Social media Archives - Page 7 of 8

Hospital Social Media Bandwidth Demand is Heating Up

Evolution, evolution, evolution. Word of mouth gone digital…and the result, a CIO’s worst nightmare: SQUEEZE MORE IN THE PIPES!

BizReport.com reported in April, 2010 stats that we already know intrisically…7% of all business Internet traffic is going to Facebook and 10% of bandwidth used in a business is getting chewed up with YouTube. Makes sense because YouTube has become the number two search engine below Google.

Let’ look at the Facebook stats:

More than 400 million active users
50% of active users log on to Facebook in any given day
Average user has 130 friends
People spend over 500 billion minutes per month on Facebook

WOW…so, we know that people are accessing Facebook at work in some capacity. Let’s look at another statistic that I found interesting: There are more than 100 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices and people that use Facebook on their mobile devices are twice more active on Facebook than non-mobile users.

Well…if you can’t get it on the company computer then you can pull out that iPhone, Blackberry, Android, etc. to access you favorite social media site. I have already tackled the reality of why hospitals and organizations should open up the pipes to Social Media, so I wanted to look at what are the hesitations for corporate decision makers. What are the top two arguments for not opening up the pipes to Social Media: 1) employee productivity and 2) bandwidth.

Infrastructure is a huge issue. Think of it this way. I have a house that was built in the 1920’s. The plumbing in the house was probably re-built in the late 70’s. I have a half-inch pipe servicing my house…so when someone is the shower, you better not flush the toilet or turn on the washing machine. And…do not plan on taking two showers at one time or consider doing the ole Navy Shower routine: turn on water and rinse, turn off water and wash, turn on water and rinse.

So…using this analogy…think of bandwidth in the same regard. Lots of hospitals have the same position when it comes to IT infrastructure. Legacy wiring, switches, etc. to support an ever increasing demand for bandwidth. So imaging opening the flood gates to all social media and other resource intensive web based, community platforms. There is only so much a hospital or organization can support given the current infrastructure. So with the demands of increasing bandwidth needs and access to information…there are policies and procedures that have to be put into place to decide how to allocate resources. The Department of Defense just recently opened up the pipes to Social Media but put into place strict guidelines for use…a “Consistent Policy.” “There has to be since 47 million of Americans visit Facebook daily, which is nearly as many who watch TV daily (55 percent),” states Neilsen.

So how do we get hospitals’ and organizations CIO’s and IT Departments on-board with opening up the pipes for Social Media’s:

First – Build a team to assess this demand. This includes heads of marketing/pr, IT (CIO), finance (CFO), and service area department heads.
Second – Build an advisory team built of individuals on the ground level. These are the individuals actively accessing Social Media as brand ambassadors.
Third – Build policies and procedures for implementing Social Media usage on all levels. Whether it is a patient, visitor, employee, or leadership…all users should have guidelines for usage.
Fourth – Assess current infrastructure and how the increase in demand of data will affect infrastructure and costs associated with opening the pipes.
Fifth – Implement a strategic plan for who and when can access Social Media platforms. This is based on access and cost to access data.

Bandwidth costs money, whether if it is the amount of data transfer, the physical pieces of technology that manage the pipes, or the human capital accessing the networks…time and usage is money. So what type of investment should we allocate to this growing demand for information?

Remember the one stat that I mentioned earlier, one that I am sure is making a CIO happy: there are more and more people accessing Facebook on mobile devices. Is this out of necessity because corporate pipes have been locked down or is the mere fact more and more mobile devices have access to fast data and applications. This is diverting the bandwidth issue but raising the problem of whose mobile device is being used to access the Social Media’s? Is the company footing the bill for the device or is it a personal device; regardless, people are accessing Social Media.

People want access to stories and they are connecting with stories via social media’s!

It is a Social Media Revolution…I am still thinking!

Well it is a two days after the South Carolina Hospital Association’s Social Media Revolution and day two of synthesizing a ton of good conversations. One thing that has been re-affirmed…it is still Social Media and it needs to stay social. Seriously, they are media’s and they are controlled by the social masses.

