By Amy Dawson, Senior Vice President/Healthcare Account Director

8 in 10 Internet Users Go Online for Health Information

More physician practices and hospitals are starting to embrace Facebook as an important tool in their arsenal of marketing tactics. As marketing dollars shrink, competition intensifies, and more people look to social media as a way to become informed, empowered healthcare consumers, any hospital or practice would be wise to consider how social media can enhance their existing marketing plans. We’re now in the era of Health 2.0 - using social software and its ability to promote collaboration between patients, their caregivers, medical professionals, and other stakeholders in health. It’s really pretty cool when you think about it.

Consider this: eight in 10 Internet users go online for health information. Sure, there are things to consider like staffing, HIPAA, content and more, but can you really afford to be absent from this space and let your competitors be the only voice in the discussion?

I’ve spent the last week looking at a variety of healthcare brands - both hospitals and physician practices - and how they’re using Facebook as a marketing and commnications tool. Some are early adopters and recognize that as their younger patients age, more of them will seek information online rather than schedule an appointment with their doctor. After all, it’s faster and easier than ever to get information online. One caveat here - accessing information online doesn’t replace the value of seeing your physician face-to-face but can certainly help you ask the right questions.

Here are a few examples of Facebook tactics used by healthcare providers that I think are pretty interesting:

Read the rest of this entry »

By Jenny Fuerst, Director, Corporate Communications

Fahlgren, Edward Howard to Join Public Relations Businesses

Neil Mortine and Kathy Cupper Obert

Alignment Forms Independent Powerhouse:

Largest Firm in Ohio and Top 30 Nationally

The acquisition, which joins the capabilities of Fahlgren Mortine Public Relations and Edward Howard, is expected to close during the first quarter of 2010 although integration and coordinated new business and marketing efforts will begin immediately.

Check out more details of today’s exciting announcement in the news release.

By Katherine Zuehlke, Account Supervisor

The Rules are About to Change

Last week I got invited to a lunch and learn titled The Obama Factor & FTC Update. Three associates from the law firm Frost Brown Todd came into our offices to speak about this very interesting subject.

One of the topics they addressed was collecting behavioral data online, which to me, as an advertiser is key information to my clients’ businesses. Today, consumers have control over where and how they receive messages. The purpose of behavioral targeting is to send our client’s message to the right person when they are ready to receive it.

 The FTC defines behavioral advertising by tracking a consumer’s online activities over time (e.g. searches, websites visited, content viewed) to deliver advertising catered to that consumer’s interests. Why is this information important? It helps tailor content to each unique individual. I frequently visit www.target.com or www.gap.com for shopping. So when I’m doing a Google search it’s no coincidence that a Gap, Target or even Macy’s web banner is served up on my screen.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Chrystie Reep, Associate Media Director

Using Insight to Influence Action

A few weeks ago, my colleague Alison Momot and I had the chance to attend OMMA’s first ever Metrics & Measurement Conference at The Yale Club of New York.  Despite the torrential downpour we had to wade through to get there, we were beyond thrilled for the opportunity to sit in a room full of like-minded data and analytics geeks. We were not disappointed by the lively discussion and debate we witnessed. 

In a recent study released by Econsultancy and Lynchpin, they find that currently analytics is a picture of two worlds.  The technology continues to get more sophisticated, but the challenges in interpreting and actioning the data are only getting bigger. These findings fall right in line with the thoughts of the OMMA panelists as well.

The morning keynote, Jeffrey Eisenberg, the CEO of FutureNow, started the day with a report card saying that “Measurement gets an A-, but acting on the data gets a D.”  There are so many tools and there is so much data available to marketers, but few are doing a good job of turning that data into actionable insights and plans for improvement.  

Read the rest of this entry »

By Amy Dawson, Senior Vice President/Healthcare Account Director

The transition from childhood to adolescence is a big turning point — socially, mentally, physically and emotionally.

Just ask any parent with children between the ages of 8 and 14. This generation is media-wise, sophisticated, technically-savvy, and they’re influential trendsetters who are growing up much quicker than previous generations. I see this every day in my two daughters, ages 12 and 14.

If you’re a parent of a tween, teen or have any in your family, you probably won’t be too surprised by these statistics from eMarketer’s report, Kids and Teens: Communications Revolutionaries:

• While 36% of teens send a text message every day, just 16% send e-mail every day (Pew Internet & American Life Project).
• Between 2006 and 2007, usage of social networks among 10-to-12-year-old Internet users more than doubled, to 22% (Harris Poll).
• 16 million teens—nearly two-thirds of the population—own a mobile phone (MultiMedia Intelligence).
• 46% of tweens have a mobile phone, up from 35% in 2007 (Nielsen Co.).

Over one-quarter of teen mobile phone owners (28%) access the Internet via their phone (Harris Interactive/CTIA-The Wireless Association), compared with 17% of all mobile subscribers (Nielsen Mobile).

Under the Kidfluence

Their world is a different world from mine at this age. For those of us in the 30 to 40-something range, technology used to mean cassette tapes, Atari, push-button phones and electric typewriters (gosh, I feel old). In the ’70s and ‘80s, marketers didn’t see nearly the influence from kids as they do today – the phenomenon known as “kidfluence.” 

Read the rest of this entry »

By Amy Dawson, Senior Vice President/Healthcare Account Director

Tweeting live surgeries is catching on as more health care systems embrace social media.

A couple months ago at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, surgeons used robotic surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from a man’s kidney and a benign tumor from another patient’s brain. Earlier this month, a woman had a robotic hysterectomy at Sherman Hospital in Illinois, and last week, surgeons at Aurora St. Luke’s Medical Center in Wisconsin perfomed a double knee replacement.

These surgeries are very different, but all of them were simultaneously broadcast via Twitter. While operating surgeons use Twitter to give short, real-time updates about the procedure.

A Peek into the Operating Room

I am not a nurse, doctor or other trained medical professional, but I have some medical knowledge and have watched surgeries performed firsthand. I’ve also become an avid Twitter user, so I decided to follow along when I heard about Aurora Health’s decision to broadcast the procedure.

I opened up TweetDeck and followed along, reading their tweets of the procedures.

I was fascinated at the speed, precision and honesty of the surgeons doing the double knee replacement. Pictures of the actual procedure were also tweeted. No, I wasn’t grossed out (I seriously love watching this kind of stuff), but those faint of heart followers can choose to not open and view the photos that are tweeted, another advantage of Twitter.

Read the rest of this entry »