Whenever a really meaty study about social media usage comes out, it’s tempting to write a post proclaiming that a particular platform is “dead” or that a given network is the “next big thing” or that one platform will inevitably replace another. It’s low-hanging fruit, I know — oh-so-very tempting. I’ve even done it myself once or twice.

But there are two things to remember about these studies, even when they come from sources as reputable as the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

1. This is just a snapshot of a window in time. It doesn’t predict the future.
2. Whether a platform is important to your organization shouldn’t be based on a knee-jerk reaction to a study. It should be based on a careful consideration of your organization’s long-term goals.

So take today’s Pew study. It finds that 14% of teenagers blog, compared with 28% in 2006. The study also found that in 2009 just 15% of Web users between the ages of 18 and 29 say they blog, compared with 24% in December 2007. Does that mean blogging is dead? No, because at the same time, 11% of Web users over the age of 30 say they blogged in 2009, up from 7% two years before.

Before you decide what that data means, think about what you’re trying to accomplish. Are you targeting teenagers? Then you might want to diversify your online presence to take advantage of the increasing popularity of social networks — except for Twitter, which has not caught on with the teenage set just yet. If you’re targeting older consumers, you may want to do the exact opposite. If you’re looking to attract a mixed audience, you may need an even more nuanced strategy.

Before you run out and make a decision based on the latest data, take a step back and ask if what the survey covers really relates to what you’re trying to do. Social media pundits may love declaring things “in” or “out” — but hasty judgments are never in style.

What does this study tell you about the markets you’re trying to reach? Am I being too hard on hasty prognosticators? Anybody feel like pronouncing blogging dead anyhow?

Image credit, sachinbee, via iStock

TopRank’s recent Blogging and SEO survey of in-house, agency and independent marketing, advertising and PR professionals revealed that 95% of respondents incorporate blogs as part of their online marketing mix. Nearly 88% have successfully increased measurable SEO objectives as a direct result of blogging.

Thousands of new blogs are started by companies and individuals each day. Yet getting a blog set-up, optimized, and launched are just the first steps. No one will know you have a blog to read, subscribe or link to unless you take an important next step: promotion. There are plenty of places you can promote and market a new blog:

• Add A Link – If it’s a company blog, or if it’s attached to another site, add a link to the blog from the main navigation on the parent website.
• Create A Badge – On the main website, add a badge to the homepage, or sidebar, that promotes the the blog. Images are a good way to catch a visitors attention.
• Email – Add a link to the blog in your email signature.
• Newsletter – Announce the blog in the company newsletter.
• Network – Announce the blog to your Twitter followers, Facebook fans, Linked in connections and any other social networks that you are apart of.
• Press Release – If you feel that the blog is important enough to support a press release, put one out.
• Submit – Submit the blog to blog & feed directories.
• Share – Share your blog with co-workers, friends and others in your network. You never know when they might promote it for you.
• Link – One way to get other bloggers to notice you is to link to them. Summarize someone else’s long blog post, expand upon someones shorter post, or just write your thoughts on a topic that someone else wrote about and link back to the original post.
• Give Away – If it’s a product blog, run a promotion on the blog giving away one of your products. Sometimes the value that can come out of giving something away can be more beneficial than all the items above.
• Guest Post – If there are other blogs in your industry, ask around and see if they’d allow you to guest post for them. In return, you’d get a link back to your blog in your profile, or post, on their site.
• Ask – Tap into the social networks within the industry you’re trying to reach and ask them what they’re interested in. Here’s an example of a post that did just that on Twitter for this blog. Show interest in the interest of your audience and they’ll pay more attention and share your content.

Probably the best promotion tactic is to create good content, post often and share. The more content a blog has, the greater the footprint it has on the web in terms of pages to appear in search results and to link to from other blogs/web sites. Work on creating a posting schedule and according to resources and reader interest, try to get one to five posts out a week.

“Build it and they will come” doesn’t work with web sites and it certainly doesn’t work with blogs. Promote relevant and useful content to create awareness and the quality of your information will propel your brand to a much larger audience.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
Tips for Promoting New Blogs |
30 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

With my guacamole, I carefully strategize on the right mix of each ingredient to achieve the perfect flavor and consistency.

