Wednesday

While it’s fun to see stats like these, I still think it’s important to use this as a starting point and do your own testing.  But this study does drive home the point that it is important to include metrics like these in the evaluation of your social media strategy.  Several of these items are imperatives in developing a social dashboard.

And, don’t forget.  Great content still rules.  Sending irrelevant messages will never work – no matter what time or day of the week.

*B2B stats vary significantly.  See the study for more details.

Twitter Tips for Cardiovascular Marketers

When you Tweet, what you Tweet and how often you Tweet can have a big impact on results.

Having grown to more than 140 million active users and 340 million Tweets per day, most brands agree that Twitter is an important platform these days. In fact 77 percent of marketers say Twitter is now one of their top three priorities in social platforms.

But how can you craft strategies that maximize your efforts?

Buddy Media, a social enterprise software company, analyzed user engagement from more than 320 Twitter handles of the world’s biggest brands. They looked at success metrics around reply rate, ReTweet rate and engagement rate.

I encourage you to download the whole report. It contains some good stuff. For those of you want some quick takeaways in the meantime, here are some highlights:

• Don’t overlook weekends. Twitter engagement rates are 17 percent higher on Saturday and Sunday compared to weekdays.
• Use both Facebook and Twitter to create an “always on” conversation. Engage with followers on Twitter during “busy hours” (7 AM – 8 PM), but post to Facebook fans during “non-busy hours” (8 PM – 7 AM).
• Tweet four times per day or less.
• Use less than 100 characters per Tweet.
• Add links to Tweets to drive higher Retweet rates.
• Ensure links are clickable by placing a space before the URL.
• Include hashtags in Tweets, but don’t use more than two per Tweet.
• Use images to drive the highest engagement.
• Use a “Retweet” or “RT” call to action to prompt followers to Retweet. Spell out “Retweet” to get the highest engagement

An Infographic on Measuring Social Media Impact for Cardiovascular Marketers

Yes, Mr. or Ms. CEO, social media really does impact our business. 

If you’re like most cardiovascular marketers (and a few of our clients), you’re increasing efforts in the social media space.

However, when it comes to convincing your CEO that increased spending in this area really makes sense, you may still be facing some challenges. Here’s a great infographic with tons of tips on how and what to measure.

I am curious to hear more about the social media metrics you’re using in your efforts. Also, please share strategies that are working in the dialogue with your CEOs.

Infographic brought to you by InventHelp

Nine Ways to Get Your Cardiovascular Marketing Facebook Page Ready For Timeline

Timeline for Facebook brand pages is here.

Some brands have already switched and by the end of March all brand pages will be moved to the new Timeline layout. Are you ready?

Timeline on personal Facebook pages has certainly received mixed reviews. Personally, I like it, and I feel like most of the naysayers are just reacting to the challenge of change. From a visual standpoint, Timeline offers a lot of branding opportunities that are far superior to the traditional page.

Regardless of when your brand page makes the shift, I think this post from B2C Community offers some great tips to start the preparation process.

1. Get the Timeline for your personal profile if you haven’t done it yet. Familiarizing yourself with how it works will shorten the learning curve for your business page.

 2. Start planning – Think about elements from your current page that should migrate to the new look. Use it as an opportunity to reinforce your brand message.

3. Think visually – A big difference between the Timeline and the old wall interface is the emphasis on images. The main piece of “real estate” is the large cover photo at the top, but images are featured throughout. You might need to augment your Timeline with some new photos. Again, make sure the images are consistent with your brand image and that they reinforce marcom campaign efforts.

4. Think historically –Timeline essentially functions as an online scrapbook, and it makes it easy to tell a historical story. For an organization that has been around for awhile, it offers an interesting opportunity to capitalize on your history. If you have old photos you might want to include, start gathering and scanning them now.

5. Think live media –If you’re not already using video, the Timeline transition would be a great time to try it. Anything you can do to make your page more active and dynamic will lead to more engagement.

