Healthy Conversations
Imagining & Creating New Value For Health Brands & Consumers

How can your healthcare organization create new and greater value for patients and expand the role of your organization in their lives? Climb the engagement ladder.

There are five steps:

Step 1: Converse. Though it’s the first step, you’ve acknowledged that to engage a patient, you need to move away from what your organization wants to say to what they want to hear and achieve. You understand that it’s not your story that matters, but theirs. To this end, you’ve integrated social media platforms alongside your traditional (talking at them) media.

Step 2: Transact. This rung is defined by event-driven characteristics. Your care (their care) is segmented, and the relationship is reactive (they get sick, you respond). This relationship is of limited long-term value to your organization, as it limits your business opportunity to one-off situations. It also limits the value to patients, as you’re merely providing just what they need.

Step 3: Support. Still on the 50 yard line, but closer to where you and your patients want to be. And closer to creating value together. Information and education is available to patients. Communities are formed around specific conditions. And you’re beginning to capture “customer” data beyond the patient.

Step 4: Enable. Your relationship gives patients what they want, when and how they want it. It’s more proactive as you understand the person beyond the patient. It’s not limited to a brand or therapeutic line. Instead, it’s organization-wide.

Step 5: Empower. Patients get exactly what they want, as you solve their jobs to be done. You maximize your business opportunity, become their trusted resource and earn their loyalty. The relationship is collaborative, open and evolving. It’s the ultimate win-win, as both patients and your organization grow stronger.

Mayo Clinic is a pace setter when it comes to integrating social media into a healthcare organization’s marketing efforts.

It’s now creating new value for healthcare consumers and the organization itself through its partnership with DoApps. They’ve formed start-up mRemedy (website coming soon), to create new apps for smartphones based on Mayo’s research and services.

It’s first app, which just launched for Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch is Mayo Clinic Meditation (perfect for those of us [all of us] who would love to take a few minutes out of our day for meditation). You can watch the video here:

This is another great example of Mayo:

• extending its relevancy (and generating revenue) beyond its traditional care services boundaries
• engaging audiences on their terms in ways they value and want
• creating new relationships with what will ultimately be a wide range of niche audiences sharing and spreading mRemedy apps

So how will you, as a healthcare leader, marketer or innovator, create and capture more value in 2010? What opportunities do you have to develop or creatively package your intellectual property?

The more you know about your customers as real people – looking beyond their obvious needs to their hopes, dreams, fears and challenges – the more you can help them achieve.

In turn, the more value you give, the more you’ll receive in return. Ideally, this “return” will come in the form of customers who become enthusiastic fans of your organization. The ones who are more than happy to sing your praises.

Here are eight ways to make this happen through social media:

1. Internal Engagement. Give employees, the ones who power your brand, the chance to shine, e.g. Best Buy Connect
2. Collaboration. Create mechanisms for customers to influence your products and services, e.g. Dell’s IdeaStorm
3. Authenticity. Feature happy customers on video, e.g. Mayo Clinic’s atrium piano
4. Feedback. Create real-time feedback channels, e.g. ComcastCares
5. Participation. Create suggestion boxes and reward customers for their participation, e.g. My Starbucks Idea
6. Experiences. Create new ways of delivering experiences that fit with their lifestyles, e.g. healthierme
7. Conduit. Allowing customers to share with each other through you rather than driven by you, e.g. beinggirl.com
8. Sharing. Allow customers to share their ratings, e.g. revolutionhealth

Are there other good examples that come to mind?

