2] Getting too creative.
Being clever and original is good, as long as your target demographic remembers who you are. How often have you talked with friends about the great commercial you heard or saw yesterday, only to realize you do not know who the advertiser was?

If you can communicate clearly while being clever, terrific. But there’s nothing wrong with a straightforward approach. In either case, stress the benefits of your product or service.

3] Not matching the production to the budget.
We see this a lot in local television & cable advertising. If your budget is small, don’t try to shoot The Ten Commandments. Instead, spend your money on a simple concept with a clear message, a good script well delivered, and clean, effective visuals.
A word about production crews: If you can afford it, hiring an independent production company (as opposed to the TV station crew) can often achieve a better commercial. Yes, the cable company or TV station may produce your spot for free with media purchase – but the incentive for those crews, hardworking as they are, is to get your spot done as quickly as possible. Good production values are not often high on the priorities list.

4] Using a well-known voice.
This one is tricky. If you use a recognizable voice, there is a danger: listeners may try to figure out who it is rather than understand your message. On the other hand, if the voice is immediately recognizable to your target demographic, and has some logical link to your product or service, then it may add credibility to your message.
In general, unless you have a valid marketing reason for using a well-known voice, don’t.
Caveat: don’t go the other direction and have your brother-in-law-who-wants-to-be-voice-talent do it. You want a talented voice actor, one who can bring believability to your script. In the current marketplace, stay away from announcer voices. There are several sources to find voice talent. Google “voice talent”, “voice actors”, or “talent agencies”.

5] Using well-known music.
It has the same danger as the recognizable voice. It can distract viewers from perceiving your message. Plus it has the potential problem of violating copyright laws. So unless well-known music has a direct relationship to your message, or is your message, stay away from it.
If you do use copyright protected music, you will need to negotiate and buy what are called synchronization rights – permission from the copyright owner to use the music in your advertising. For well-known songs, it can be expensive, and usually lasts only 13 weeks.

photo credit: sourcesforstudents.com

by Dawn Wigginton, Vest VP of New Business and Jeremy Williams, Interactive Director

“What programming language should we be using?” “Is my site out of date? “  “Is this color/font/content bad?” “Why is my competitor outranking me on Google?”

These tend to be the first questions that come up when we are meeting with clients about creating a new website.  We understand.  Websites have become so important to a company’s image–both as a calling card and hub for your overall marketing efforts–that companies consistently worry about whether their site is “keeping up” with social and technology trends.  Does my site need to be tweaked…or trashed?  The answer to this question doesn’t’ lie in asking yourself about the details.  To get to that answer, you have to ask yourself the right questions–about how your site should function, who your audience is, how you want it to connect to the rest of the social/mobile world.  So before you begin your next big web project, we’ve included a handy checklist of things clients often miss…

1)  Does my website need to connect to the functions of other departments? If your website has an ecommerce function, or hooks into customer service/sales in any way, you need to make sure you have the right back end CMS (Content Management System.)  We can help you determine which one is right for you based on your site traffic.  There’s also some great systems out there for connecting people who visit your site into prospect lists for your sales department.  Talk to us about how you can customize and focus your sales efforts.

2)  Is it easy to update? Nothing can eat up a marketing budget faster than a website that requires a high level programmer to update a simple piece of copy.  A company should be able to update its website with no outside help, and  constantly changing topical information is key to keeping your website high in the search rankings.  We develop the majority of our websites with CMS in mind, to make them easier to manage. Do yourself a favor and make sure you can build upon any new foundation you set.

3)  Does the site  have “burstability”? What kind of traffic do you have now, and what times of day do you have it?  What kind of traffic do you want to have?  Your hosting platform should offer you the ability to boost your capacity as new traffic comes in, even if it’s in big bursts.

4)  If you are offering ecommerce, how will you process payment? A lot of small business will start off with  an entry level ecommerce platform, and that’s fine.  But the more products you add, the more important it becomes to put your ecommerce platform on a really robust platform, like Rubyonrails, which we’ve used for several large ecommerce sites.   Which platform you pick will depend a lot on what you need it to do, and it requires a big conversation with your web design/programming team.

5)  Have you properly set up your secure server license? This is critical to getting an ecommerce site to run properly.  If you’re connecting your ecommerce to servers in the cloud, or servers internally, either way, you’ll need one of these set up with the proper authorities.  Make sure your web team walks you through the process step by step.

6)  Will people on mobile devices be able to view my site? Shocking, I know, but you’d be surprised how many people don’t plan for this. Websites today need to be designed in a simple and clean way, with the mobile community in mind.  Recent studies are showing that mobile devices are outselling desktop machines, which means more and more people may be coming to your website on a mobile or tablet device.  Unless you keep this audience in mind, you could lose future customers. Links and phone numbers should respond to touch commands on a tablet or phone.  Copy should not be too dense on any page.

7)  How can I make this website shareable? The secret to good SEO rankings is lots of new and constantly changing content, like blogs, new product listings, news stories, incoming links and feeds.  When you  add this content, make sure you add share buttons for Twitter, Facebook, Feedburner, RSS, Google +1, Digg, Delicious, and the like.    For regular contributors like bloggers on your site, add +K buttons in your sidebar, so readers can +K and add points to the blogger’s Klout score under a certain topic.

8)  Do I have a plan for SEO? Have you thought about your keywords?  Have you thought about how they will be distributed throughout your website?  You need to work those in, organically throughout your site when it is being designed, and a lot of tagging needs to be done.   As you add new content, you need to always be doing it with your keywords in mind.

9)  How will I promote this website? We see it over and over.  Companies pay for us to build the online “ferrari” and then they leave it in the driveway.  Plan now for your traffic building tactics, like Google Ads, Facebook Ads, digital promotions, links on your traditional brochures and ads and more.  There’s a lot of sophisticated techniques out there to try.  Don’t be shy about it.

