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

January 23, 2012

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.

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Posted by Julie Robinson

Five Ways Cardiovascular Marketers Can Use Pinterest

January 17, 2012

The surprise social networking success of 2011 may be exactly what your brand needs to boost engagement in 2012.

Pinterest is hot. It came out of virtual obscurity last year to become one of the top ten social networks, and it shows no signs of slowing down.

Pinterest is an image-based platform that focuses on lifestyle issues. It almost looks like an upscale women’s magazine. The basic premise is this: users create and name boards about any subject they like (Places I’d Like to Visit, Healthy Meals, Hobbies, etc.). People post (“pin”) relevant photos and articles on the boards and follow one another based on interests. Photos are displayed in a pin board-type feed that is simple, yet visually appealing.

Today, the audience is heavily female, and there are many topics that are relevant to cardiovascular marketing: diet, exercise, almost every aspect of health and even a Go Red For Women board.

So, how can you take advantage of this community? This article from Mashable offers five ideas.

1. Host Contests

Contests can range from creating the “Best Board” to earning the most Repins. Users could post photos of their best heart healthy meals, best ideas for exercise motivation, or photos of themselves in a red dress to support heart health and awareness. Similar to photo contests on Facebook or Twitter, Pinterest offers a way to build visual between your brand and target audience.

2. Conduct Social Media Focus Groups

You can use boards to get reactions to new developments in your heart and vascular institute. For example, are you adding items to your cafeteria menu, redecorating a waiting room or adding a community workout facility? Because of Pinterest’s commenting ability, it’s an ideal platform on which to introduce new ideas and gather firsthand opinions. As users Repin a photo, you can gather more intelligence, and ultimately decide whether you should move forward with an idea.

3. Showcase Brand Personality

Pinterest’s photos offer unlimited possibilities to showcase your brand’s personality. For instance, you could have a Pinterest Board of photos that features your philanthropic outreach and community events. You can post past and present photos that showcase new construction, past milestones, employee honors, etc. Each Pin allows for a description and a link to the original story. Therefore, you can quickly connect an audience with stories, mission and future plans, all via photo Pin.

4. Display Various Sectors of Your Organization

Larger operations can use Pinterest to nicely organize areas of focus and relay them to the public. For instance, you might host several individually themed boards. One board might showcase physician and staff interests, while a specialty board displays ideas related to specific procedures or areas or expertise. Another board might show photos of employees in action.

5. Showcase Communication Between Brands and Customers

Using Pinterest, brands can create Pins and boards that feature customer feedback and product interpretations, and then showcase them for entire audiences. Customers can further relate to products and services, and brands have a way to thank their supporters by integrating them into their communities. For example, grateful patient stories could be featured or patients who want to share stories of how they lost weight, got in shape, etc. could be featured.  Patients and prospective patients could be inspired to return, and you are creating content that keeps fans constantly involved.

It seems that Pinterest holds immense potential to interact with various audiences. Using the power of image, brands can create buzz around products and services, display more in-depth aspects of their businesses, and ultimately create more personal and visually pleasing social experiences for their audiences.

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Posted by Julie Robinson

Cardio Exercise Advice For Cardiovascular Marketers

January 16, 2012

It doesn’t matter when you do your cardio as long as you do it.

Many cardiovascular marketers I know are publishing content about exercise this time of year. I thought these insights from “America’s toughest trainer,” Jillian Michaels of Biggest Loser fame were kind of interesting.

Michaels refutes the oft-espoused theory that cardio is most effective first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. Some people believe that because they haven’t eaten in 8 to 10 hours, there will be less blood sugar available for fuel, which will force your body to draw on and burn more of its stored energy. Not true, says Michaels. In fact, exercising on an empty stomach can hinder performance and make you feel weak. Her advice is to do your cardio workout whenever you have the energy to give it maximum effort. For people who are interested in weight loss, Michaels recommends one day per week devoted strictly to cardio and cardio mixed in with circuit training on other days throughout the week.