Here are ten reasons I’ve heard and read over the past couple of weeks about why healthcare marketers aren’t engaging their audiences through social media:

1. our new hospital project is weighing us down
2. it’s the end of the year and we’ve put off any decision about social media until 1st quarter
3. we (actually being the marketing department) don’t have resources to dedicate to social right now
4. this is a senior leadership decision, and they’re not yet comfortable with the tools
5. social media doesn’t have much strategic significance for us right now
6. social media doesn’t fit with our marketing priorities
7. we’ve already allocated our budgets across media vehicles for next year
8. social media isn’t in line with our key service line goals and strategies
9. it’s more important, next year, for us to focus on our strongest potential business development opportunities across key service lines
10. we’re not yet equipped to handle direct interaction with patients and our communities

What’s fascinating about this list is that all of these reasons are about “we.” As if patients, families, communities, care providers, employees, etc. are waiting for 1) “you” to decide you’re ready to engage “them” in ways they want; and 2) you to give them the green light to be broadcasting and talking to each other about your organization.

Are any of these reasons holding your organization back from participating in social media? Do your goals and strategies really do justify participation (at least monitoring the conversation), but there are artificial internal force fields holding you back? Want to talk about it?

I wrote a post yesterday providing ten tips to get your health brand engines going. One of the tips was “What’s Your Story.”

This presentation from Kevin Dugan – What’s Your Story? Storytelling’s Link to Social Marketing Sucess – provides great insight into the power of story for health brand marketers.

I think the most important takeaways from his presentation about the power of stories is that they:

• are easier to remember than facts
• are contagious
• bring people together and build loyalty
• can be used to start the conversation, change the conversation, humanize brands, create brands and communities
• have a beginning (a problem or antagonist), middle (solution or hero/awareness) and end (results, transformation)
• online, are told through social media channels, and contributed to by participants, who then share/discuss, comment/link, friend/follow, connect live, support, provide feedback to, reply/rt

All great brands are built on great stories. Stories that have no boundaries. Stories that you know well and stories that will grow in importance over time – Virgin, Apple, Southwest Airlines, St. Jude, Jones Soda, Mayo Clinic, Life Is Good, (RED), Pret Manger, Womenheart, Zara, Memorial Sloan Kettering, Nike, Cirque du Soleil, One Laptop Per Child, 23AndMe.

Their stories engage us in ways that facts and figures can’t. They help create emotional connections that transcend the pervasive and often ignorable messaging around functionality and quality. They reflect who we are or want to be, and help inspire and guide us to do more and achieve more than we could on our own. In turn, they help you stand out from the crowd.

Importantly, every brand has a story. Sometimes it’s right there ready to be told. Other times, you need to search it out. But it’s worth the hard work. Because ultimately, your story is a powerful means to creating enduring customer connections and sustainable competitive advantage.

What other brands would you add to the list of those who tell a great story?

So you feel like the wind might finally be at your back (at least a few days out of the week). Your CFO is easing off the brake pedal. Competitors and customers are showing signs of life. The Board is once again focused on top-line growth rather than cost savings.

It’s time to restart your brand engines. Here are 10 tips for how to proceed:

1. Revisit your customer. Listen unbiasedly to understand their pain points, priorities, practices and unmet needs. Spend time walking in their shoes. Don’t be you being them. Become them.

2. Sharpen your story. Use these insights to help determine where and how you most meaningfully improve customers lives; and do it differently from others? What do you (ultimately) help them achieve that others can’t; or aren’t?

3. Be ambitious (this is actually part b of number 2 above). Beyond where you are today, what can you be in the future? If status quo wasn’t an option (it’s not for customers), what would you want to achieve?

4. Get the juices flowing inside. Brand-building really does start inside the company. If employees are educated, if they’re believers, if they’re inspired, can walk the talk, and do it consistently, customers will come along for the ride (and bring their friends).

5. Deeds versus words. Brands used to be built through imagery and messaging. But those days are just about over. Today’s power brands are involving and dynamic, deliver great customer experiences, are mechanisms for connections and community and for more meaningfully improving our lives.

6. Co-create value. Harness the collective intelligence of audiences to create greater and new value for your customers and company; along the way, creating stronger relationships, greater advocacy and deeper loyalty.

7. Tag team. An inspiring and brand-engaged CEO, coupled with a talented, imaginative and respected CMO is a tough team to beat.