10)  Most of all, how will this relate to my overall marketing strategy? It seems obvious, but it is surprising how many people think of their website as an island apart from everything else they’re doing.  Your website literally  is the center of your company’s identity.  It’s the first place people go when they want to find out more about your company.  It should set the tone and provide a leaping off point for them to order product, get in touch with sales staff, get more background information, and more.  It is also the place they leap back to off links all over the Internet.  All your messages have to be consistent, promotions should relate to and tie in together. Do this, and your website is well on its way to succeeding.

If you’re interested in working with us to design your website, just contact Dawn at dwigginton@vestadvertising.com.

photo credit: dreamstime.com

It’s the end of the year, so you know what that means.  All the armchair prognosticators come out of the woodwork to make their futuristic claims. But let’s get real here.  Most of these “trends to watch” stories really should be titled
“the 10 things early adopter companies with unlimited budgets will be experimenting with next year.”  Much as we’d like to, most of us don’t live in this world.  So what’s a tech realist to do?  We’ve outlined 10 tech trends that are going mainstream…and what your business should be doing about it in the coming year.

1)  The inevitability of mobile access

Up to now, many marketers have been treating mobile marketing as window dressing–a fun little experiment to add on to their project list.  But the rise of smartphones has made reaching out to your audience in the mobile space a necessity.  This chart from Neilsen shows that smartphones will dominate the cell phone market as soon as early next year.  Which means that your customers will be looking up your products, your prices, your web address, your phone number…all through their phone.  It’s time to make sure your website is mobile ready, and your customers have all the information they need to know about you, on the go.  Don’t neglect the low-hanging fruit.  Is your Facebook, LinkedIN and Google Business Place Page claimed?  Can people easily email you or phone you by pushing a link?  If your customers access your ecommerce site on your smartphone, can your customers read, search, purchase and share their purhcases with ease? Is your standard website easy to read on a phone, and enabled for a tablet?  Ignore these questions at your peril.

2)  The Rise of the App

With the emergence of smartphones, comes the rise of the App.  App development has exploded at crazy, triple digit growth rates in nearly every subject category. We’re very excited about the possibilities here at Vest, and have even created a partnership with Elementz Interactive to help us create them for clients.  But should your company have one?  There is a lot of debate, after all, about whether to have a mobile website or a mobile app.  And it’s easy for apps to go unpromoted and unused…lost in the app store echo chamber.  Ask yourself this question:  what information does my customer need to know on the go?  Do they need account access?  E-commerce functionality?  Coupons or special offers? Curated information?  If you need to link any of these functions to a significant back-end database, or lead your viewer through a lot of steps, an app will do the job better.  You just need to have a solid plan for promoting it on site, on the web and through traditional and social channels to make it work best for you.

3.  Internet Video Takes Over

Honestly, we could go on all day about the stats in the rise of Internet video. It is already one of the most effective tools in the tool box.  Consider this:  82.5% of the US Internet audience viewed a video online (Comscore). A 2010 report from Cisco predicted 30 percent of all Internet traffic is for video…and will jump to 66% in 2014.  Internet Retailer magazine reported in 2010 that online viewers who viewed a video were 85% more likely to buy a product.  Emails with videos have two to three times the open rates as those without.  Shall I continue?  As more people get 4G smartphones, fast tablets and Internet-connected, flat-screen TVs, people are going to be looking for more personal, informative content on-demand from companies, and video is the perfect avenue.  And they don’t have to be slick.  If you’re a physician, how about doing short videos answering the questions you hear over and over from patients, and posting that on a Facebook page and webpage?  If you run an ecommerce site, how about showing your product in action?  If you are a business-to-business type of company, how about doing a video blog post with great information on a new industry trend or product?  The options are endless.  Just don’t do a video for the sake of doing it.  Make sure it’s information that’s worth your target’s time, and it’s short–5 minutes or less, ideally.

4)  From social applications to social organizations

2012 will be the year that we see more and more companies transition from merely having a page on Facebook, to integrating social media into their entire corporate function.  That means tying in social media streams into the customer service function, so the company can respond to complaints made randomly on the Internet in a direct way.  Or, instead of having one blogger, companies will have bloggers/social media experts throughout the organization, telling the company’s story, using blog management products like Compendium.  Company Intranets will go fully social and be pulled more easily into employee’s existing social networks.  You’ll even start to see brick-and-mortar chains with a different social media presence for each store, using tools like Expion. Companies will start offering more customer forums (like Mayo Clinic) that allow people with similar concerns to talk to each other, not just to them.  The tools for managing this kind of efforts are out there, more scalable, affordable and measurable than ever before.  For more information on this communication philosophy, try one of my favorite social media books, The Now Revolution by Amber Naslund and Jay Baer.

5)  Location Based Marketing and the Point of Discovery

Lord knows, much ado has been made about Foursquare and QR codes this year. Scoffers have noted with much satisfaction that only around 10 percent of the smartphone audience is using services like Foursquare and Google Places to “check in” when they go places.  The people who do use Foursquare, though, are a loyal bunch and their numbers are growing.  This is amazing, really, because so few companies are using this largely free technology to to offer coupons, ask customers for survey results, get tips and recommendations, bring in people searching the area for deals and create lasting loyalty with customers.  If this many people are involved with not a whole lot of incentive yet, imagine how it will be when companies start making it worth their while.  Smartphones will only grow this segment, and it’s not going away anytime soon.