Not enough lemon and lime juice, and the avocados brown too quickly.

Too much garlic salt, and the guacamole gets a pungent taste.

Twitter as a marketing tool is much the same way.

Too much product pushing and self-inflation, and your followers head for the hills in droves.

Too little interaction and communication, and your followers forget you exist altogether.

A successful Twitter marketing strategy must include a balance of different but complementary elements. Ensure the right mix with these 5 ingredients for the perfect Twitter Marketing recipe:

1. Relevant, informative content
You don’t always have to go out in search of new, interesting content to promote on Twitter. Your company likely already has produced a host of existing content that can be leveraged.

Twitter is the ideal medium for sharing and promoting:

• Tips leveraged from a blog post
• Information on upcoming events
• Research from a recent whitepaper
• Webinars with industry thought leaders
• Interesting statistics from press releases

For example, TopRank implemented a Twitter marketing strategy to help promote blog content for a client that provides syndicated content to media outlets. Each day, TopRank crafts 3-4 tweets highlighting the most interesting and intriguing elements of new blog posts, with links to the posts. In just three months, the client has increased its followers by nearly 64% to more than 1,500. The tweets were responsible for more than 1,000 visits to the blog during the same timeframe.

2. Relevant, informative content … that’s not yours
In addition to sharing your own content from blogs, whitepapers, press releases and the like, leverage content from outside sources as well.

The good news: Staying up-to-date on the latest news from across an entire industry doesn’t necessarily have to consume a lot of extra time:

• Subscribe to industry publications’ e-newsletters to receive the latest content in your inbox
• Sign up for the RSS feeds of several prominent industry blogs to get notified of fresh content
• Set up daily Google Alerts for a few relevant terms to receive the latest news articles and blog posts

It’s as simple as highlighting the most interesting part of the article or blog post – i.e., a surprising statistic, a quick tip – and offering a link to the original source.

3. Product offers and promotions
Twitter can be an effective marketing channel for sending promotional messages – when combined with other types of content.

Offer timely sales information and coupons, since the nature of Twitter allows followers to respond to promotions quickly. Provide exclusive offers to build a sense of ownership among followers, and give Twitter users an incentive to follow your brand.

Dell, for example, uses Twitter to post product coupons and new product information on a daily basis. Complementing these promotional tweets, Dell also uses Twitter to provide immediate service and elicit customer feedback. So far, the company attributes $3 million in revenue to Twitter efforts.

4. Customer service
Using Twitter to provide customer service and support empowers brands to address issues quickly, supplement formal call centers, and improve brand image. Offering customer support via Twitter involves two elements:

• Monitoring and responding: Use a service like TweetBeep to be notified by email of any brand mention – positive or negative. Then respond accordingly, but quickly and transparently.
• Eliciting feedback: Ask questions like: What features were missing from our latest software release? What subject would you like to learn more about in our next webinar? Don’t forget to acknowledge responses.

5. Retweets
Don’t underestimate the usefulness of the retweet, posting the same tweet of others that you think will be useful to your own following. Retweeting can help you:

• Increase your following
• Get your own content retweeted

Then again, don’t overestimate retweets either. If all the content you are providing can be found elsewhere, what’s the use of following?

Take some time this month to reassess how you and your company use Twitter. Is there too much of one ingredient and not enough of another? Where does Twitter use fit within your overall social media marketing strategy? Tweak the way you use Twitter until you’ve got the perfect recipe for brand engagement, interaction and awareness.

What ingredients do you include in your Twitter marketing strategy?

Be sure to connect with TopRank on Twitter!

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
5 Ingredients for a Perfect Twitter Marketing Recipe |
21 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

Some statistics from Technorati’s 2009 state of the blogosphere back up the efficacy of content marketing:

• 15% of bloggers say they are paid to give speeches on the topics they blog about
• 71% of all respondents who maintain blogs for a business – their own or one they work for – report that they have increased their visibility within their industries through their blogs
• 56% say that their blog has helped their company establish a positioning as a thought leader within the industry
• 58% say that they are better-known in their industry because of their blog

And as powerful as blogs are – they are just one potential avenue for content marketing. Content marketing includes all marketing formats that involve the creation or sharing of content to engage potential prospects or current consumers. No matter how you’re engaged, continually sharpening your content creation skills is core to being an effective digital marketing or PR professional.