8. Deliver happiness. Happy customers are happy to spread your word. And with multiple channels at their disposal, they certainly will.

9. Extend apologies. If you screw up, admit it. Trying to hide behind it doesn’t make much sense, because you can’t.

10. Execute brilliantly. Success is in the details. Which means your whole brand house needs to be in order. Every facet of your brand expression – from behaviors, to communications, environments and products – must reflect and extend your story.

Any other tips to add to this list?

Thought I’d recap the highlights (at least mine) from the 10/26-27 e-Patient Connections 2009 Conference.

While all speakers provided new insights and perspectives, I’m summarizing (paraphrasing) the highlights from the speakers and presentations that particularly resonated with me:

Jason Hwang, MD (Innosight Institute, co-author Innovators Prescription); The Innovators Prescription
- we suffer from malpractice, but a different type, i.e. “business model”
- must understand difference between sustaining innovation (performance improvements, historical value dimensions) and disruptive innovation (that lets companies appeal to new rings of customers)
- enabled by technology, we have an opportunity to disrupt/move healthcare out to non-experts to let them do things themselves, e.g. facilitated user networks (like Facebook), a currently underutilized model to serve chronic care patients

Thomas Goetz, Executive Editor, Wired Magazine; Decision Tree: Smarter Patients, Better Choices
- proposes a new strategy for thinking about health, applying cutting-edge technology and sound science to put us at the center of the equation
- today, unfortunately, most healthcare information comes to us in cascades of do’s and dont’s

Dr. Jay Berhnardt, CDC; Social Media & The H1N1 Flu Pandemic

- H1N1 as example of why CDC’s engaged in social media as part of their strategy
- Customer Centered Communication Strategy: how, when, where people want and need to inform about health and safe decisions, i.e.
• information that is accessible and relevant
• mix of high repetition with deep engagement
• combination of high-tech and high-touch
• traditional/vertical media (though harder to have impact given lack of trust) combined with social media (horizontal and spreadable; higher level of trust)
- some interesting stats across CDC social media channels:
• approaching almost 500 million web site page views since H1N1 outbreak
• 5.07 million H1N1 flu-related emails sent, once consumers opt-in
• 19 videos posted on Youtube; 2.33 million views since 4/22
• 25, 322 Facebook fans since CDC page launched 5/1; value is in comments from people
• 917,579 views of CDC H1N1-related podcasts since 4/22
• 928, 412 followers on 3 CDC Twitter profiles
• CDC Health-e-cards (15,433 since 4/22)
• just launched mobile-based text messaging (1,155 opt-in subscribers since 9/14); subscribers receive about 3 messages/week

Susannah Fox, Pew Internet & American Life Project; The Social Life of Health Information
- people just diagnosed are looking for just-in-time “someone like me”
- patient networks can be powerful, early warning system
– marketers should think of e-patients as colleagues, not as people being marketing to (if you’re ready to listen to them)

Mark Bard, Manhattan Research; The Rapid Growth of Health Consumerism
- pharma info seekers have increased from 45 million in ‘04 to 100 million in ‘09
- majority of e-health consumers now use the internet to confirm/learn after seeing doctor
- health 2.0 can’t happen on web 1.0 websites; need to be able to evaluate, exchange, connect, create community, participate
- mobility is huge trend, certainly on physician side
- key questions to consider: how balance content with community; is it more about initiating a conversation, or a lecture
- it’s not a community unless you’re having a conversation; much of pharma is still one-way

Lee Aase, Mayo Clinic Manager of Syndication and Social Media; Marketing The Mayo Clinic
- consider social media “power tools” for doing what we were already doing as organization
- found that patients are “honored” if you ask them to share their stories
- great example of exponentially growing views of YouTube video by using multiple channels (Mayo Clinic Atrium Piano video)
- one of the keys to success is all about repurposing content