QR codes are another case in point.  People are now starting to know what they are and what to do with them, though we still have a ways to go to get to the kind of adoption rates you see in Asia and Europe.  Thing is, most companies have done a woefully inadequate job of using them properly.  (ie. the insipid celebrity videos, the poorly working contest entry fields, the bad links…) Again, ask yourself, what information does my customer want on the go?  Can they enter a lucrative contest…but always get a coupon if they don’t win?  Can I show them how this product can be used with others in the store?  Can I give them directions, answer common questions, or provide meaningful product details?  Tools like 44Doors, a white-label partner of ours, offer the ability to manage multiple mobile websites off your QR codes, for not a lot of money.  This year, think how you can use QR codes for e-commerce, contests, giveaways, data collection and more.  Your customers will reward you for it.

6)  Do-It-Yourself Journalism

Boy, how PR has changed.  First, we were all concerned about getting our stories written up by journalists in the traditional press.  Then, it was all about “blogger relations.”  Now don’t get me wrong…those things haven’t gone away. But now, if you can write a meaningful, interesting blog or even a press release, you can

photocredit: http://www.digitaljournalism.org

“publish” it directly to your target audience by posting it on aggregation and forum sites in your industry.  For instance, this blog post will probably appear in Insider Louisville, Exploring Social Media and several other places before I’m done with it.  And that’s not to mention the 25 or so odd LinkedIn groups I belong to, plus my status updates. Don’t forget…most traditional newspaper sites will now allow you to upload your press releases to their archives automatically.  Then of course, there’s always the email newsletter, your Facebook page, your Google+…where your stories can go directly to your audience, too.  The options for disseminating your message are nearly endless.

7)  Making Sense of it all with Content Curation

The idea behind content curation is that industry information is becoming  so pervasive and so overwhelming that consumers will turn to the companies/individuals/experts that can “curate” the information the best.  So

photo credit: toprankblog.com

instead of just putting out information about your products, you might also be “curating” a feed of news about your industry that would be relevant to your customers, making you a news source and trusted advisor to your customers. Industry pundits like Shel Holtz have done a great job of articulating the opportunity that comes with content curation.  Tools like scoop.it or Storify are making it very easy–even automatic, to do. (To see what I’m talking about, check out the Vest Telemedicine Daily on paper.li from one of my colleagues, Dawn Wigginton, who sends this out every day to more than 700 Twitter followers @dawnwigg.)

8)  SEO and Keyword Marketing Become Mandatory

As information continues to grow exponentially, the ability for your customers to be able to find your company through search becomes even more important.  Knowing the keywords your target customer uses when they are searching for you, your products, or related products is crucial to your success.  Your website needs to be optimized for those searches, preferably with online/social media advertising and blog posts that tie directly back to those keywords in your website.  It’s a lot cheaper and easier than it sounds. Take a look at one of our case studies for Dr. Shep, where we worked a marketing miracle with just a little online strategy and Google Advertising.

9)  Personal Branding Becomes Standard

While issues of intellectual property, personal vs. corporate promotion and privacy continue to be debated, one thing cannot be denied.  In the digital age, you have a personal brand, whether you like it or not.  If you don’t believe me, just type your name into the Google search bar. 2012 will be the year that professionals, en masse, clean up their digital act…tidying up their LinkedIn profile, tightening their Facebook security settings, buying up their domain names, creating their own Google and Google +profiles, untagging photos, getting rid of insipid or embarrassing email addressees, and more.  The day is coming, and soon, when it’s standard operating procedure to have your own, free-standing, professional website with your resume, portfolio, blog posts and feeds all in one place.  Companies, as your employees start to do this, you need to be thinking about your social media policy, what kind of behavior you expect from your employees, and what they can and cannot say about their employer or industry in their personal accounts.  For advice on the matter, check out socialmediagovernance.com.  For training or more serious help on social policies, just email me.

10)  Conversion, Measurement and ROI at the Heart of It All

Up to now, many people have viewed online or social media tactics as

photo credit: likable.com

unmeasurable PR gambits.  After all, how can you really measure the value of a retweet, an online contact or a digital relationship?  While there will always be a part of online marketing/pr that is impossible to pin down, you CAN get some meaningful numbers if you plan conversion points into your effort. How many people linked from your Facebook post, to your ecommerce site, to the free online coupon, to an online purchase, for instance? How large was the audience that saw and retweeted your message?  How did that affect sales?  Did your online newsletter generate interest and lift in your special event reservations? How many linkbacks did you get? How many people who are reading your curated newsletter are buying your products? What parts of your website are most interesting and most clicked?  The fact is, digital tools give us more monitoring options and more control over our message, not less.

In 2012…how will your company be using all that power?

Recently, Dr. Schrepferman, a urologist at client Allied Urology in Louisville, came  to us, asking Vest Advertising to help him break out on his own, on the national stage.  He didn’t have a big budget. But, he wanted Vest to help him attract patients from all over the country for vasectomy reversal surgeries, as he is a nationally recognized leader in microsurgery with a near perfect success rate.  It was obvious to us immediately that he could not afford a traditional media approach.  So we outfitted him with some digital tools that revolutionized his practice for a very low investment.  Here’s what we did.

1)  Rebranded him as “Dr. Shep.” With a name that’s nearly impossible to spell or pronounce, everyone called him Dr. Shep anyway. We used this to help make his name more memorable, and his image more accessible.

2)  Offered accessible pricing. Dr. Shep researched the pricing for vasectomy reversals with other physicians, pricing his competitively to the market.  So in addition to knowing that they were much more likely to have success with Dr. Shep, patients know that they aren’t overpaying for that expertise, either. This was especially important to the men who had one or many botched attempts at vasectomy reversals in the past.