If you’re brand new to the idea of content marketing, the following points by Mike Masnick succinctly describe why it matters:

The captive audience is dead. There is no captive audience online. Everyone surfing the web has billions of choices on what they can be viewing, and they don’t want to be viewing intrusive and annoying ads. They’ll either ignore them, block them or go elsewhere.

Advertising is content. You can’t think of ads as separate things any more. Without a captive audience, there’s no such thing as “advertising” any more. It’s just content. And it needs to be good/interesting/relevant content if you want to get anyone to pay attention to it.

Content is advertising. Might sound like a repeat of the point above, and in some way it is — but it’s highlighting the flip side. Any content is advertising. It’s advertising something.

Hopefully we’ve got your buy-in to the idea of content marketing. TopRank Online Marketing as an agency embraces this for our clients and ourselves, as content marketing lives at the intersection of social media and SEO.

To help readers here, following are 10 tips to help make your content marketing efforts succeed:

1. Ensure all content passes the “So what?” test

A great quote from Chris Garrett sums this up nicely:

A much overlooked aspect though is “So what?”. What should the reader take away? Where is the benefit? Why should we listen to you?

Just churning out content for the sake of going through the process is setting yourself up for failure. Unless you’ve got a model like Demand Media and would benefit from being fast, cheap and profitable as hell, go the other route and refine all ideas to pass the “So what?” test. Especially if you’re in B2B – the goal of content marketing is usually to inspire trust, grow your reputation and influence your market. Throw-away content accomplishes none of these things.

2. Create remarkable content, take chances, stand out

With some 900,000 blog posts published every 24 hours, and more than 20 hours of video uploaded every minute to YouTube as just two examples, how do you expect to stand out with “vanilla” content? If you’re going to play it safe or regurgitate what is being done by others you’ve got almost no chance to succeed unless you already have a large community built you can tap. And even then, as we add layer upon layer of aggregation, sharing and filtering to the web it’s still possible to be ignored. You need to consistently break the mold, be an unmissable resource or in some way stand out to make your content heard.

3. Speed and agility are factors

If your content marketing efforts are agile enough to touch audiences in a timely manner, you’ll be top-of-mind for prospects vs. slow moving competitors who have complex approval processes. Again and again, the web rewards nimble companies far more than those who are restricted or micromanaged.

4. Personality is essential

We connect deepest with content that has a voice and personality behind it. No one enjoys reading the language on a corporate website. It’s cold and impersonal and in reality does not connect with audiences, it merely conveys information. Personality and emotion are lacking in most corporate and business communications, and this has carried over into the content marketing efforts of many. But, infusing these elements within your content marketing strategy can be a powerful way to not just speak to prospects but connect with them.

5. Content should forge connections

Your content marketing can also accomplish another valuable goal: building connections and relationships. This has both social and SEO returns. Connections can help build inbound links, increase shares in social channels and ultimately help your content gain visibility. Incorporation of these connections should be worked into the content artfully and naturally. Readers may not even realize what is happening, but those you are trying to forge connections with will.

6. Worry less about perfection, more about tone

Be less concerned with being perfect and more concerned with being earnest, thoughtful and genuine. Perfection is severely overrated and minor flaws are forgivable, while the wrong tone can be as detrimental as causing online reputation management issues.

7. Make content scan-able (and attractive)

Make no mistake, your prospects are busy. To treat them as if anything else were true is disrespecting their time. By making your content scan-able, you increase the propensity they will not just scan that content, but if the parts that catch their eye during the scan are worthwhile they will go back to read it. Use headlines, bold text, get creative with your formatting, get designers involved – do whatever it takes to make content attractive and scan-able.

8. Draft sticky headlines

Follow basic headline writing tips and work to create headlines that entice potential visitors to your content in the first place. Without strong headlines, your blog post will get skipped over in a cluttered RSS reader or inbox, your white paper or PDF won’t get passed along and you’ll never penetrate social news sites.