Reed Smith finished with this parting question,” Who Owns Social Media?” My opinion, the masses. The people that are using these media’s to socialize, share information, connecting with others are the ones that own social media. Organizations are just one of the many people in this vast paradigm interacting with other colleagues, constituency bases just like my mother sharing pictures of her Vegas trip. She has an audience, she engages with her audience, shares information, receives a level of response, and continues to engage in conversations. If people were not responding, commenting, engaging, sharing, and generating conversation…then Facebook would not be the Number One website jumping over Google (Via Ed Bennett)

We as marketers, hospitals, organizations should understand and respect the paradigm, or we will find one more way to shape a vastly growing medium into a form of one-way conversation…one more time! So, it comes back to audience…knowing our audience and finding ways to join the convesation instead of creating one more marketing stream, hoping that some mom from the age 25-34 is going to by into our poorly created message as we cram it into a medium with a sledge hammer. We have big sledge hammers!

Social Media is no longer an after thought when it comes to hospitals marketing strategies. VP’s and Marketing Directors are quickly trying to evaluate staff resources and figure out how to staff the shift. The shift is not just Social Media, but New Media and Rich Media. We are asking questions to those large organizations how they are staffing a marketing/pr and comparing it the numbers of the web/media staff. Some do not have a web/media staff, outsourcing to a vendor in the hopes it will create a band aid until the next fiscal conversation.

Ed Bennett told the crowd of 125 at SCHA’s Conference Center that his staff at the University of Maryland Medical Center is 8 web/new media professionals servicing all social media and web outlets compared to the marketing/pr staff has 8 members as well. They are making the shift and taking control of creation and distribution of the their message. Amen brother…preach it to us, we will follow. Trust me, every decision maker in that room was jotting down that number and thinking about integrating those stats into their strategic capital requests! Bottom-line, that is where the ROI discussion should be located.

Social Media efforts are now being integrated into every aspect of a hospital’s and physician’s marketing efforts. They are learning that Social Media has another ROI point of interest, it is generating direct hits to their web portals, directing audiences to the message, reducing bounce rates, and creating strategic linkage systems that bolster rankings in the search engines. It is a search engine war as hospitals in the same geographic areas are competing for the search engine space. Not only with Google but with YouTube…why, because YouTube is the Number 2 search engine right now, today! (Via Ed Bennett) Hospitals are creating rich media that gives audiences palatable information that helps potential clients make decisions from service lines to which ER (ED) to choose.

Social Media efforts are being integrated daily into all campaigns. It is no longer the game of just creating a billboard and “brochure” and then create a totally different message for web/social media/new media outlets. Now, these efforts are being combined, where there is a conversation of consistency in design across the whole board. You no longer see the Facebook and Twitter logo as an after thought at the bottom of a print piece, it is taking over as a major position in the design and including the exact URL to find this social media outlet. Oh yeah…we are in a mode of securing our domains before someone takes over our message. Look at what happened to BP, someone created a Twitter account (@BPGlobalPR) to post off color messages about the oil spill in the gulf. Is it really a pr nightmare?

And…OH…AND…TWITTER AND FACEBOOK ARE NOT THE ONLY SOCIAL MEDIA’s! Conversations are being created on Flickr and YouTube. People like to share pictures and video. They like to be creative and find others that share their vision. So campaigns are being created so that audiences can take part in the media creation. Organizations are creating campaigns allowing audience to submit videos and pictures that lead to idea generation and community building. We all have a way to express ourselves so why not capitalize on user generated media. Plus, marketing departments know they are biased based on strategic messaging (that waters down the social conversation), it makes more sense to let the audience lead the way. Once again, the masses own Social Media.

Policies and Procedures…oh yeah, that too. It is time to dust off that HR generated web policy that we have employees signed, the one that was created in the 1980’s. It is time to realize that we cannot close the pipes much longer inside hospitals and organizations. There is this new little nifty thing called a mobile device. Yes, those phones that are now media generators and media distributors. We can now walk around hospitals until we find that service bar on the phone, take a picture, and upload it to Facebook. Do not mind the fact that I cannot log onto Facebook from my company issued computer…we will show them. Do not mind that the hospital’s Wifi is in and out, we can get close to a window, get service, and send a picture of Uncle Harry that just got out of surgery and is ok now! Oh, there is this new thing called an iPad and a Netbook that does not need Wifi anymore and it has a the ability to do more than the mobile phone. So we need to generate a policy that is more than just a social media policy, it is Media Communication Policy for not only employees but patients as well. Signs need to be put up around hospitals to remind of best practices when taking pictures and sharing information.

IT IS A SOCIAL MEDIA REVOLUTION!

