This list of 35 social media niche sites assembled by Doug Firebaugh at SocialMediaBlogster.com is broken down into 8 different categories. Sorry to see no representation across the health continuum, as social media provides the opportunity to do so much physical, emotional and spiritual good for people. On a related note, Dell has opened up its new Ideastorm site for Healthcare and Life Sciences.
We know that the decision-maker still has a set of initials that includes C and O. But the middle initial has changed. It’s now the CFO who is steering the ship.
In some cases, decisions are limited to where to cut expenses, and no budget item is off-limits. Others know that demand-side strategies are critical to future success and are asking their marketing folks to justify their spending (as they should) with a rigorous business case.
Based on what history tells us, the scrutinizing spenders and their organizations will come out stronger on the other side of the recession. As will their marketing departments, as they start to align their efforts with, and speak the language of, the CFO.
Here are seven tips to build CFO love and come out stronger on the other side of the downturn:
Sharp focus: is your positioning different, desirable and responsive to the times (providing more benefit value for the dollar); and are you in sync about your highest priority audiences.
Eliminate costs: scrutinize how you can cut costs through product or service; the costs that drive up your prices, but don’t really provide recipricol value to customers.
Prune the portfolio: kill the products that sap resources but don’t meaningfully contribute to both brand strength (e.g. customer value, differentiation, profitability, brand share, future potential) and segment attractiveness (e.g. size, growth/trend, opportunity to differentiate, profitability).
Everything in alignment: everything you do enhances or detracts from building brand reputation and relationships. Review each step of the customer journey (from investigation, to initial outreach to after-sale service) relative to your brand promises, values and story, and ensure there’s a coherent message coming out the other side.
Think Blue Oceans: what can you do to carve out a stronger competitive position, or to create new market space that makes competitors irrelevant; look across the entire delivery system to uncover how you can change the game; and what you can do to eliminate, reduce, raise and create to deliver both differentiation and value.
Maximize digital. How can you maximize the efficiency and engagement potential of this channel; optimizing your website; through email and mobile; integrating with CRM programs.
Be Social. Turn naysayers into prospects, prospects into consumers, and consumers into fans by engaging them on their terms. Build trust through open and honest conversations, and timely responses. The hard costs are minimal, yet the returns are substantial.
Measuring ROI. Agree up-front what, and how, you’ll measure; and spend wisely through your media mix so that you can course correct based on outcomes.
We tend to forget that employees are a powerful source of energy for driving brand and business performance. While the majority of the conversation about how to power your way through the recession takes an external focus, A Low Cost Way to Improve Engagement This (and Every Year): Give ‘Em Goose Bumps is a great post from Tammy Erickson that reminds us that engagement starts inside our companies.
Whether your organization should participate on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, a social network or any number of other tools, really isn’t the question you should be asking. The fact of the matter is that consumer practices, and therefore expectations, have changed. Forever.
Whether you’re part of the conversation or not, they are going on – and your brand [regardless of where you sit across the health continuum] – is one of the topics of discussion. To borrow on Blue Ocean Strategy principles, social media tools have eliminated the barrier between company and customer. Reduced what is an acceptable amount of time between interactions. Enhanced the transparency of your organization. And created the ability for consumers to be listened to and responded to in real time, from wherever and whenever their communications emanate.
To hide your head in the sand is a mistake. Because this means that you’re ignoring your base – your customers, prospects and influencers – and sacrificing your future.
Sharing this wonderful post from Patrick Singson called The Dream of Social Media for hospital online marketing.
It reiterates that the fear of the unknown and the fear of losing control doesn’t compare to the threat of not becoming part of the conversation.
Ultimately, he concludes your customers will love you for it.
There’s a right way and a wrong way to use Twitter for marketing. The wrong way is to make it about “you.” The right way (the only way) is to make it about “me”, the other person involved in the conversation. Done right, you’ll then reap the downstream rewards.
Here are five tips from Doug Firebaugh (SocialMediaBlogster.com) for Twitter marketing:
1. Marketing is all about relationship: first-second-third
2. Twitter is about “peripheral connections” that are in sync with you
3. Twitter marketing is about Trust, Trails and Teams
4. Twitter marketing is about secondary exposure – not just primary
5. Twitter marketing rests upon the platform of “First Effectual Impressions”
Passing on the top 10 health blogs according to cisionnavigator (based on their database); a good well-rounded glimpse into the nature of healthcare conversations.
1. Women’s Health
2. The Diet Dish
3. That’s Fit
4. Alternative Medicine
5. The Checkup
6. College Candy
7. Well
8. YOU Docs Daily
9. Steve Plavlina’s Personal Development Blog
10. Poked and Prodded
Top 35 Social Media niche sites: where are the health brand conversations?