How long is long enough?

When it comes to duration, Michaels recommends a minimum of 30 minutes and a maximum of two hours of cardio in any single session. For some people, the number of calories burned in a half hour session may not seem worth it, but obviously, heart patients need to heed the advice of their doctors based on their individual situations. And exercising for too long can release stress hormones into the body, such as cortisol, which inhibit weight loss, causing your body to react by storing fat and retaining water out of self-protection.

What type of exercise is best?

Walking, rowing, spinning, stepping, and climbing can all lead to increased fitness. Michaels recommends that people do whatever they enjoy the most and that they mix it up to avoid plateaus. Here’s a good calculator to figure out how many calories you’re burning during various exercises.

How much is enough?

When it comes to intensity, Michaels recommends using your best judgment. I would add that heart patients should also consult their physicians. In general, if it feels too easy, increase intensity; if it feels too difficult or your form is compromised, decrease intensity. As you get into better shape, your tolerance for intensity will increase. Michaels recommends keeping your heart rate at 85 percent of your maximum while you are doing it. To figure out your target heart rate, here’s a heart rate calculator from Mayo Clinic.

Most experts also strongly recommend that you purchase a heart-rate monitor, which will give you instant feedback on how you’re doing, letting you know if you’re working too hard or not working hard enough.

Still not motivated? Try these tips.

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Posted by Julie Robinson

Cardiovascular Marketing Question: Should You Have Restaurant Food In Your Cafeteria?

December 15, 2011

Branding cafeteria food as “restaurant fare” seems to be a trendy marketing ploy.

Unfortunately, I just returned from visiting my brother-in-law, who is currently a patient at our city’s newest heart institute.

While I was certainly sorry to visit under these circumstances, I was curious to see it. This place has been getting a lot of buzz, and media releases have been touting its state-of-the-art amenities. As long as I was there, I decided I should do a little competitive mystery shopping – starting with eating lunch in the cafeteria.

I was immediately struck by the spacious, restaurant-like facility with hip colors. The place certainly looked inviting. The next thing I noticed was the “branded” restaurant fare. Backlit signage tempted diners with well-known local restaurant names – an Asian bistro, a pizza joint and an upscale seafood place. Hmmm.   Curious to see what this was all about, I did a little tour.

Indeed, there were stations with reasonable likenesses of the food served in these restaurants: a pepperoni pizza, a Szechuan beef stir-fry dish, a noodle bowl with chicken and vegetables, and the seafood offering — a roasted pork loin. (Huh?)

I chose the noodle bowl. It was pretty good, although the process of watching the cafeteria worker making it was definitely not as appetizing as having it magically appear at my table in the restaurant.

As I observed the other diners, I really started to ponder the pros and cons of this strategy. The marketer in me appreciates the fresh approach. The association with well-known dining brands certainly added a panache that almost made me forget I was having lunch in a hospital cafeteria. It’s an interesting consumer-centric idea.

However, the healthy eater in me that drives my real interest in cardiovascular marketing had to wonder if this new facility had missed the mark. With articles like this continuing to surface about the lack of healthy food in hospital cafeterias, I wondered why this well-respected health system had not chosen to be a leader in providing healthy food instead of “restaurant” food.

“As health professionals, we understand the connection between healthy eating and good health, and our hospitals should be role models in this regard,” said Dr. Lenard Lesser, primary investigator and a physician in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program in the Department of Family Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

I agree with Dr. Lesser. I would have been really impressed if this hospital had chosen to design a new, improved dining experience that revolved around healthy, yet tasty food. But I understand that it must have been a business dilemma.

Is the real truth that American consumers won’t buy into a healthy food concept? To try to gain a competitive advantage, did the people at the new heart institute feel they had to give patients, visitors and staff food they want vs. food they need? It’s a conundrum. What do you think?

