Say Cheese

I don’t take good pictures. Let me rephrase that. I’m okay taking the picture just not so good at being in it. But pictures are powerful. They allow us to share an idea, convey a message, and feel the moment in an instantaneous way.                                                                                                                                          

So to my fellow marketers I say, “Talk less. Show more.” And if you’ve got the will, let your customers show too.

Let my customers show what? Let them show their experience with activities that relate to your brand. The big guys do it. Consider American Airlines social campaign that allowed passengers to share pictures from their vacation and business trips. You can do this too.

It plays out by engaging already smartphone savvy, camera happy consumers on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. And it happens at relatively no cost to you. Here’s how:

If you’re in healthcare, invite pictures of healthy lifestyles. For example, “show us your walking path”

If you’re in real estate, ask for pictures from the community. For example, “show us your favorite coffee shop, eatery or night spot”

If you’re in lawn care, how about inviting followers to share pictures of their favorite outdoor activity?

Inviting picture driven interaction lets consumers help create content for your brand, it drives more attention to their personal news feeds, and thus leverages their social reach to create additional consideration for you.

People will have fun. You’ll reach their friends. And brand connections will multiply. All without a single word except maybe, “Cheeeese!”

Worthwhile Connections

I have a confession to make. I like to be liked. Being retweeted is joyous. And someone pinning my work is a sort of validation. But I’m learning that these moments of connectivity - even if worthwhile - are fleeting. I ask things like:
                                                        

Was my instagram cool enough?

How many people saw my Facebook post and ignored it versus those who liked or commented on it?

Are you retweeting me to connect with me? Or because you think my ideas are worth sharing with others?

Is all this social interaction some sort of affirmation or is it part of an ongoing conversation? I don’t know. But I do know this. Everyone connects somewhere. And sometimes that somewhere requires a bit more investment than a mouse click.

In 2011, a group called ChompOn published a report focusing on the immediate next sale, to provide a starting point in discussing the value of social actions.

•   Facebook Share: $14

•   Facebook Like: $8

•   Twitter Tweet: $5

•   Twitter Follow: $2

So what’s the value of our other interactions?

I think it’s a lot but at least as much as those we make socially.

I invite you do to this with me. Right now with just a word or two of affirmation, consolation or as a simple gesture of appreciation -- write a note.

Write to someone with whom you routinely interact with online or perhaps haven’t interacted with in some time. Write to them on behalf of your workplace. Write because you have something to say and want one specific person to hear it. Write because receiving it in the mail will blow their mind. Write because it’s worth it.

Oh and if you like this post, share it. It’s worth $14 – or so they say – and it will make me think that we’re connected even if only for a moment.

What's the Worst That Could Happen?

Every Sunday night I participate in a Twitter chat with health care experts. Each is wrestling with the same question, can I or how can I be social and still be HIPAA compliant. The answer is found in what you say, not where you say it.

Medical knowledge, clinical competence and professional credentials are all important things that a physician brings to the doctor-patient relationship. They’re evidence of expertise. But for patients, it’s more often about the doctor’s ability to ask the right questions, listen carefully and convey health information in terms that are easy to understand.

In short, it’s about communication. And communicating in today’s culture includes connecting with the patient community including the friends and family members that help the patient use health information toward the best outcomes.

Pew Internet Research says that about 25 percent of patients are using social media as both a means for gathering health information and for evaluating the communication skills of prospective health care providers. My personal Facebook news feed would suggest that 25 percent is a modest number.

Either way, that makes social media interaction a vital part of any health care marketing and communications strategy. Yet, according to a May 2011 study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, only 21 percent of hospitals are using social media. And separate reports indicate that even fewer practices and physicians are using it.

Why are so few participating? Some suggest it’s out of concern for HIPAA compliance. Others express a fear of negative feedback. It seems that they are being held back by the assumption that social media is risky.

So, what is the worst thing that could happen?

Today’s patients are more empowered and engaged than ever. They’re informed and involved. They look to health care providers to share information that enables them to manage medical conditions, control cost and find hope for the best possible health outcomes. They expect you’ll use common sense to avoid compromising their personal health info.

If the health information you provide revolves around those ideas and is presented in that context, you’re on your way to better connections. That’s a good thing, right?

Patients are also looking to others who suffer similar ailments for support.

If you’re moderating an occasional Twitter discussion that enables such dialogue or sharing it on your Facebook wall, you’re on your way to empowering a patient community. And, that’s okay, too – right?

Being absent from social media platforms means missing out the opportunity to demonstrate your ability to ask the right questions, listen carefully and convey meaningful health information in terms that are easy to understand. And since that is what patients value most, then not being there is the worst thing that could happen.

Finding Hope thru Social Media

The most important part of your social media presence is not what your hospital or practice has to say, but what your patients have to say – especially to one another. Peer-to-peer interaction is the heart of social media. Likewise, it’s an important variable in the health care.

According to a 2011 study conducted by the Pew Research Center, one in four Internet users living with a chronic illness has gone online to find other people with similar health needs. As a trusted source for health care information, you can use social media to reinforce that role by creating a channel for their connectivity. Your effort provides value and supports patients during their journey to wellness.

Unfortunately, too much of what happens in a health care brand’s social media strategy is marketing and public relations centric. “We’re sponsoring a 5K.” “We have the best doctors.” “Our ER is fast.” And so on.

What if instead of posting constrained content that merely announces information to your community, you published open-ended content that creates engagement and starts conversation within it?

Conversations that you can move in and out of as teacher and learner. Conversations wherein your fans and followers learn from one another.