3)  Set up a concierge service. When you have people coming in from out of town for outpatient surgery, they need to know they can rest and be taken care of before they are back out on the road again.  Dr. Shep’s office uses his practice administrator to be a concierge for these patients.  She helps them make travel arrangements, and has agreements with local hotels who give their patients great rates and special service.  We promote these services on their website.

4)  Created a warm and authoritative website. Dr. Shep’s website is really the hub of his efforts.  We wanted to create an emphasis on the end result of the surgery, so we have featured lots of family stories and testimonials that describe the patients’ experiences in their words, complete with pictures of their new babies.  We also have a heavy emphasis on frequently asked questions, videos of the surgery in progress through a microscope, and podcasts of Dr. Shep answering common patient questions.  By the time a prospective patient leaves the website, they understand how the surgery works, why Dr. Shep is the best, and what they can expect if they have it done.

5)  Offered Free Skype Consultations. Obviously, you can’t do a patient exam on Skype.  However, Skype has become a key way that Dr. Shep can overcome objections for people who are wondering whether they really want to make the big trip for that initial appointment.  Every Saturday morning, he sets aside time so he can offer free, scheduled appointments with potential patients and their wives/significant others.  He talks the the couple about what to expect, reviews their medical records, and determines whether they would be a good candidate to move forward.  It helps the patients develop a rapport with Dr. Shep and his staff as well, allowing his outstanding bedside manner to shine.

6)  Search oriented online advertising. Dr. Shep may be talking to a national audience, but his target was in fact, quite narrow–just people who are actively searching for a surgeon to do vasectomy reversals.  So we purchased Google Advertising for the term “vasectomy reversal” and similar terms, setting a budget of a few hundred dollars monthly.  In addition, Dr. Shep purchased advertising on a national forum discussing vasectomy reversals and was one of its featured physicians.

The results of this effort were tangible and immediate.  Within two weeks of the first Google Ad appearing, his surgical calendar was booked.  Once potential patients got into the inquiry chain, they had a very high rate of conversions.  Google, certainly, was the hook.  But the effort succeeded so well because Dr. Shep’s team delivers on their brand promise.  They are warm, responsive and authoritative, and transparent.

While we can’t disclose the exact dollar amount of the surgeries he has done since the campaign started, his surgical calendar remains fully booked, as are his Saturday Skype sessions.  This campaign is simple, targeted, and effective, even if it doesn’t include every social platform.  It’s something most highly skilled specialists could execute.  If you’re interested in knowing more, just message us!

image credit: Healthcare Reform Magazine

As an agency that works primarily with healthcare clients, I think we can say with some authority, healthcare communications has always been about increasing the bottom line. That’s not to say that healthcare organizations are trying to get people to get unnecessary services.  But they do want to make sure that everyone who could possibly use their services knows about them, and gets those health-boosting services from them…not the other guy.  Money out for communications<Money in for procedures/visits/tests. It’s a pretty simple formula.  But when healthcare reform starts setting reimbursement levels based on patient outcomes around 2014, and premium paying patients are forced to become educated healthcare consumers, that “come here we’re the best” message isn’t going to be enough anymore. What now?  We take our shot at prognosticating, here.

1)  The answers will be the same.  The questions will just be different.

Today, when we start a campaign, we ask “how can we help drive growth at this institution?”…more people in the beds who saw our billboard, more people at our health fair converting into patients, more patients coming in for tests after getting one of our mailers. It’s a wonderful, but disconnected strategy. In the future, we will be asking “How can we improve patient compliance?” How can you get that teenage diabetic to take their insulin injections at the right time, which will keep her out of your surgical suite in 15 years.  How do you keep that elderly heart patient taking his medicines, eating right, and exercising, so he won’t come back to your emergency room with chest pains in three months.  The financial rewards for this will come when Medicare doesn’t lower your overall reimbursement levels because you have too much recidivism at your hospital or practice.  The outcome will still be a healthy bottom line, and even improved patient loyalty, but the route to those goals will take us all in a completely different direction.

2)  Patients won’t be content with “call me in six months to check in” anymore.

In today’s world, a patient with a chronic condition is told to see their doctor every three or six months.  The doc runs another round of tests, has a 10-minute discussion in the patient visit, writes out some prescriptions and, barring any acute flare ups, that’s it.  There is absolutely no attempt to communicate with the patient in between visits, often when the real trouble starts. Patients leave the office confused, clutching their poorly xeroxed instruction papers, and almost immediately start slacking off on their regimens. They come back to the physician, no better off than they were six months ago.

Luckily, there are a lot of ideas about how to fix this problem, coming from people like ePatient Dave and the Society for Participatory Medicine, the American Telemedicine Association, and many others.  First among them is the idea of prescribing patients information…pointing them to online patient forums in their disease group, for instance. Putting billable, scalable mobile monitoring solutions in place that connect doctors to patients is another hotbed of activity.  And creating a new line of healthcare professionals that work strictly on one to one patient education, stationed in every practice, are another.

So far, there is a gold rush of development in private industry to develop solutions with technology…from third party websites, to apps, to games and more.  In the future, for this all to work, healthcare institutions will need to get off the sidelines and either develop their own, or incorporate third party systems that will link these resources directly into their healthcare delivery system.  Seamless delivery of curated healthcare information to the patient, through their doctors/hospitals, is the only way to ensure this problem gets addressed.

3) Healthcare information will become portable, mobile, and ultimately, more useful.