6. Content is still king – Don’t think the plethora of Timeline’s images can make up for weak content. Continue to post interesting articles, blog entries, health tips and more. Think of your page as a clearinghouse for everything your audience needs to know about cardiovascular health.

7. Expect the unexpected, and be prepared to run on the fly – It’s impossible to predict exactly how Timeline for businesses will work. Some are predicting that third-party apps, which currently reside on custom tabs on the left hand side will end up in boxes near the top, just like on our personal profiles. If that’s the case, this opens up new opportunities for exposure. At this point, we also don’t know if the Timeline layout will be conducive to custom landing pages.

8. Explore – Look around to see how other brands are using the Timeline, and get ideas about what might work for you.

9. Avoid hand wringing – Don’t stress about Timeline, and don’t avoid it. Switch over as soon as you can. Early adoption will lend credibility to your brand’s savvy. Coming off as a Facebook laggard sure seems inconsistent with being a strong, innovative cardiovascular brand.

Three Metrics You Should Consider To Increase Your Cardiovascular Marketing Facebook Results

Three game-changing metrics can help you improve your Facebook performance.

Achieving business results with social media can be a dicey topic. Facebook’s newly revamped Facebook Insights analytics tool gives page owners a staggering amount of information about fans, but who has time to sift through all of the data to find truly actionable items?

Facebook marketing guru Amy Porterfield says paying attention to these three key metrics is a good start:

1.    Track ”People Talking About This”

People Talking About This is a new metric for Facebook Pages. It’s also the only one visible to the public, unlike other measurements on your dashboard.

It shows the total number of people who have engaged with your Page in any way over the past week— by Liking it, commenting on or sharing a post, answering a question, tagging your Page, or responding to an event. The Facebook Insights dashboard also shows a percentage increase or decrease from week to week.

People Talking About This seems to be a good measure of overall engagement, still the holy grail of social media metrics.

Porterfield reminds us that the best way to increase engagement is to ask. Ask questions vs. crafting static posts, and give your audiences mini calls-to-action, e.g., “If you found this tip useful, share it with your friends.”

A great tip: Never let a post go unattended. When someone does comment, Like or share your post, reach out personally to acknowledge the action with a thank you, or use it as an opportunity to expand the conversation. But whatever you do, don’t leave fans hanging.

2.    Track “Engaged Users”

On the Insights dashboard, there’s a chart in the Page Post Information area with a column called “Engaged Users.” It shows the number of unique people who have clicked anywhere on that post. (Note: Insights only tracks this for 28 days.)

Hint: If you click on the number itself, you’ll also see a pie chart with types of clicks, including “other,” which counts the clicks not included in any other metric (clicking on someone’s name, for example). This shows you how many people are really paying attention, even if they don’t comment or click Like.

Your goal should be to steadily increase clicks on your posts over time. If that’s not happening, you may need to think about how to create more targeted posts that address the relevant information your target audience wants, and focus on challenges you can solve for them.

3.    Track “External Referrers”

By clicking on Reach (under Insights in your sidebar) and scrolling down to find “External Referrers, ” you can find out how many times people arrived on your Facebook Page from an external site during a selected date range.

In order to drive more traffic to Facebook, start by determining where your current referrals are coming from. Then, Porterfield suggests asking the following questions:

Am I optimizing my Facebook Page so that when Google indexes Facebook, users find my Page too?

Including keyword-rich information on your “Info Tab” can help users find you easily.

Am I doing enough outside of my website and Page to bring traffic in?

Guest blogs from popular bloggers, webinars, online chats, and interviews with experts are all good strategies to drive traffic to your page.

Does my website account for some of my referrals?

If not, your website might need some updates. For example, add a Like box social plugin, include share buttons, and display your social icons in a visible place on every page.

Are you using Facebook Insights yet? What metrics do you find most valuable? What else are you doing to show effectiveness in the social media arena? Please share.

The Power of Blogs and Cardiovascular Marketing

Blogs have a big impact on women when it comes to making purchase decisions.