But what are these conversations and connections really about? In a word, hope. Patients and their friends are hoping to find answers, information, advice and empathy. They are hoping to find someone who truly “gets it” or who shares their experience and has made it through. They are in a word hoping to find – hope.

Patients want to connect with you but they also want to connect with one another. Use your social media presence to facilitate their efforts.

Consider this tip from Bigfish Communications Specialist Brittany McManus:

Want to start a conversation? Try this:

· Decide to use your social media presence to connect your patients with one another.

· Pick a health issue and encourage conversation by relating the story of a survivor (i.e. cancer in remission) or promoting wellness visits (i.e. prostate exams).

· Invite your social media connections to relate their own first-person experiences via comments to your posts.

Your efforts will lead to connections, enable shared experiences and offer hope for better health outcomes.

The Web Isn't Dead But Your Website Is

In an on-the-go world where apps own every conversation and Facebook is the Internet, you have a website that might best be described as a brochure. Guess what? Your website is dead.

It’s dead to me. And it’s dead to anyone else who might happen to browse by it on the way to a site that enables interaction with brand representatives and the community of others who enjoy spending time there.

You know interaction, right?

It’s that thing you do every time you share content, click a like button, leave a comment, upload a photo or subscribe to a dynamic stream of content that engages and informs you. It’s a social experience. It takes place on a social website.

When you’re on a social website, you’re somebody. You’re a person with an opinion that might influence product development. You’re somebody with a network of friends and your opinion means everything to them. And the brand knows it.

Sure, you still like to read and learn on a website but you also you have something to say. You’re a social person. And any website that doesn’t know that is, well, dead.

Want to talk about it? Use the comment feature below. I’m trying to be more social.

Facebook Updates: Your Brand

Like it or not, the new features unveiled at F8 will change the way you share and receive updates from your friends and connections. But Addie McGowan and Brittany McManus of Bigfish were wondering, “What does this mean for businesses?” So, here we go:

The change may mean nothing new to those who subscribe to Bigfish's Participation Age philosophy as it is applied to marketing on social media platforms. However, the changes will enable tactics that move your social marketing to an entirely new level. And brands that don’t “get” it will be weeded out.

The changes present a new era of accountability for brands. They will be forced to step up and truly give themselves away to their customers. If they don’t, they’ll be “hidden” and forgotten in the realm of the Newsfeed.

Here are three F8 changes and what they mean to brands:

1. Ticker and Newsfeed: These two features offer a second chance to reach people. Now that users can control their own ideas of “newsfeed optimization,” your content needs to keep them interested. If your post doesn’t end up in their newsfeed (as most don’t), you now have a second chance to grab their attention with Ticker. Last week, Zuckerberg explained Ticker as a way to de-clutter the newsfeed but still allow users to make “serendipitous” discoveries about their friends and connections. Eye-catching posts will grab the attention of users to the Ticker. Seize this marketing opportunity and own it by posting truly social content or rewarding fans that interact.

2. Friend Activity on Pages: A trusted recommendation. A new, slightly overlooked update to business pages is the “Friend Activity” link located under the profile picture. Your potential customers can now check out what friends are saying about their experiences with your business. It cuts through the clutter of activity from strangers and gets to what users really care about - their friends’ opinions. “Lindsey and I have the same taste in food, so if she likes their burger, I bet I will, too.” Depending on the activity, this feature could entice users to do business with you, or go to your competitor.

3. Facebook: A more comprehensive extension of the human social experience. The Timeline and Ticker redesign have even more addictive qualities than the old design, and the 800 million people on Facebook will most likely be spending even more time there. What does this mean from a marketing standpoint? It is now more important than ever to carve out a place for your brand there. If you are not enabling your best customers to share what they love about you with their friends, or to connect with them socially, you are missing out. And you and I both know someone else will seize your missed opportunity.

Brands are going to have to engage their fans and followers more than ever. In order to obtain visibility in Newsfeeds, brands must strive to post content that will result in meaningful conversations and significant interaction. We’ve said it before, but now, thanks to f8, it matters more than ever.

The ability to evolve for the better is a necessary trait for any successful brand – even Facebook. Change is good.

On Your Way to a Livable Brand

Your brand has a potential army of credible, unpaid spokespeople willing to work on its behalf. They are the same group of people who might work against it. The difference is what they feel.

It's branding in the Participation Age. It revolves around brand experience. And it rode in on the wave that is social media to vanquish the Positioning Era of branding.

In this new Age, what you say about your product or service means almost nothing but what your customer can do with it and how they interact with you regarding it, means everything.

That demands that you create a brand that customers can live.

The ability of advertisers and marketers to contrive and convey an emotion through advertising is quickly fading. Brand exposure is less valuable than brand experience. What do I mean? Well, what means more to you when making plans for casual dining -- a 2 star rating on Yelp or a 60 second ad during NBC’s The Office?

I thought so.

The good news is this; you no longer need to “capture” your audience to tell them about your brand. People are willfully engaging with it, starting discussions about it, and using it as a way to define who they are by “liking” it on Facebook. They just want to know why your company should be part of their own personal brand. And that’s something that can only be learned by living it.

You can teach the customer how to articulate what they are feeling about your product or service. But companies need to stop buying and selling ideas about themselves that don’t have any substance behind them and start enabling people to discover why they should incorporate the brand into their own.

So, how do you move toward this livable brand? Be livable.

When a company says to me, “We want to be positioned as ___.” I say to them, “Then go be that.” No amount of positioning is going to move the customer closer to believing your ideal. They’ll determine whether or not your brand is what it claims to be by experiencing it. And if the experience is profound, they’ll live it.