Patients are going to be taking their healthcare information into their own hands–literally.  And we’re not just talking about electronic health records, either.  We’re talking about using apps and games that will take information out of their ambient environment, and turn it into actionable tips that will help them be healthier and live better.  Exhibit A:  a beta community known as Asthmaopolis, where your inhaler becomes a GPS transmitting device that records when and where it’s being used.  You and your doctor have access to that information.  But the beauty of it is, they also strip your personal information out and put all the Asthmaopolis users into a community.  So you can see a map showing where every other Asthmaopolis user is using their inhaler, in whatever city you happen to be in.  Would this kind of information help asthma sufferers live better and avoid attacks?  You bet. Add this to other devices, like tennishoes that broadcast your run lengths and times, and phone apps that issue medication reminders and measure compliance for clinical studies, and bracelets like Jawbone that monitor your eating and sleeping patterns, for instance.  It’s easy to see that the tools we need to be healthy lie far beyond the doctor’s office.

But that’s not to say they have nothing to do with the average healthcare communicator.  Think of the possibilities if we start working with, and not against, these kind of advances.  You could run contests among your patients for the most miles walked.  Or get promotional partners like restaurants, exercise equipment shops and the like to give special discounts and offers to people hitting certain health milestones.  But most of all, just being able to present the data these devices collect to your doctor between and during visits is an invaluable clinical tool.

4)  Physicians will demand protected time, or compensation, for their participation with social media.

It’s easy to stand back and admire the work of gifted doctor-communicators like Dr. Wendy Sue Swanson, who’s YouTube videos save her practice time by answering common pediatric questions, and who’s folksy, informative columns grace Parents Magazine each month.  But, as she told us at the Mayo Clinic Health Social Media Conference, she is able to be so productive is because she has at least two days a week for social media/writing/speaking, and three days a week seeing patients.  But the stark reality is, even salaried physicians feel married to their pagers and their practices. Most don’t have these kind of cozy arrangements.  And the “just do it” mantra won’t count here.

As hospital systems continue to buy up doctor’s practices, now is the perfect time to start carving out a certain portion of their day/week that’s protected for patient communication/social media activities. Or perhaps, there is a nurse practitioner in each physician’s office who handles these activities as part of her job.  Or, perhaps a hospital system can start pumping good curated social health information through system-wide channels that all the doctors share–and prescribe–in their practices.  The good news is, physicians are on social media in record numbers, and many of them are starting to see the benefit of talking in social media with each other, as well as their patients.  It won’t be a hard sell if it’s packaged appropriately, and they get the proper training.

5)  Social health tools will be expected to actually do something.

Right now, we’re all having great fun experimenting with Twitter, Facebook, on-line communities, texting campaigns and location based marketing (Foursquare, QR codes).  But rarely do they step beyond promoting a specific service, a call to action, or a general awareness message.  Clinicians and hospital leadership won’t truly get on board until we’ve found a way to make these tactics produce a result that is useful to them.  For instance, do their patient visits go better and faster when patients have access to videos of the doc answering their common questions?  Do patients ask better questions and make better decisions when their doctor has pointed them to the information they need to choose treatment options?  How many medical mistakes and misdiagnoses are avoided because a patient consulted an online forum of patients sharing the same symptoms?  How many referrals did your specialist get, because he posted great opinion pieces on new treatments in a national disease forum, or on his website?

There are daunting obstacles to all this, to be sure, HIPPA and operational concerns chief among them.  But I, for one, am excited about what these new changes can bring.  It is finally our chance to step off the sidelines as communicators, and directly into the action known as “getting clinical results.” What do you think?

As we’ve been writing about all week, we’re here at the Mayo Clinic Health Social Media Network meeting in Rochester, MN, where the latest ideas in healthcare delivery, social media and communications are being discussed.  Perhaps no one has a better grip on this subject than e-Patient Dave, who rose to prominence as a cancer survivor, blogger, speaker and patient advocate.  (We took this picture of him at the conference.  He’s wearing a jacket hand-painted by the wife of a cancer patient he helped.)  Learn more about his message, and his view of how healthcare will change in the future, here.

Some people say it’s easy to be a social media pundit. But not for Dave deBronkart.  His journey to the national healthcare social media pulpit was very nearly a fatal one.  A man in his 50s at the time, he was feeling a little tired in the evening.  He had lost a minor amount of weight, but otherwise, didn’t feel sick.  But his shoulder muscle was hurting him, so he went to the doctor.  That initial x-ray returned a diagnosis of rotator cuff issues…and a suspicious shadow on his lung.  Further tests revealed the lung tumor was aggressive and metastasized, meaning it had to have originated somewhere else.  That “somewhere else” for the cancer happened to be his kidneys…which had spread to his brain, femur, lungs and tongue.  With every internet search for advanced renal cancer, he saw the same words:  “prognosis is grim.”  That all changed, when, after days of searching, he found an online support group for patients like him.

There, he found other patients who gave him more detail and perspective about the emerging use of Interleukin, when and how it works, where the research supporting it could be found, and which doctors were using it effectively in his area.  He found the right doctor and treatment, which included Interleukin, surgical removal of the tumors, a new steel rod to replace his tumor-ridden femur, and chemo/radiation. He’s now cured of his cancer after being given only 24 weeks to live, and along the way, his online blogging, new book, innovative website and evangelizing on the importance of empowered patients has earned him the title of one of healthcare’s leading advocates.  He’s also a leader in the Society for Participatory Medicine, another loud and important voice that will hopefully help shape healthcare’s future.

But it’s not just his personal story that makes his message so powerful.  It is the wake up call he is delivering to the healthcare industry.  “Reimbursements are going down.  Healthcare costs are outstripping patient’s ability to pay their out-of-pocket costs. Incentives are getting rearranged.  The healthcare system as we know it is coming apart.  For it to work, we have to let patients help us pick up the pieces, and put together a whole new picture,” Dave said.

While most Americans believe their healthcare system is the best in the world, it is far from the most effective.  In fact, statistics published this summer in Medical News Today show that, in spite of a few small enclaves of good health in some select cities, the United States overall ranks 37th among the world’s nations in life expectancy. Yet we spend more on healthcare than any industrialized nation on earth.