Robert Halper, J&J Director Video Communication; J&J on YouTube
- company is on YouTube because:
• reputation: caring, socially responsible, trusted source for health care information
• engagement: comments, listening, responding
• community: linking to other sites, including non-branded operating companies; subscribing to other related channels, videos embedded in external sites
- not easy getting started: cultural (control of message), legal & regulatory (environment, adverse events, medical advice, fair balance, comment mediation), business (ROI, resources, staff, commitment)
- more risk not being part of the conversation; funny when CEO’s talk about not putting brand out on social media, when they’re already out there

Dave DeBronkart, e-Patient Dave; Cofounder Society for Participatory Medicine; Special Presentation
- very moving talk about his “free replay” after beating his cancer
- his treatment [cure] options were based, in part, on his incredible outreach, research, open sharing of his health records
- now evangelist for “participatory medicine”; first edition of Journal of Participatory Medicine (his new publication) forthcoming
- accessed tremendous amount of information on acor.org (which didn’t exist anywhere else)
- key message is authenticity; don’t pretend, impersonate; be real, contribute value
- best information is a smart patient community; and patients love to give back

Brian O’Donnell, Klick Pharma, Top 1o Trends
10.  social media is becoming more mainstream (about the power of one, not so much followers)
9. pervasive use of technology in solving marketing challenges (can be a multiplier)
8. From wait and see to try and learn (try pilot programs)
7. patients and HCP’s online usage is increasing (balance of marketing mix)
6. data and intelligence becoming underpinning of marketing programs (make data planning part of your kickoff)
5. shift to multidisciplinary solution teams (make effort to reach out early)
4. branded mobile apps are becoming next CRM (think beyond the keyboard)
3. technology can make reps more powerful (integration is key)
2. value add beyond the pill (solutions, not just products; broadly supporting patients)
1. regulatory bodies embracing 21st century, e.g. FDA

Kerri Sparling, sixuntilme.com author, Patient Opinion Leaders
- diabetes has been part of her life since age 6; but wouldn’t exactly call it her buddy
- she started sixuntilme in May, 2005; felt like she was only diabetes patient on the planet
- now more than 350 sites dedicated to diabetes lifestyle and management
– POL’s (patient opinion leaders) don’t blog because they have to, but because it helps us heal
- finding emotional support online is everything
- don’t consider patients a “target market”, but a consumer base being marketed to
- until there’s a cure, there will be a blog

Tricia Geoghegan, Johnson & Johnson/Ortho-McNeil-Janssen; Facebook ADHD Allies
- what social media isn’t: the shiny new object
- what it is: consumer democracy, sharing/not selling, creating foundation for new kinds of relationships, reinforcing commitment to disease awareness
- people trust other people, e.g. Mom-bassadors™
- metrics will answer questions, the best ones will compel more questions
– users will tell you what’s relevant
- what’s unmet need for patients, what’s business case and risk/benefit analysis, how define ROI

Lisa Tate (CEO Womenheart) and Robert Schumm (Marketing Director Bayer Healthcare); Facebook Strong@Heart
- cardiovascular disease is #1 cause of death for women
- was each organization’s first foray into social media
- why social: target was online, patients wanting to speak about/share their own experiences
– combination of traditional (eyeballs) and online (conversations) drove success (key theme reinforced by other speakers)

Dennis Urbaniak, VP Innovation & New Customer Channels Sanofi-Aventis; From Patients To People: What it Takes for  True Shift to a Customer-Centric Approach
– must challenge current mindset within organization; new ideas built on top of old models are doomed to failure
– stop thinking patient and start thinking people; most have their own values, belief systems, etc.; must understand their perspectives
- preference and choice doesn’t fit with one-way approach (typical pharma model; e.g. Model T)
– challenge mindset of patient vs. person
- how to move ahead: change approach
- choice (need to get perfectly comfortable with content, dialogue, listening opportunities)
- what’s the job: what are the hiring criteria and who are the candidates (framework for presenting sustaining and disruptive innovations); start to identify gaps and then pinpoint opportunities; actionable insights from customer pov (vs. brand and product pov)
– need to get extremely comfortable living in glass house if you’re change agent inside company
- create the example (very powerful means to drive real change): step back and honestly answer each point:
• project description (elevator speech; not powerpoint deck)
• project objective (what’s the job to be done)
• project metrics (must be prospective; here’s how assess progress, learn and adjust)
• project status (build in points of adjustment as you go)
- sets dynamic that rewards failure; everyone was aligned
- Net:
• change the mindset, change the approach, create the example