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Posted by Julie Robinson

Vitamin D May Be a Bigger Deal Than You Thought For Cardiovascular Marketing Education

November 30, 2011

Taking vitamin D supplements may dramatically lower people’s risk of death

According to research done right here in my own backyard at the University of Kansas, taking vitamin D supplements may lower people’s risk of death. I wasn’t too surprised to hear this, as my personal physician has been checking my D levels and recommending supplements for a few years. However, a quick poll among my colleagues showed that not everyone is aware or on board yet.

The study followed more than 10,000 patients and found that 70 percent were deficient in vitamin D, which put them at significantly higher risk for a variety of heart diseases. D-deficiency also nearly doubled a person’s likelihood of dying, whereas correcting the deficiency with supplements lowered their risk of death by 60 percent.

“We expected to see that there was a relationship between heart disease and vitamin D deficiency; we were surprised at how strong it was,” Dr. James L. Vacek, a professor of cardiology at the University of Kansas Hospital and Medical Center, told Reuters Health.

Vacek and his team found that people with deficient levels of vitamin D were more than twice as likely to have diabetes, 40 percent more likely to have high blood pressure and about 30 percent more likely to suffer from cardiomyopathy.

Vacek said he believes so many people are deficient because we should get about 90 percent of our vitamin D from the sun and only about 10 percent from our food. The human body makes vitamin D in response to skin exposure to sunlight.

Most people simply aren’t outside enough to get enough sun exposure, and in cooler climates, the sun often isn’t strong enough to sufficiently affect vitamin D levels. In addition to supplements, foods such as oily fish, eggs and enriched milk products can be good sources of D.

All it takes to check your levels is a simple blood test. The results of this study offer a good reminder. Could be a great topic for your next newsletter.

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Posted by Julie Robinson

The Power of Blogs and Cardiovascular Marketing

November 10, 2011

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.

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Posted by Julie Robinson

Responding to Negative Feedback in Cardiovascular Marketing Social Media

November 8, 2011

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.

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Posted by Julie Robinson

New Cardiovascular Marketing Sensation: Know Your Numbers Video

November 4, 2011

A video from Mayo Clinic takes viewers back to the ‘80s with a spoof of the 1982 hit “867-5309/Jenny”. It features actual Mayo Clinic staff and cardiologists.

Check out some of the lyrics:

You need to know your numbers,

Don’t let ‘em get too high

Jenny please watch your numbers

Blood pressure, lipids and BMI

It’s a fun way to encourage people to pay attention to important numbers, blood pressure, lipids and BMI, that can potentially reduce their risk of heart disease.

It also has high hopes of going viral. To see the video on Mayo’s site, it asks you to create a personal profile, which I did. By spreading the video to your family and friends, you then have a chance to win prizes as part of a related contest.

Here’s the body of the email I got after registering:

Dear julieseifertrobinson,

Thank you for registering for Know Your Numbers! Please find your account details and some tips for promoting your profile below.

Profile URL: http://knowyournumbers.me/profile/julieseifertrobinson

Username: julieseifertrobinson
You can login to the site on: http://knowyournumbers.me.

Some Helpful Tips For Promoting Your Profile

All of these steps can be accomplished on your profile.

1.Share your profile URL via Facebook, Twitter and Google+ (http://knowyournumbers.me/profile/julieseifertrobinson).

2.Send email invitations to your friends and family.

3.Include your profile URL in your email signature.

Best wishes and good luck!

Know Your Numbers Team

Interesting approach. I like it. To watch the video on the Mayo Clinic site, click here.

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Posted by Julie Robinson

How Design Thinking Can Transform Cardiovascular Marketing – Part Two

November 1, 2011

Fostering a culture of innovation can lead to higher engagement and better results.

In my last post, I talked about my recent trip to IDEO, an innovation and design firm that uses a human-centered, design-based approach to help organizations grow. I was so inspired by their thoughts about innovation that I decided a read the book, Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation, authored by CEO Tim Brown.