While patients are often stymied by online paywalls and long delays in accessing published studies, there is an explosion of new and breaking medical news available to them. In a world where patients often have as much access to information and studies as doctors, Dave says it’s time we started looking at patients as partners, not merely the recipient of our products.  He had the following big ideas for improving the way we deal with patients, including:

Creating a New Patient Care  Profession– Dave thinks there should be a whole new kind of medical professional that coaches patients, and an MD shouldn’t be required.  This is someone who wouldn’t replace the physician, but would work as part of a traditional medical team, working with the patient to make sure they have access to the best, right information.  This includes steering them to online forums where they can get support, checking in to make sure they’re complying with their medicine and lifestyle treatment, and helping them get healthcare rewards.

Giving Patients Their Digital Health Data–By having and organizing his medical information, Dave was able to seek the help of referrals easily, identify patterns in his symptoms, and organize his thoughts for his doctor’s appointments.  He feels this should be easy and a right for every American.

Encouraging patients to share–Whether it is in national forums, or ones put out by hospitals, it makes sense for healthcare providers to provide a forum for patients to gain access to the latest breaking, curated news, and interact with each other.  Studies have shown that it improves a patient’s quality of life just to know there are others out there like them.  Online forums can play a big role in crowd-sourcing the best treatments, keeping patients informed of new treatments, and creating social pressure and support for treatment compliance.

Getting the right amount of the right information into patient’s hands--As a panel of patients spoke to us this afternoon on the subject of the e-Patient, they begged for more and better information from their healthcare providers, preferably broken down into easily digestible packages, so as to not overwhelm patients just starting treatment.  They have to be written in modules based on disease progression, so that patients don’t become distracted by looking at too much irrelevant information.  And they have to be written with clear, accessible, jargon-free writing. He encourages hospitals, particularly, to step out on Facebook, Twitter, You Tube and Flickr, for a start. The more solid, science-based information they can get, the more credibility doctors have with their patients.  And that’s always a good thing.  Maybe, just maybe, healthcare providers can start to see social media and its various platforms as more than just a toy, or a marketing bullhorn, but a real and growing way to change patient outcomes for the better.

The Mayo Clinic Video Production Studio–Covering the world with Healthcare Education

We started our day with a tour of the Mayo Clinic Media Studio, which was well worth the price of the plane ticket here.  It is truly a global video production facility, broadcasting on the web and by satellite all over the world.  Their video production goes far beyond social media and media relations, like most hospitals.  They broadcast surgeries and teach classes, beaming them all over the world, with the ability of the physicians taking the courses to talk to the surgeons live.  They have all the main meeting rooms at the complex wired for robotic cameras–perfect for broadcasting employee meetings, major announcements, and more.  What’s impressive about these studios is not the 15 video producers (to support hundreds more deparment staff), 9 patient education channels, 850 custom produced on-demand education videos, their pilots in health gaming or their personalized EHR-over-your-room TV service.  What’s truly impressive is how video has made patient, employee and industry education feel more detailed, personal and easy to consume.  In this, they truly lead the world–a fitting role for an organization that treats a million patients a year.

Endocrinologist Takes Patient Compliance into Her Own Hands with New Apps

Some of our favorite presentations came from physicians so passionate about the promise of social media to change patient outcomes for the better.  The presentation from Dr. Jennifer Shine Dyer on “what really works in mobile healthcare” was a real stand out.  A prominent endocrinologist, Dyer left her post this year to pursue a career as a healthcare app developer and consultant.  A physician serving teens with diabetes, Dyer conducted a study to see if patients would improve their recording and insulin treatment compliance if they got regular texts from her with personal, encouraging messages.  The text showed they were three times more likely to take the proper treatment, and the patients improved their numbers substantially.  She’s now developed an app called EndoGoddess (which, by the way, can be whitelabeled) that helps diabetes patients monitor and record their blood sugar, connects them to a more detailed health record portal and receive daily reminders and personalized encouraging words from the doctor.  When they do well, their family members get notices and they earn i-Tunes rewards purchased by their parents. In the version for younger kids, she’s developing a virtual pet that kids feed based on points they earn for good compliance.  And did I mention her next project is to create hip online lifestyle publication for young people with diabetes?  These are the kind of physicians we need in the future of medicine.

The Third World Could School the US in Mobile Health Outreach

There are more than 5 billion cell phones in the world, with the majority of them being in developing countries like Indonesia. Here, cell phones are the poor’s window to the world when they don’t have regular access to computers or broadband access.  Speaker Egbe Osifo-Dawodu, MD, of the Anadach Group, gave a wonderful overview of how mobile phone SMS campaigns and apps have become major ways patients in developing countries learn about healthy behaviors and fill in gaps in the healthcare system.  She gave too many great examples to list here, but mentioned specifically Sproxil, which can tell you whether the medicine you buy is conterfeit or not; and Ushabidi, a mobile phone app that helped crowd source information during Crisis situations in Haiti and Chile; and TRACnet, an mhealth initiative in Rwanda that improved referrals and healthcare worker knowledge in Rwanda.  Programs like Airstrip have helped caregivers and physicians in rural, inacessible areas view vital signs and clinical information remotely. Fact is, mobile health tools can help especially vulnerable populations in the US such as urban youth, pregnant teens, and the rural elderly.  In fact, 98 percent of Americans now have a cell phone– a much higher penetration rate than emerging markets.  Yet, regulatory barriers, fuzzy direction from the FDA on apps, HIPPA laws, reimbursement, connectivity and poor training and adoption among healthcare providers and industry advocacy groups remains.  Lets hope groups like Mayo’s can help move the needle on this issue.