Joe Shields, Pfizer: New Ideas For Patient Adherence
– e=empowerment
- process for developing programs:
• what’s your pov?
- Patient (me), Health care provider, Payer, Pharma
• what’s your process?
1. Gain insights (strategic advantage from this work; doc/patient interaction; motivations/barriers)
2. Set objectives
3. Audit current stuff
4. Align current stuff with 1 & 2
5. Identify gaps
6. Fill gaps
7. Measure programs
8. Improve and keep testing
- what does good look like? from different perspectives, as everyone has different agenda/incentives
- make up of strong adherence program:
1. Insightful (patient and doc; does it really solve a problem)
2. Systematic (things that talk to everyone else, things accountable to whole system)
3. Multi-channel
4. Scalable (how easy is it to get work done, get out to most people, return on hassle – is it worth it if you can’t scale it)
5. Social (with regard to adherence, it’s a team sport; some accountability beyond patient itself; service of better patient outcomes)

Marc Monseau, Director, Corporate Media Relations J&J: Connecting J&J To Twittersphere To Tweet or Not To Tweet
- How this came together; what he/J&J hoped to achieve, how it fits together
- Steps:
• Create business case
• Connect with other initiatives
• Establish a personality
• Set guides
• Gain legal/regulatory support
– What kind of Twitter account do you want to be?
• customer service
• expert source
• news gatherer
• suggestion box
• special offers
- establish a personality
- have to be yourself
- not just recitation of PR’s
– Multiple platforms (tie Twitter back to all else company is doing); so nothing is one-off
- setting controls:
• took social media biz plan to lawyers/regulatory  (one of the do’s/don’t’s)
• have to work with attorney’s to gain understanding
• how to manage adverse events/offlabel uses?
- Concept of “content guardrails” (gave credit to his associate for this concept):
• within predefined scope: self-management
• outside predefined scope: legal, regulatory, management
• both = publication for tweets

Crumpleitup is Humana’s consumer innovation team, a group within the company dedicated to building a healthier world with innovative thinking. As they say on their About Us page, we realize it’s not always easy to eat right and exercise regularly. So, we’re putting our heads together to come up with creative ways to help people be healthy while having fun.

I’m a big fan of this initiative for a number of reasons:

1. Changing the game. Humana’s changing the basis of competition, from a reactive payer to a proactive provider of products that create new and greater value for customers and company.

2. Differentiation. It helps the organization stand apart within a largely undifferentiated category of healthcare providers.

3. Deeds vs. words. Rather than campaigning about themselves or merely talking about the benefits of being healthy, the organization’s actually covering the backs of its members by helping them be healthier.

4. Promise. They [over] deliver on their promise of Guidance when you need it most.

5. Humanizing the Company. This group puts a human and approachable face on the organization.

6. Engagement. They encourage participation from everyone who’d like to contribute to the initiative. In fact, anyone can join The Crumple It Up Innovation Network on Linkedin.

7. Constant Innovation. Rather than wait until transformation becomes necessary, they  integrate innovation into their everyday business.

8. The real issue. They’ve uncovered (whether intentional or not) the problem behind the problem. Improving health takes a community of friends and supporters.