A new study from BlogHer found that women buyers are both more excited (74 percent) and more nervous (53 percent) than men (71 percent and 42 percent respectively) when it comes to making major purchases such as cars.

But their buying behavior is also influenced by their online behavior. Women who spend time online both with blogs and social networks also exhibit more excitement about the purchase decision. Women who consult blogs showed an increase of 13 percentage points on the excitement scale over women who do not, while women who consult social networks showed an increase of 12 percentage points.

The study also examined women’s confidence and stress levels when considering a car purchase:

• Confidence among women who use blogs for auto buying advice is eight percentage points higher than women who do not, and five points higher among women who use social networks.
• The stress levels of women who use blogs for auto-buying advice is four points lower than the total sample. However, stress levels remain the same for women who use social networks.
• Blog readers are also less nervous by two points than the total sample, while social network users show a four-point increase in nervousness—higher than the total sample.

Okay, so I realize that car buying and healthcare provider selection may not seem like an apples-to-apples comparison. However, one could certainly argue that both are major decisions driven by a fair amount of emotion.

If you think about the drivers measured in this study – feeling nervous and stressed about their choice and expressing a need to feel confident in their decision, one could certainly draw some interesting parallels with the healthcare selection process.

As most of you know, I’m an advocate for using blogs to disseminate educational content. If you’re not yet a believer, I would encourage you to think again.

For additional insight into the study on women and the car-buying process, here are charts and a full presentation.

Responding to Negative Feedback in Cardiovascular Marketing Social Media

Having a plan for dealing with negative comments that pop up in your social media channels is critical.

By now, most healthcare organizations have decided that the benefits of building an online community outweigh the risks. However, I’ve certainly had a couple of clients who have been concerned (and rightly so) recently about how to respond to negative feedback.

I came across a post from Nicola Ziady that offers some good advice about how to deal with less than positive comments.

The first step in dealing with negative commentary on your social media networks is to determine what type of feedback you have received so that you can craft an appropriate response. Below are four types of feedback and what to do if you encounter them:

1. Straight Out Problem

A patient or referring physician may publish information about something that went wrong. This type of feedback can certainly paint your hospital in a poor light, but it can also be helpful in exposing genuine problems that need to be solved.

What to Do:

A comment raising a Straight Out Problem definitely deserves a response. You should issue a public response so that all members of your online community can see it. But it might also be appropriate to send a personal message to the person who made the comment, depending on how widespread the problem is and how many people are discussing it. If a serious problem exists, steps should be taken to fix it. Patients should be notified that you are listening to concerns and that steps are being taken.

Sometimes tough criticism is the result of a “perceived problem” rather than an actual problem (e.g., someone who just doesn’t like the method by which you do a certain procedure). This type of complaint should also be given a formal response, even if only to say, “Thank you for bringing it to our attention, but here’s why we do it that way.”

2. Constructive Criticism

Sometimes feedback comes with a suggestion attached. Many patients — including the most loyal, will use Twitter, Facebook or your blog to suggest ways in which you can improve your facilities, service or care. While this feedback does point out flaws, it can be very helpful to receive.

What To Do:

First, thank patients who took time to provide you with a suggestion. If it is something you will implement or consider, let them know. Bringing patient ideas into your process can certainly build loyalty.

3. Merited Attack

While the negative comment itself may not be merited, the issue that initiated it has merit in generating this type of feedback. You, your physician or your nurse did something wrong, and someone is angry.

What To Do:

Merited Attacks can be tough to tackle and solve, as they are more likely to involve other groups in the hospital. As harsh as this type of criticism can sound, it’s important to remember that it usually stems from a legitimate problem. It is best to respond quickly and with a positive tone. Thank the commenter for his or her feedback and assure them that steps are being taken to correct the problem or mitigate their issue.

4. Troll (I love this term.)

This is an annoying type of negative feedback. The difference between trolling & a merited attack is that trolls have no legitimate reason for being angry at the hospital. This feedback is a waste of everyone’s time.