Chris Boyer on ROI and Social Media

Chris Boyer of Inova Health Systems gave a fascinating presentation on how to measure the ROI of social media…a topic foremost on the minds of health communicators trying to sell the efforts to their skeptical superiors.  While he contends that there are 100 ways to measure ROI, as well as online measurement platforms like social mention (free) and Radian6 (not so free), most of his calculations are based on his home made equations and heavy access to the hospital’s CRM system.  Here’s an example.  They developed a website for Inova’s bariatric/medical weight loss center and spent $479 a month on Facebook ads to support it.  They got 296 clicks a month for a total cost of $1.62 per click–a little high.  However, in that month they got 37 seminar reservations at the center from the Facebook click throughs.  Twenty-three percent of those who attended the seminar registered for surgery.  There’s a $3000 margin on each surgery, leading to a total $20,700 profit.  There’s more to his equations and calcuations to come up with an official ROI number.  I’ll leave that to slideshare, where he has all his presentation slides posted.

Wendy Sue Swanson, MD–A Passionate Advocate & Practitioner of Patient Education Through Social Media

Our closing keynote came from Wendy Sue Swanson, MD, a physician who is better known as @SeattleMamaDoc, or the writer of columns for Parents Magazine.  We were impressed with Dr. Swanson, who divides her time between working part time for Seattle Children’s Hospital, working as a healthcare consultant, blogger and writer,  and raising her own children.  She cites the fact that 98 percent of young people are on Facebook…and as a pediatrician, it’s kids and young families she needs to reach the most.  She has helped her practice immensely by posting videos answering the common questions she gets from parents and patients–making her patient visits more productive.  She runs a patient portal where kids can talk health with her, behind a protected walled garden. She writes the Seattle Children’s Blog.  She chides physicians and hospitals who are afraid to speak online because they are afraid something unprofessional will be said.  A recent study from JAMA showed only 3 percent of studied physician tweets and Facebook posts were unprofessional–a rate much lower than a physician would have, probably, on their face to face interactions, she pointed out.  She urged physicians to find ways to use social media to address patients real concerns, to care about them directly, and to disseminate information about the real science behind the latest medical headlines. It also is important to note that she feels it is important to pay physicians to participate on social media, either through direct pay, or through a salary for their clinical work that includes protected time for social media.  “Science is losing its voice on the web to the book authors, talk show hosts and fear mongers.  We need to stand up and speak loudly,” she said.

Amen, Dr. Swanson.

image from sermo.com

This week, Dawn Wigginton, our VP of New Business, and I have the honor of attending the Mayo Clinic Health Social Media Network Summit at Mayo in Rochester, MN.  (The agency is a network member.)  So it’s only fitting that they kicked off the conference with an afternoon workshop where physicians who are big into social media talk about their experiences and give advice.  As part of my series this week on what we’re learning, I’ve included some real gems that came out of the session.

The panelists for our session are all physicians who use social media for patient outreach, issue advocacy, and improving clinical outcomes.  They were:

Howard Luks, a Board-Certified Orthopedic Surgeon and an Association Professor or Orthopedic Surgery at New York Medical College

Christian Sinclair, MD, hospice and palliative care Physician for Kansas City Hospice, blogger for Pallimed and Cheif Strategist for KLX Media

Mark Ryan, MD, Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center

Jennifer Shine Dyer, MD, MPH, Nationwide Children’s Hospital and medical app entrepreneur.  Click on the link above, and go to a cool TedX conference presentation on her ideas for controlling diabetes through physician texting.

Rather than give you my perceptions of what they said, I think it is far more compelling to hear their ideas, advice, tips and experiences with social media, pretty much as they said it.  Here’s some of my favorite quotes from the day.

“People tend to think that Twitter and other social media platforms offer only superficial sharing.  Just because you can achieve great reach doesn’t mean you can’t really dig down deep into topics. Don’t be afraid to drill down, post after post, into a subject.”

In response to a question about how to convince doctors why they should get on social media:  “Tell them…are you tired of patients bringing in Jenny McCarthy’s views on autism and vaccines?  Are you tired of having to respond to all Dr. Oz’s  fear mongering over apple juice? If you’re not distributing your views, proactively to your patients, you are letting them control the discussion.  It’s their information that comes up first when they search on Google.  It makes what you have to say look a little less truthful. You have to get out in front.”

“Look.  If you can’t communicate effectively, you shouldn’t be in medicine.  If you stand back and let others control the discussion in the social space, you are leaving it to people who are often medically untrained, harboring other agendas, and on it for all the wrong reasons.”

In response to the question, should physicians be paid to participate in social media? “No. You have to focus on what motivates them already.  Will they get academic credit for their output?  Can they cut down on repetitive questions in the office? Can they put out information that will improve compliance and outcomes?  Can they get some protected time to work on social media?  This is what will work.”

“If you’re looking for people in your organization to get on social media on your behalf, don’t stop with the most experieneced, senior physicians.  Ask who is interested or passionate about a subject, and has something to say.  This could be OTs, PTs, Nurse Practitioners and all other kinds of specialists, not just your most prestigious physicians.”

“If I have a gripe to get off my chest, instead of griping publicly, I look for a journal or news article that discusses the issue, and post about that.  I feel better, and my audience learns something.”

“As I’m doing my reading online, I keep Tweetdeck open for tweeting and Facebook open for pasting and sharing.  Then it’s easy to come up with up-to-date posts.”

“If you are wondering how to handle people who ask for personal health advice in social media, I compare it to doing a public talk at a rotary or similar group.  If someone asked for medical advice in that setting, most doctors would listen, then give a general overview of the issue and resources around it, without telling the patient to do anything specific.  Just relate that offline experience to the online experience, and it will give you a  pretty good guideline.”