So where are we now and where are we going? Heck if I know, but I know this…location based technologies like FourSquare and Gowalla are hear and gaining traction. They are the real Social Media ROI generators, when people check into a location, it provides an exact location for all the masses to see. We now can start targeting information and strategies based on where the masses (or audiences) are checking in. We should, because Starbucks is doing it, providing incentives for those who check in the most…DISCOUNTS! Hmm, this could work well for hospitals that have wellness programs integrated with work-out facilities.

I tell you what, that Reed Smith and Ed Bennett are smart peeps…and Micheal Shetterly of Ogletree Deakins Law Firm got me thinking about this Social Media Revolution. It is about audience, purpose, delivery, engagement, and right to privacy. Yes, Right to Privacy…and what is your expectation to privacy. These new policies and procedures need to include how, when, and where information is created and distributed, especially if the company is footing the bill for that Balckberry, iPhone, or Android you are carrying. If they pay, they might have a right to access the information you generate on that device.

Social Media is here to stay and we cannot avoid it…AT ALL. So it is time to find ways to staff it, generate best practices, follow the audiences that own it, and be prepared for it’s evolution. This Social Media Revolution is going to evolve into the next media revolution that has the acceleration of an “E” ratio…forward and fast!

BTW – The Adams Group had two great recaps of Social Media Revolution: Part One & Part Two

It is a Social Media Revolution! Getting ready for healthcare panel discussion.

South Carolina Hospital Association (@SCHospitals) and Carolina Healthcare Public Relations & Marketing Society have put together a Social Media Conference in Columbia, South Carolina; a conference to bring hospitals from North and South Carolina to have a conversation. They call it a Social Media Revolution.

Thought leaders Ed Bennett and Reed Smith will be leading the discussion and providing the platform for hospital discourse to flow freely…the conversation: what does Social Media mean for my hospital. If you want to follow the conversation on Twitter…Click Here or use the hashtag #smrev via Twitter.

I have been asked to lead a panel discussion in the afternoon, so I thought I would spend a few minutes to refine some notes for the discussion.

Here are our panelist:
Dr. David Geier (@DrDavidGeier)
Director of Sports Medicine | MUSC

Ronda Wilson (@GHShospitals)
Director of PR & Marketing | Georgetown Hospital

Andrew Busam (@randolphhosp)
Public Relations Coordinator | Randolph Hospital

Sally Foister (@SallySF & @GHS_org)
Director of Marketing | Greenville Hospital System University Medical Center

Discussion Points:

Marketing
– How did you get started?
– What are your successes?
– How did you get started operationally/organizationally
– How do you manage your outlets?
– How do you find the resources to manage?
– How does SM fit into overall strategy
– Georgetown – Why did you wait “so long” to integrate?
– Dr. Geier – How do you use it under the umbrella of a bigger organization?

HR/Careers
– How is SM being used as a HR/recruitment tool
– How do you manage conversations inside an organization? Or do you?
– Can it be used to recruit nurses?
– How are you using to promote career paths?
– Is recruitment a part of your strategy?

HIPPA/Patient Information
– How do you deal with privacy?
– How do you deal with SM Diagnosing?
– Do you want to be a thought leader online but not physician online?
– How do you use SM to create conversations as a physician?

General
– How can a small bed hospital use SM to engage a community?
– How do you monitor conversations and address audience concerns/complaints?
– How do you manage accounts?
– Who wears the “Company” hat or who keeps it personal?
– What is the strategy from an aesthetic branding perspective?

Social Media: “Where is the Beef” – Cleaning out the Noise!

It is about that time…time to re-evaluate and get organized. I have been using Twitter for the last year and a half; and now I am to the point to re-evaluate some things. About a month ago, Spike Jones cleared out his Twitter Account. Well, he actually closed his account for two weeks. Regardless of his intentions and underlying reasons, it got me thinking. What is the value of following close to 3000 people and have the equal number following me? What does that really mean?

When I train organizations to use Twitter for business, I describe “this” social media (Twitter) this way. It is like going to be ole event, say a conference. The people attending are those who you are following. When you walk through the doors of the conference room, you notice those 3000 people talking in groups or even just hanging out. When you walk into the room, you have some purpose for attending. Whether you are there to meet someone, find a group of people, or sit at a table; you make your way through the room, stop and talk with people for a minute. You shake hands, share pleasantries, and even engage for a few minutes in some conversations. You do this as you make your way through the crowd…jumping in and out of conversations. This is how I view Twitter and the conversations I engage while using TweetDeck.