9. Consistency and quality

As we’ve noted here before, every company is now in essence a media company. The quality of your content is how prospects will imagine your service or product to be, and the consistency you produce that content is a signal to how dedicated you are.  Both are required.

10. Realize promotion can’t help bad content

It’s tempting to try to put a band-aid on bad content with things like advertising or push promotions. But if you have to advertise your content, in a sense you’ve already failed. Content marketing should be an organic process, and by advertising your content you’re admitting failure of creating something worth sharing. Push promotion on the social web is similar to this – you’re ultimately going to have to face the fact that your content isn’t working on its own to naturally connect with people. Now, that’s not to say you can’t help good content travel (this is one of the 16 rules of social media optimization) but by trying to force bad content to spread you’re wasting resources.

As many readers here are engaged in content marketing on a daily basis, we’d love to hear your thoughts. What content marketing tips have you found most helpful?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
10 Tips For Content Marketing Success |
28 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

The irony here is that there’s been speculation as to whether the growing popularity of Twitter has reduced the effectiveness and popularity of blogging. The reality is that Twitter and blogging compliment each other exceptionally well. Here are 5 tips on how to use Twitter to do just that:

Polls – Ask And You Shall Receive

Active participants on Twitter that have developed a certain momentum of followers and conversations can offer their Twitter network the opportunity to interact and engage on topically relevant poll questions.  Polls are a great opportunity to ask for help and recognize participation.

Some guidelines on Twitter polls:

1. Announce that you will be asking a series of poll questions.
2. Use an intuitive #hashtag after each poll question to thread them together
3. Make sure you ask questions relevant to your Tweeting history
4. Thank particpants and let them know what you will do with the answers
5. Acknowledge participants in the blog post. If there are a nominal number of participants, cite them in the post itself. If there are many participants, you might consider creating a Twitter list just for the poll and link to the poll from the blog post.

Annotated poll results can be published alone or the answers can be incorporated as supporting points to a post on the topic being polled.

#TwitterChats – Make a Date to Tweet

The conversation aspect of Twitter is one of the most powerful. Hidden amongst what appears to be an ongoing dinner party conversation, one can find threaded discussions amongst some of the smartest people in their fields.  As mentioned above, the use of a #hashtag in tweets threads conversations together.  Interested parties agree upon a set time and topic then start the conversation.

A few examples relevant to Online Marketing Blog readers include: #blogchat on Sunday nights run by @MackCollier that discusses all things blogging (example archive).  Another example is #journchat on Monday nights run by @prsarahevens and it provides Public Relations professionals and journalists an opportunity to discuss issues and how they can work together more effectively (archive).

To source these threaded discussions into blog content, a search on the hashtag will present discussion as search results and can be copied into a post. There are also services you can use to automatically archive these kinds of scheduled Twitter chats. 140 characters keeps interaction succinct and often very tips focused.

Crowdsource – Wisdom of the Twitter Crowd

One of the major reasons people network is to interact and be helpful. When you have a good rapport with a Twitter network, blog topics and information can be crowdsourced.  Topics can be solicited as well as sources of facts, research and other information. Followers are often happy to provide suggestions or even links to facts that can be used in a blog post.  These solicitations can be public but can also be sent via direct message to specific individuals.

For example, you might post a question about which of 3 topics to post on your blog next.  You can ask this directly or frame it with the context of something currently being discussed in your industry. Asking provocative questions to see what the response is can provide great feedback as to what people are interested in and can develop discussions that will help inspire the writing of a blog post. It’s important with any kind of take that there is give as well. Recognition goes a long way as does being helpful back to other Tweeple.

Search.Twitter for ?’s – Seek and You Shall Find

Being helpful is a key piece of what makes the social web go round. Twitter provides a platform for easy questions and answers.  As a subject matter expert, you can use Twitter search to find out what people are asking in your area of expertise.

For example: “blog host” ? Then aggregate some of the best questions into a blog post, with answers of course.

Search.Twitter for Tips – Search for Twitter Smarties

On the flip side, you can use Twitter search to find useful tips being offered by other Twitter users. The best tips on relevant topics can be aggregated summarized in a blog post. With credit/attribution of course.  Also look for tweets that include links, since 140 characters is pretty limited for useful tips. For example, “iPhone apps camera OR photos“.  Pick out the best tips being offered and you have the beginning of a niche list, large list linkbait or simply a set of resources that can be cited throughout a regular post.