9. Passion and drive. These guys want to make the world healthier.

10. Belief in change. They know that change (better health) is necessary.

We’ve been tracking the social media practices of brands across the health and healthy lifestyles continuum – what they’re trying to achieve, the tools they’re using, the messaging and conversations taking place and how well we think they’re delivering.

Johnson & Johnson’s JNJ BTW is a blog authored by six J&J employees. The blog is about J&J, what they’re doing, how they’re doing it and why, along with news about the industry The authors state that while they may not always be able to talk about issues that fall under regulatory or legal constraints, we’re going to do what we can to talk openly, directly and to the best of our knowledge.

Here’s what I like about JNJ BTW:

• It’s written by individuals. Companies don’t blog, people do. And they do here.
• It’s not a marketing campaign. Beyond promoting the company and its products, the blog is a sincere attempt to make a real connection with, and engage, external audiences.
• Reflects J&J’s values. It’s (human) voice is consistent with what you’d expect from this company.
• Let’s you see underneath the hood. Content gives readers an idea of what’s going on inside the company, along with the issues they’re thinking and acting upon.
• Open for comments. There aren’t a lot, but they do encourage two-way communication.
• Open to flaws. This was the initial promise from the authors, and they’ve delivered on this.

What they can be doing better:
• Posting on a more regular schedule. While the blog is updated often, the authors should be posting more regularly. It’s hard to gain traction, and possible that readers will stop visiting altogether, when they aren’t sure when new content is being posted.
• Compelling more J&J employee involvement. There are more than 120,000 people around the globe who work for J&J and their operating companies. At a minimum, employees should be contributing their comments to these posts.
• More eye candy. There’s not much here to visually capture the reader’s attention, as most posts are simply text treatments.

Visit JNJBTW, and let me know what you think. I’m interested in hearing and sharing your comments.

Health brands are ideally suited to social media.

Across this broad category (from disease management; health care systems and hospitals; home health services and products; medical devices and equipment; nutritional and wellness products; pharma and OTC) there’s the common denominator of people really needing and wanting what these tools allow health brand marketers to provide:

- informative, even life-changing content
- talking back and forth, sharing stories and even emotionally supporting people who share common interests, ailments or illnesses
- learning from friends and providers (locally and from around the world)
- saving precious time and expense

Ultimately, social media allows you to help create healthier communities. Which leads to healthier co-creators. Which leads to a win-win for your customers, your company and society at-large.

For those brands interested in maintaining their relevancy and their value to their customers (meaning everyone), social media must be integrated into your mix. The extent of your social efforts is based on many organizational factors. But at a minimum, you need to get in the game.

Here are seven big opportunities (reasons why) for health brands to use social media:

1. Demonstrate that you practice what you preach. Social media allows you to demonstrate that you live up to the promises you make to audiences. As the traction around “engagement” continues to grow, actions will continue to speak much louder than words.

2. What benefits your audiences benefits your brand. The future of marketing is about doing things for and with audiences – on their terms. There’s simply too much opportunity for conversations, comments and collaboration for traditional one-way, tell and sell communications to work the way they did years ago.

3. Build loyalty through your brand. This is not the same as trying to build loyalty to your brand. Key is to help people achieve more than they can on their own. Helping them do this is how you gain their attention, loyalty and trust (as well as forgiveness if you ever find yourself needing it).

4. Help people live longer. Research has shown that greater social engagement helps people live longer, healthier lives. Pretty important benefit for a brand to be able to contribute to.

5. Your participation invitation is already extended. Whether you sent a formal invitation or not, participants are already gathering around the conversation (and your company).

6. Listen for rich category and brand insights. Social makes it easy to find out what people really want and need – from the category and from your brand. Which makes it easier to listen for ways to make your offering better. Covet the opportunity to collect and act on this information.

7. It’s all about establishing and earning trust. Which is one of the most important and sustainable advantages a company can build in this environment. The companies who understand this, and pay it off with the right “social” etiquette (doing for others), will see the most benefit.

Are there other reasons that should be added to this list? Please contribute your ideas.