Over time I started using Twitter lists…creating columns of people to watch and enjoy conversations. These conversations are organized in lists based on subjects. The subjects (or columns) I have been watching have evolved…and so have some of the relationships. Those online relationships I had last year have changed in some way whether it may be based on interests or different places professionally.

I use Twitter for BUSINESS. I forge personal relationships and business relationships via Twitter based on business positions. My business is my name (Bobby Rettew, LLC) and my business is both my personal and business life. So “Twitter Means Business” for me!

So…I have re-arranged who I follow, who I have in columns, who I have in lists, and have made a goal to forge new and exciting relationships along with continuing to grow current, strong relationships.

I am getting rid of the noise! Those senseless self, over promoters. Cleaning out the “Snake Oil” and bringing more “beef” to my online interactions.

Health Care C-Suites…have time to blog?

One of the hardest parts of getting health care organizations to engage with blogs, is finding the personnel to actually write the blogs. The idea behind the blog is easy to sell to an organization, even the organization gets excited about the idea of the blog, but it ultimately comes down to servicing the blog. This even transcends social media technologies…once an organization engages, then it is all about servicing the social media platforms.

This comes down to personnel and fundamental problem beyond staffing, integrating something new in the marketing/pr strategy. Hospitals and health care organizations are typically large organizations with a marketing staff that is already stretched.

Social media strategies have to integrate obtainable goals simple strategies that make time management a feasible part of the current workload. This provides a couple of things, user engagement and simple ROI. Health care marketing professionals have to find some positive result to integrate a new strategy inside the organization and their respective silo.

Executive leadership loves the idea of blogs because it gives them the power to control the message. It is an effective pr engine that allows C-Suite professionals to combat out-of-context quotes in newspapers and other forms of media. It is also provides a tremendous platform for C-Suite professionals to take a stand of health care issues related to health care reform. This issue has brought many CEO’s to the blogger world to protect the market space and the hospital they represent…why, it is a political battle that affects a hospitals’ bottom-line and patient ratings.

“Once step at a time!” – This is what I tell health care marketing directors and C-Suite professionals. If you want to start a social media strategy or a blogging strategy…do not bite off more than you can chew.

Write a mission statement for the strategy and plan out when you will service these social medias. This is purely a time management issue…plan it out! Decide who will service the blog or social media. If the CEO is going to write his/her blog, then set a schedule for them to integrate within the busy schedule. This means, integrate the proper technology to facilitate this action. Make sure IT turns down the firewalls so the CEO and marketing professional can access these sites. Also, if a marketing professional is going to help the CEO or Executive to service the blog, set schedules and goals for posts. Be prepared to step away from the schedule if a topical event comes to the forefront that needs to be addressed by the executive.

Also…create a simple strategy to measure your success. Do this from the beginning. Decide what you are “tracking.” Basically, how many times you update, how many followers, how many hits are generated via links, etc. Set obtainable goals.

With C-Suites in health care tackling the blogging world, look at other executives who are blogging. Check out the length of the posts and frequency of the updates. Also, decide whether you want to allow your audience to respond to your posts. This is crucial, because if you allow those to comment on your posts…you need to make sure respond to each comment. Find other blogs that you can regularly read. This is a part of your time management schedule and it allows you to learn not only the “in’s & out’s” of blogging, but it gets you in the language of blogging.

Social media for health care organizations is a reality, but now it us up to the organization how they not integrate the strategy but service it long term.

Great Health Care CEO Blogs:
Running A Hospital – Paul Levy – President and CEO of Beth Israel
Thornton Kirby’s Blog – President & CEO of South Carolina Hospital Association
William L. Roper, MD, MPH – CEO, University of North Carolina Health Care System

Hospitals should open the “pipes” for Social Media!

Hospitals need to start opening up the pipes to social media inside the hospitals. Like most large organizations, hospitals clamp down on whether employees can access certain web properties: whether it is ESPN, Yahoo, and now Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites. Here are couple simple reasons I think IT Departments and Executive Leadership should jump in and open up the pipes:

1) Mobile – If employees cannot access the same sites on the hospital computers, they are using mobile devices to access this information. With 3G and soon to come 4G devices, access to information is coming faster and more assessable each day. Whether if you have an iPhone, Blackberry, Android, etc…you can access all the social networking sites, post and update, and even take pictures and post right inside the hospital walls.