Also, there’s nothing wrong with following individuals that offer useful tips and ask them if it’s ok to repost on your blog.  Not only is this courteous but it develops goodwill and creates an introduction to discussion with that person.

So now you have 5 ways to source content using Twitter. Most people using Twitter have seen these tactics in practice, not as many have implemented them or found a way to do so effectively.  How have you used Twitter to source content? Have you used any of the tactics above? If so, how did they work for you?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
How to Source Content on Twitter |
10 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

The topic of business blogging and search engine optimization as distinct and synergistic tactics have been explored here many times. A large number of companies are familiar with the process of starting a blog, but few have experienced the challenges of maintaining and growing a blog for more than a year.

Understanding long term benefits is key to sustainable business blogging.

Part of the goal was to tap into a variety of experience levels with this survey and capture insight into the SEO impact blogging.

Participants were solicited here, on social networks and vial email that blog. Here’s a simple breakdown of the 326 survey respondents:

• 28% Internal Corporate: Advertising, Marketing or PR
• 42% Agency: Advertising, PR, Search Marketing, Social Media, Marketing
• 30% Independent Consultant or Small Biz CEO

One of the biggest questions we were looking to get insight on was the degree to which marketers are using blogs as a SEO asset.

95% of survey respondents indicated that they do incorporate blogs as part of their search engine optimization efforts

While the majority of respondents  indicated SEO as a benefit to blogging, several comments indicated that there are resource issues:  ”We did but resources became an issue. Will be bringing it back in 2010.” And that the applicable use of blogging for SEO outcomes depends on the market:  ”Sometimes… depends on client and market and product/service”.

Blogs at the most basic level are straightforward or “easy” to start. But the real question is whether they deliver on the SEO promise so many blog marketers make. Our survey results show that 87.4% of respondents “successfully increased measurable SEO objectives as a direct result of blogging“. Savvy SEO practioners made comments like, “Absolutely. In fact, we make sure to create a small, quality cluster of blogs on different platforms and Class C IP’s to support their communications initiatives.”

Of the 12.6% that didn’t find measurable SEO results from blogging, comments like “starting to but since we don’t post comments from readers on our blog I think we stall any momentum that we are generating from our posts” and “Site owners are not able to follow through on keeping up with their blog.” provided insight as to possible reasons why.

How important are blogs as part of a SEO strategy? The majority of respondents (90%) cited blogging as important, significantly important or a primary SEO tactic. The remaining 10% rated blogs as somewhat important or irrelevant.

Many company marketers, public relations and communications professionals are not aware of what the SEO benefits of blogging are. We asked, “What SEO functions do blog(s) serve for you?”. While the responses were fairly evenly distributed, the most popular SEO benefit was that blogs provide an easy way to create new, optimized content. Content is the cornerstone for any search engine optimization or social media marketing effort, so it makes sense that content creation was so popular.

Overall, links were the most often cited SEO benefit from blogging: Attracting inbound links from other web sites or cross-linking from blog posts to corporate site content. Community building for content/links promotion and Increase crawl rate/frequency were also indicated as important SEO benefits from blogging. Additional social and SEO benefits from blogging mentioned include:

• Social Media word of mouth
• Show a human side to a business and another side to the more “static” web site
• Communicate back with customers
• Can surprisingly create evergreen #1 search rankings for odd phrases we might not have necessarily thought about in planning.
• We’ll serve ads through a network that allows blogs to publish our ads
• Traffic from twitter and the increased exposure that goes with that
• Establish authority in the marketplace
• Promoting products, services, sales, expertise … I come at it from the UX side – credibility, authenticity
• Blog is ideal for long tail search terms
• More long tail ranking
• Blogs dovetail well with social media efforts like twitter
• Focused silos around specific markets and functions key to the client.

With any new marketing effort, setting expectations for time to see results is crucial for allocating resources and budgeting. We asked, “In what time frame do you typically start to see an increase in measurable SEO performance indicators (links, ranking, traffic) as a result of blogging?” The most common answer was somewhat shorter than expected, 0-3 months.  54% of respondents start to see SEO benefits from blogging very quickly. This short time frame should be very encouraging to those hoping to use blog published content to gain better search engine visibility.