“Social media is not an immediate thing.  It’s a bit like gardening.  You plant the seeds and hope they grow.”

“I often get asked questions by patients that require me to look up information on a subject.  When I find the answer, I’ll tweet about that piece of information, without naming or discussing the patient.  It’s a great way to take something you would normally do for your job, and share it with a wider audience.”

“You should spend two to three hours a week on social media.  Perhaps even an hour a day, spread up into smaller bits.”

“Give doctors the jurisdiction to talk about what they want…a research interest, frequent questions or problems they see in their patient populations.  It will improve their participation.”

“Ask your interested physicians what would be easiest for them to commit to…three tweets a week?  A blog post every two weeks and three tweets?  Let them set their own pace.”

“If your physician is feeling unsure about the quality of their work, send it around for internal review and forward the positive comments back to him.”

“You can go to sites like bit.ly to find out what kind of participation rate your posts had…comments, shares, etc.  The only measurement that’s important is clicks, because that’s how many people read and absorbed the material.  My real measurement is when a patient comes to me and says they’ve changed their health behavior for the better after reading one of my posts.”

“If you want to be noticed, find the disease-specific blogs and forums where your specialty is being discussed and patients are sharing information.  Offer to blog for free, and get on there and participate in the discussions.  Have lots of links back to your own website, or stories you posted on your Facebook page.  It will increase your referrals and your credibility.  These forums are really impactful for patients.  There are studies that show just knowing other people like you are dealing with the same issues improves their quality of life.”

“Physicians say they don’t want to get on social media because they can’t control the message.  I’ve got news for you.  You never did control the message.  You can’t.  So don’t try.”

“I’m more well read now than I was before I started on social media.  I’m not only reading the information, I’m curating it, too.  And I’m two weeks ahead of my peers knowing breaking news in my industry.”

“No matter what the next hip platform is, the underlying principles of social media will always apply:  transparency, rapid sharing of information, and above all, caring about your patient on a personal level.   That’s really what it’s all about.”

Thanks docs.  I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Vest was proud to be a sponsor and presenter at the Third Annual Emerging Media Summit in Louisville this September.  It was a heck of a day with approximately 100 members of the digital departments at Louisville’s largest companies, all on hand to discuss where enterprise level tools and techniques will take social media.  Couldn’t make it?  Not to worry. We have all sorts of links and resources here.

It may have taken me a couple of days to recover, but I definitely learned enough to last me through the next year of projects.  Of course, we were presenting, too, on “Engaging the E-Patient”, so we were able to wow the crowd with a futuristic look at mobile healthcare technology and its effect on healthcare communication. I’ve been working with Jason Falls, our local chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators, and the Louisville Digital Association for the last three years to organize these summits because it provides area professionals with access to national level social/mobile speakers for the lowest cost possible.

It just keeps getting better every year, too.  For instance, this year, Vest sponsored a QR code program for the day that we put together with one of our white label partners, 44 Doors.  Every attendee had a badge with their own QR code on it, which linked to a mobile website containing all their personal information, created on the 44 Doors platform.  Then, every attendee got a sheet of paper when they walked in which had QR codes taking them to contest entry websites for all our giveaways (like an iPad2, AmEx Gift Certificates, Social Media Books and a whole lot more donated by the day’s sponsors).  Even our speakers had their own mobile websites taking you to their presentations.  Sounds like a lot of work?  Well, not really.  With the 44Doors platform, it makes it pretty easy to manage.

If you couldn’t make it, we missed you.  But you don’t have to miss out.  Here’s the quick link to the IABC website where most of the speaker presentations reside.

I also had the honor of doing podcasts with the speakers, too, while we were out socializing the night before.  Feel free to give them a listen!

And stay tuned to our blog and Facebook pages.  Soon we’ll be releasing a video of me giving my future of healthcare speech, so you can make sense of all the slides.

If you’ve been reading my blog for very long, you know, there’s nothing I love more than talking about communications, marketing, advertising and social media.  So it’s no surprise that I’m all excited about my next speaking engagement at the Third Annual Emerging Media Summit, all day on September 13, at Crowne Plaza Louisville.  Three years ago, while I was Programs Chair for our local chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators, we started thinking about how we could create an event that would be the premier regional event for social media education. Our first one was a runaway success. IABC-Kentucky has been doing a conference now, in partnership with the Louisville Digital Association, that’s gotten bigger and better every year and really developed a reputation as a fun, fast-paced, national-caliber conference. Look here for more information about our speaker lineup and registration fees, which start at around $150 for the whole day.

I’ll be speaking on Engaging the E-Patient, talking about how the healthcare landscape is changing drastically, and how new communication technology will make prevention and patient education center stage.  So if you’re with a healthcare organization, this is your chance to get on the cutting edge, quick.  But the day is going to be filled with tons of great material from our other speakers, who will be trotting out the latest enterprise level tools for social media and mobile marketing.  It’s a great national line-up.

I’m really proud, too, of the rest of our team at Vest that’s been working hard putting together promotions for the event.  We designed the web page I linked to above.  We’ve also been working with our white label partner and fellow event sponsor, 44 Doors, to create some cool mobile marketing promos during the event.  All our conference attendees will have their own QR Code right on their nametag, so they can exchange contact information with each other with just a simple smartphone scan.  All our speakers will have their own mobile websites taking attendees to their presentation slides, social media sites and contact information.  And best of all, we created mobile websites for each of our sponsor giveaways.  For instance, conference goers can scan a QR code and win an iPad2!  We’re having a ball showcasing this new technology.

It’s not too late to register.  Hope to see you there!