2) Internal Brand Ambassadors – Employees are engaging with patients via social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and even geo-location apps like FourSquare. They are using their mobile devices and finding other means to connect with patients outside of the firewalls. Building communities is important right now and there is value in allowing those conversations to foster inside the walls of the hospital rather than outside the walls.

3) Patients are Talking – Patients and making status updates from inside the walls of the hospital. They are using Twitter and Facebook to tell family and friends medical updates of their loved ones. This is a great opportunity to try to engage or see the conversations in real time inside the walls of the hospital.

4) Geo-Location – Patients/Visitors of hospitals are updating with a location inside the walls of the hospital using Foursquare and Gowalla. They are telling the world they have just arrived for a procedure or picking up a loved one, stamping their location, and then describing the experience. There is value in engaging with these conversations.

5) Doctors are using the Internet to gather information – “A recent study by Google, 86% of U.S. physicians said they use the Internet to gather health, medical or prescription drug information. Internet technology allows physicians to also offer their opinions on medicine, or other matters, through blogs (including links to other sources of information) and to consult colleagues by e-mail and through social networking.” – via AMA in February 2010.

Bottomline…the argument is no longer about employee performance, it is whether you want to engage with the patient in real time. I will leave with this quote from the AMA in February 2010 – “Social networking has tripled in the past year, a Nielsen Company survey showed, and physicians have joined the social networking revolution. According to a survey by Medimix International, 34% of physicians use social media.”

Paul Levy, CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, MA gives an example conversation he had with someone inside a hospital concerning allowing Facebook to become available for hospital employees. This is a GREAT!

Oh No – Where Did Social Media Go???

Lately I have been thinking a bit about “The Grid”…you know that thing that keeps us all connected! Imagine waking up one day and you are in Little House on the Prairie…no grid, no iPhone, no iPad, no Internet, no Twitter, no Facebook, no telephones, no television…NO ELECTRONIC TECHNOLOGY! What would we do as a society? Think for a second…the headlines in North Korea have been exposing us to that possibility…and E-Bomb. Something that could potentially knock out even the most un-assuming pieces of technology that we depend on…even fuel injection cars.

No this post is not a conspiracy theorist type of post..just one to think, what if all of this electronic technology was GONE? I think of the Allstate Commercial addressing the economy with the message about getting back to basics. But what if that message had a bigger meaning…basics beyond electronic technology.

What has Social Media taught us that could translate into the Little House on the Prairie scenerio? Think for a second…hmm, it has taught me how to use innovation to build relationships. It has taught us that communities are important for so many reasons..but most importantly how to communicate using new innovation.

So, if right this second someone took an eraser and starting erasing the laptop sitting infront of me, the iPhone in my hand, the telephone at my desk, the server in the closet, the electrcity in the walls…and on and on. I would want to know how my friends I have built connections with on Facebook, Twitter, email, blogs, etc. are doing. I would want to reconnect in a more basic manner. I would want to figure out how to communicate with my grandparents, my friends I established on Twitter who are all over the world, etc.

We would innovate and create new forms of communication or step back and rely on traditional forms of communication to find ways to gather, communicate, share ideas, have a drink, and so on. We might even start writing letters again, you know those good ole fashion hand written letters that might be delivered via a horse or a person driving a car that only uses a carburetor.

We would probably value face-to-face interaction because we cannot quickly get our fix on Twitter where we communicate like someone watching a tennis match. Do we depend too much on electronic communication and forget how to establish and maintain relationships outside of the grid? Have we evolved too much with the grid where we can only create a thought through a keyboard which restricts our critical communication skills necessary in a face to face interaction?

HMM…I wonder. I wonder where we are going? I wonder who will be able to evolve without the grid? Will I be able to or am I conditioned to depend on the iPhone?

When I left broadcast television news back in 2000 to return to graduate school, one thing I did was step back from the grid. I got rid of a cell phone and tried to re-evaluate how I communicate. It was nice not to depend on that device that followed me around… tying me to the grid.

Now…I am dependent upon the grid! This powerful pieces of connectivity that i get thoroughly pissed off when i drive through a “DEAD ZONE” or when my cable modem drops connectivity for ONLY A FEW MINUTES. Oh no, I can’t write a blog, I can’t tweet, I can’t upload a photo….I JUST CAN”T EXPRESS MYSELF…what has the world come to?

But hold on…I am breathing…I can talk…I can shake a hand…I can communicate with my mouth…with my handwriting. I can still express myself.