Since many of our respondents were professional search marketers with the ability to properly optimize a blog and promote content to attract links, time frames for results would be very different than someone who does not know how to implement blog SEO tactics.

94% of bloggers reported seeing measurable SEO benefits from blogging within 12 months

Measuring impact is important and certainly, the definitions of success from blogging will vary according to the purpose of the blog. We asked, “What are the most important measures of success when using blogs as part of a SEO effort?”. The responses to this question were fairly evenly divided with increasing company site traffic at the top closely followed by a desire to increase company leads/sales. Other important metrics included inbound links, referrals or leads directly from the blog, web site rankings and blog traffic.

Additional success measures from blogging included many benefits besides search engine optimization, which is very important in our opinion. Starting a blog purely for SEO reasons will make content sustainability difficult in the long run. A blogging strategy must meet meet other goals as well, especially those that involve engaging customers or interactions with readers. Other success measures from blogging include:

Getting a blog implemented in a company is not always an easy task. Resources can be slim as well as expertise and confidence in the ability to achieve a return on effort within a given period of time. We asked, “What have been the most common objections from internal or external clients to implement blogs (with or without SEO benefit)?” This question received the most comments of all in the survey.

67.2% cited resource issues as the most common objection to implementing a blog

Other reasons cited included issues with content sourcing (42%) or simply not seeing the benefit (35%). Regulated industry or legal issues got in the way for 19.3% and lack of measurement round up the answers with 12.9%. Many of the comments about obstacles to blogging centered around time, resources, measurement and a lack of awareness.

On the surface, implementing a blog is straightforward, once you gain approval. The trick is sustainability and reaching measurable goals. Staying on top of what strategies and tactics are successful blogging also takes time and therefore it’s important what resources marketers depend on. We asked, “How do you stay current with blog SEO best practices?”. The overwhelming most popular answer was Other SEO blogs. The good news about that answer is that we publish a list of over 500 SEO and Internet Marketing related blogs on the TopRank BIGLIST.

Other popular resources for staying current with blogging and SEO include: Social Networks & Groups, Conferences, Observations from Testing, Newsletters, Forums and books. Interestingly, Paid Subscription Communities ranked lowest which is a niche community.

92% of respondents feel blogging will continue to be an important content optimization and marketing tactic for the next 3+ years

Interestingly, 8.3% feel blogging will only be important for the rest of 2010.

What is your opinion on the longevity of blogging as an online communications and marketing tool? Do you think the death of blogs is imminent in 2010?  What blogging benefits have you experienced and how have you overcome objections to implementing a blog in your company?

We hope this survey and results have been helpful to you and plan on conducting many other surveys in 2010 to provide additional insights into digital marketing and PR topics. Clearly, there is interest and a need for companies to better understand the strategic and practical applications of business blogging. Specifically, there is benefit in understanding how search and social channels can be combined with core blog content publishing to reach business goals.  We hope to continue providing such insight here at Online Marketing Blog as well as the conferences and corporate training events we’re engaged to speak at.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
Survey Results: Impact of Blogging on Search Engine Optimization |
34 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

The proof is in the numbers: 34% of consumers use social media to search for health information, according to research data from How America Searches: Health and Wellness.

While it’s easy to identify demand, many healthcare marketers are not exactly sure how they might tap into the social web to reach business goals. To help understand the possible applications, consider these five examples of how the social web can work for hospitals and others in the healthcare industry:

1. Tweet Live Procedures
In the past year, social media channels have helped open up an area of healthcare previously only available to a select few: the operating room.

Last February, Henry Ford Hospital became one of the first hospitals to Tweet a live procedure from an operating room. Doctors, medical students and curious non-medical personnel followed along as surgeons tweeted short updates on the kidney surgery to remove a cancerous tumor.

This healthcare marketing tactic can effectively create excitement and raise public awareness for a healthcare organization. In the case of the Henry Ford procedure, Twitter was abuzz that February day with users both re-tweeting the messages from Henry Ford and adding their own thoughts on the event. That buzz can help healthcare organizations both attract new patients and recruit medical personnel.