Regular readers of this blog know that I have a strong belief in the importance of innovation as we constantly strive to produce great results in our cardiovascular marketing programs.

Tim Brown talks a lot in the book about how to inspire innovation within teams. He asserts that it’s critical to develop an environment in which people know they can experiment, take risks and explore the full range of their faculties:

  • A culture that believes it is better to ask forgiveness rather than permission, that rewards people for success but gives them permission to fail, has removed one of the main obstacles to the formation of new ideas.
  • An important lesson about the challenge of shifting from a culture of hierarchy and efficiency to one of risk taking and exploration: Those who navigate the transition successfully are likely to become more deeply engaged, more highly motivated and more wildly productive than ever before.

How many of us truly encourage our teams to live by these tenets? If not, why not? What are we afraid of? One could argue that healthcare is in need of innovation more than ever before.

Brown goes on to say:

  • The most important counterpart to an attitude of experimentation is a climate of optimism.
  • Curiosity does not thrive in organizations that have grown cynical.
  • Project teams become nervous, suspicious and prone to second-guessing what management really wants.
  • To harvest the power of design thinking, individuals, teams and whole organizations have to cultivate optimism. People have to believe it’s within their power (or at least the power of their team) to create new ideas that will have a positive impact.
  • Optimism requires confidence, and confidence is built on trust. And, trust flows in both directions.

Do you think it’s hard to be optimistic in today’s environment? Have all of the looming changes in healthcare made you cynical? How can you motivate yourself and your team (and your agency) to regain optimism, reject cynicism and work together to find truly innovative solutions that will create better results than you had last year? These are questions we’ll be asking our team members and clients at Kuhn & Wittenborn in the coming months. We would welcome your stories on innovation too.

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Posted by Julie Robinson

How Design Thinking Can Transform Cardiovascular Marketing – Part One

October 27, 2011

“Don’t mock people’s ideas by discussing surface details. You’ll see more ideas, and people will spend less time polishing bad ideas.”  – Tom Kelley, General Manager of IDEO.

I recently returned from one of the most fascinating field trips I’ve ever taken: a visit to IDEO, an innovation and design firm that uses a human-centered, design-based approach to help organizations grow.

When our group first walked into the conference room, I was struck by a huge whiteboard with “rules” for brainstorming printed on the wall across the top:

  • Defer Judgment
  • Encourage Wild Ideas
  • Build on the Ideas of Others
  • Stay Focused on a Topic
  • One Conversation at a Time
  • Be Visual
  • Go for Quality

These “rules” seem pretty logical. Yet, I had to ask myself, how often do we really live by them?   We constantly ask people within our organizations to be innovative – on both the client side and the agency side.

Yet in today’s environment of tight budgets and tight timeframes, how often do we really give people permission to explore wild ideas, and how often do we truly defer judgment? It’s so easy to immediately identify the reasons why something won’t work.

Tom Kelley said at IDEO they ask people to develop skills around being “squinty,” — you know, that process of squinting to look at something to see if you might be able to see it more clearly.

If you can squint and see that there’s a kernel of an idea, take it one more step. But give people permission to show you ugly prototypes. Don’t make people feel like their ideas have to be fully finished before they show them to you. (For example, give your agency permission to show you rough ideas earlier on in the process.) It will probably end up being less expensive in the long run because they won’t go through multiple rounds of internal revisions before the account executive thinks it’s pretty enough to show to you, the client.

Kelley also told us that academic research shows people will always like a product better if they see it at the halfway point because they feel like they have an opportunity for collaboration and buy in. I’m encouraging the people in our agency to show ideas to clients sooner. And I’m encouraging my clients to show ideas to their administration and management sooner too.

At IDEO, they talk about a culture in which the whole organization has room to experiment and one in which ideas should not be favored based on who created them. (Repeat aloud.)

Makes me want to start a brainstorming session. Who wants to join me?

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Posted by Julie Robinson

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