What to Do:

The last type of negative feedback, Trolling, is the only category which does not require a response. Often, it is better not to respond to Trolls because this type of commentary is not really “feedback.” Instead, it is designed to bait you into an unnecessary and perhaps even damaging brawl. Ignore this type of feedback and remove from your Facebook page. (Note: Yes, it’s okay to remove abusive posts.  One of our clients recently had a Troll whose comment initially posed as a Merited Attack. Our first response just fueled the fire, and the Troll turned quite ugly with a very unmerited attack on one of our physicians. We quickly removed the post, and the Troll went slinking away.)

Please do make sure that you have a social media policy in place, especially on your Facebook page that clearly states your intolerance for abusive comments.

Here’s a basic example:

Posting Policy

We welcome the exchange of ideas on our Facebook page through the use of posted comments.

 Comments posted on our page do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of the [company].

 We adhere to Facebook’s Terms of Use and Code of Conduct, and we reserve the right to remove any content that is abusive and/or profane, as well as advertisements for services, activities, and events not sponsored by the [company].

 If you have a concern about any posted content, or about any content that has been removed by the administrators of this Facebook page, please e-mail us at XXXXXX.

The bottom line in responding to criticism is to stay positive. As tempting as it may be, don’t be drawn into a public brawl with a patient. Nothing good can come of it.

How Will Facebook Changes Affect Cardiovascular Marketing?

It looks like brands will have to become more compelling to get noticed on Facebook. 

The last week or so has seen a whirlwind of changes to Facebook following founder Mark Zuckerberg’s keynote at the f8 conference in San Francisco. Based on an informal survey of my personal Facebook friends and clients, people are confused. What do these changes mean and how will they work?

I found a post that does a pretty good job of outlining the highlights:

1. Profiles are turning into Timelines — a scrapbook of people’s lives.  Timelines will be  a stream of information about you — the photos you’ve posted, all your status updates, the apps you’ve used, even the places you’ve visited on a world map — that scrolls all the way back to your birth. It encourages you to post more stuff about your past, such as baby pictures, using Facebook as a scrapbook.

Timeline will have a lot of customizable features.  It is in beta now and will be opt-in to start. In the long run, it will become the new default profile page.

2. Liking something is “so five minutes ago.” — now you can [verb] any [noun]. The social network has launched Facebook Gestures, which means that Facebook’s partners and developers can turn any verb into a button.

So you’ll start seeing the option to tell the world you’re reading a particular book, for example, or watching a given movie, or listening to a certain song.  A lot of experts think this will lead to major “oversharing,” and it will certainly increase the clutter factor in your feed.

It will also mean that a common metric for brand success – generating “Likes” for your brand will become less relevant.

3. Facebook apps need only ask permission once to share stories on your behalf. This change may be one of the more controversial. Previously, apps had to ask every time they shared information about you in your profile.

But app information won’t clog your news feed, because …

4. All “lightweight” information is going to the Ticker. Status updates, photos, etc. will still show up in the news feed. Game updates and other  “trivial” details have been banished to the Ticker, a real-time list of things your friends are posting now that scrolls down the side of your screen.

5. You can watch TV and movies, listen to music, and read news with your friends — all within Facebook. Partnerships with services such as Hulu, Spotify and Yahoo News help facilitate this activity. The ticker will tell you what your friends are watching, listening to or reading, allowing you to share the experience with them by clicking on a link.

Very interesting. I’m sure brands will fight to get their messages to show up in the Ticker, as it will imply endorsement by your friends.

6. Facebook has more users and more engagement than ever. It has hit 800 million users, and most of them are active. The social network just saw a new record for the most visitors in one day: an eye-popping 500 million.

Despite consumer grumbling this past week, I have a feeling most of those users will get over it and continue using Facebook.

Have you thought about strategies for keeping your organization at the forefront of engagement given the changes? I’d love to hear your ideas.