Have you ever caught yourself saying…what did we do before the Internet? What did we do? Really…what did you do? Maybe we did actually Tweet, maybe using a different method?

I have always explained my conversations in Twitter using this scenario. Imagine showing up for a big conference and you walk into a room filled with close to a thousand people. As you walk through the crowd, you ware walking in and out of conversations…listening to comments as you make you way through. You might stop for a second to chat…then keep on walking, in and out of conversations….until you reach a group you are ultimately there to see. You might still mingle after finding that group, walking in and out of conversations…but ultimately you are there to talk to certain groups…as you are listening to different conversations.

Did I just describe Twitter in a different context…a different paradigm…different physicality? Is Social Media just a technology or a communication method regardless of technology? What is the grid?

Social Media in Large Organizations & Motherships

Large organizations like universities, hospitals, and major businesses are trudging through how to deal with implementing an effective social media policy. This policy has become more than just how to communicate with a constituency base, but how to manage the many silos within the organization.

Take a hospital for example, especially one that is in a major metropolitan area. They are dealing with major branding, implementation, and a execution strategy. A typical large hospital will have the main branded image with sub brands that represent service lines of their vertical revenue streams. Beyond those service lines, they have departments, doctors offices, and smaller groups that need some treatment with respect to the social media branding guidelines and short/long term execution strategy.

Another issue a large organization deals with the fact there are so many people within these service lines and departments that have taken their own initiative to set-up their own accounts. Since many of these technologies like Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Foursquare cost nothing to set-up; “brand ambassadors” take it upon themselves to start connecting. They are the front line touch points for the organization. They understand their community. But how does one “reel all of this in” and make this a manageable process.

Like any marketing group, there is a:

Time to evaluate the organization, the brand, and what is already in place.
Evaluate mission statements and audiences of the organization.
What problem do you want to solve.
How can social media provide a new tool for the tool box and reach/engage a whole new audience in a new way.
Establishing the “mothership” for the organization as a whole and all the other sub-brands within the organization.

We are trying to engage with audiences and provide a clear path for those audiences to receive information about the organization…the “mothership”.

Definition of “Mothership” – An online property where all of the “information” flows to and from the organization, to one stop shop funnel of information. This can be an organization’s main website or can even be an organization’s Facebook page. This is the main communication distribution point where organizations want to drive audiences back to receive “the message.”

Along with creating an effective social media strategy, there needs to be a new media strategy in place. What I mean by this, these large organizations need to have there “mothership” (web presence) positioned so it clearly displays the message and audiences can find information easily. Also, permalinks are crucial so audiences can find information on a defined URL and the social media’s can point back to a specific URL. Most large organizations use video messaging on a regular basis, so a consistent workflow with video email blasts and newsletters need to come into the conversation. Then away from just technology implementation, establishing a team that coordinates marketing efforts so the online presence coordinates with “traditional marketing efforts.”

Implementation of social media accounts for a large organization has to happen in stages and establish a tier system…basically, the brand treatments for each part of the organization.

Tier One – The Over Arching Brand for the organization (hopsital name, university name, company name)
Tier Two – Sub Brands in the organization (service lines, colleges, etc.)
Tier Three – Tertiary Brands (Individuals within the organization)

Here is where you think aesthetically with graphical treatment and naming conventions, creating a since of consistency across the brand organization so that if the audience is connecting with an individual, they would know that they represent the organization. This is where it gets fun, deciding whether individuals within a large organization want to use their name and face to represent the organization. This is part of that strategy conversation. This is both a personal and business conversation to have with people you want to represent the organization.

Honestly…this is only the beginning of a Social Media and Communication Strategy Assessment. Social Media Strategy integration into a large scale organization takes time, patience, and willingness to listen to not only the organization but also the “Brand Ambassadors” of the organization.

Brand Ambassadors Leading the Brand

The more and more I work with large hospitals working to integrate a social media strategy, educate the organization, and build a community of social media communicators…the more I am learning that the only way you can eat an elephant is one bite at a time. Not as social media communicator, but as a practitioner.

The next task on my agenda, work with a department outside within a “service line”. I had an appointment and met the director and a nurse. What I realized, they had already built a solid strategy for this department’s social media approach: build a community. They just used technology to connect and share branded information that allowed the patients to trust and learn more about the organization.

I sat back and thought…large organizations have so many tentacles, so many messages, so many “brand ambassadors.” We as practitioners need to be careful when implementing a social media strategy before evaluating a the communication strategy. A communication strategy with the organization’s audiences and with the organization’s “brand ambassadors.”

More and more large organizations are talking about a huge social media issue, they have tons of “brand ambassadors”! This is a good thing and can also pose a challenge. If you take a large hospital that has lots of service lines, departments, and thousands of employees that represent the face of the organization…there are probably lots of active social media accounts that are not a part of the strategy.

We are social creatures and we are also technology creatures as well. We want to use something that will connect us with other people that share the same ideas and conversations. It may be a receptionist in a doctors office of a major medical university. The front line relationship for that office because they are the ones who meets the patients on a daily basis. they might think, hey…start a Facebook group to connect with patients and offer them some information that might help them. Connect with them daily and build a relationship with them. The reality, they are one of many people out there doing the same thing, inside an organization.

What comes of this can lead to some interesting conversations. Right now, hospitals across the country are scrambling as fast as they can (especially in marketing departments) to not only understand the social media’s but also create repository of all the accounts and set-up some best practices. Their is a brand identity conversation and for hospitals, a HIPPA conversation.

So…what to do? COMMUNICATE!

You now have “brand ambassadors” within your organization that you can work with to build a Social Media strategy for the whole organization. They are the front line people meeting with those who use the organization’s services. Empower and engage the “brand ambassadors.”

First step…build a team! Empower those “brand ambassadors” in your organization and engage those who are the tentacles to all of the service lines and departments. Build an advisory team and meet regularly.

Second…do a social media assessment of the organization. Spend time finding all of the social media accounts that have been created and identify those who are managing these accounts.

Third…after you have built a list of all the social media accounts within the organization (or someway represent part or whole of the organization), do a message analysis of these account. Learn what messages they are transmitting, what conversations are taking place, and the frequency of these messages.

Fourth…identify the audiences each one of these social media accounts are engaging. Be as specific as possible, drilling down to the very core of this group.

Fifth..compare notes between the messages of the “brand ambassadors” and the organization’s brand. Find the consistencies and the discrepancies.

Sixth…write a social media mission statement for the organization and all the tentacles that fall under the brand. Engage your “brand ambassadors”.

Engage, Communicate, and Tell the Stories.

Building a Social Media Presence around Video

Using video is one of those mediums that can really enhance your social media presence and can add so much to your campaign. BUT, you gotta think through this little bag of tricks. If done incorrectly, this integrated marketing tool can make you look like a dummy! (I almost just typed a bad word).

I am not going to talk about message development, that is a whole other ball of wax. I am going to talk about how using video online can help generate traffic, relationships, and enhance your SEO.

First…create a series of short messages around a campaign, event, and idea. When I mean series, I mean more than 3 different video messages. These need to be targeted at a specific audience and a specific topic. This over-arching theme will bring these messages together.

Second…have a home-base for these video messages. Whether it is a blog, a video section of your site, or the homepage; these video messages need a home so people can find them within one consistent place.

Third…these video messages need to have a equal treatment in production quality as the message itself. If it is meant to be shaky and dark…your message better represent the reason why it is shaky and dark. But, be controlled in the delivery of the production quality. The person watching needs to understand your message, the production quality needs to enhance the message not detract.

Fourth…create a channel on YouTube, Blip.tv, or Vimeo to host all of these video messages. Once the messages are created, upload them to these channel and spend time developing the title for each video, the description, and the tags/key words. I sometimes use the URL of the homebase for these messages in the title.

Fifth…schedule a release of these messages. If you have produced 5 of these and you want to share all of them…maybe release them once a week. Use the embed code provided by YouTube, Blip.tv, or Vimeo and place them within the site. Once placed…tell the world!

Sixth…tell the world that they are updated on your home-base. Use TweetDeck and/Hootsuite to regually tell the world that a new video has been updated. Use email marketing and even LinkedIn to tell your spheer of influence that is it live and people can go watch it. Ohh…when you tell them, use the URL where it is located at the home-base and shorten the URL using TweetDeck or Hootsuite. This will allow you to track the clicks. This works well in a blog where you have a specific URL for each blog post.

Seventh…create a discussion around the video that was just updated. Get on your social networks and tell people about the video and ask their opinion about the content, create a discussion.

Eighth…repeat this process. Olivier Blanchard (@thebrandbuilder) talks about consistency and frequency when using new media and social media combined. It is smart thinking.