2. Train Medical Personnel
Some healthcare organizations are beginning to recognize the potential impact of leveraging social media channels to complement training efforts. Mayo Clinic Social Media Manager Lee Aase, for example, incorporated social media into a recent training presentation for local chapters of the American Heart Association. (Check out Lee Odden’s social media interview with Aase for Online Marketing Blog.) During the presentation, Aase leveraged Twitter to encourage participants to contribute to the discussion using the #AHAchat hashtag.

Weaving social media into healthcare training initiatives can provide multiple benefits, including:

• Giving trainees a forum to ask questions and quickly receive answers
• Providing presenters with immediate feedback from trainees (i.e., if trainees have mastered a concept of if more guidance is needed)
• Enabling organizations to complement healthcare marketing efforts by sharing slideshows, video or pictures from training sessions on social sites like YouTube or Flickr

3. Reach Mainstream Media
70% of journalists now use social networks to assist reporting, compared to 41% the year before, according to a  Middleberg Communications survey reported by PRWeek. With numbers that high, it only makes sense for healthcare marketers to leverage social media channels in order to achieve coverage by both mainstream media and industry publications.

As part of healthcare marketing efforts, organizations can use social media channels – including blogs, forums and microblogs – to share success stories from out-of-the-ordinary operations or treatments, medical research or other significant achievements. For example, when Aurora Health Care tweeted a knee operation in April, it received significant media attention, both from mainstream media and industry publications including Good Morning America, the local Milwaukee public radio network and Hospital Management Magazine.

4. Communicate in Times of Crisis
When disaster strikes – whether it be a flood, an earthquake or a terrorist attack – hospitals and healthcare providers are at the center of it all. Healthcare providers can leverage social media networks to provide real-time updates both for those directly affected by the crisis and those watching from afar.

During the November Fort Hood shooting attack, Steven Widman of Scott & White Healthcare – one of the hospitals that treated Fort Hood victims, used Twitter to provide up-to-the-minute news. Through Twitter, Widman provided updates on emergency room access and hospital operation status, re-tweeted news from Red Cross and communicated with reporters.

Widman shared with Found In Cache Blog the results of the social media crisis communication efforts:

• Twitter followers increased 78% in just three days
• Scott & White Healthcare was listed on the front page of Twitter as a “trending topic”
• The hospital’s YouTube channel was ranked the 79th most viewed non-profit channel during the entire week surrounding the crisis

5. Provide Accurate Information to Patients
73% of patients search for medical information online before or after doctors visits, according to this video from the HealthCare New Media Conference. With the magnitude of health information available on the web – both accurate and inaccurate – it’s likely that these patients can easily be misinformed.

By integrating social media into the healthcare marketing mix, organizations can share accurate, timely information regarding symptoms, diseases, medications, treatments and more. Social sites like Inspire are providing a forum for patients to share their health problems and questions about treatments with other patients, as well as qualified medical personnel. Inspire, for instance, partners with trusted health nonprofit organizations to ensure information is accurate and its community is safe.

The benefits of integrating social media into healthcare marketing efforts are priceless – from improving patient care to gaining media coverage to attracting new patients and staff. If your healthcare organization hasn’t already taken advantage of social networking channels, now is the time. If you’re having challenges getting approval, check out “Social Media in Healthcare Marketing: Making the Case“.

How else can healthcare marketers leverage social media to complement their efforts?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
5 Examples of Social Media in Healthcare Marketing |
12 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

For the most part, updates and new content on many web sites are limited to news, an occasional press release or product announcement. Site owners are happy with the design and employees are happy they don’t need to come up with new content. IT staff do whatever they can to minimize site maintenance (which often means shortcuts or templatization that makes page level editing difficult). Essentially, this kind of web site with static content is a tombstone when it comes to being a search marketing asset.

When suggesting the need for new content, many web site owners either cringe at the idea, imagining resource issues, or they pay lip service and make a commitment that turns out to be a fraction of what the web marketing agency has in mind.   The importance of shifting from a dead end web site to becoming a content publisher (and promoter) is critical for any company that has customers and competitors active online.

When a company marketer says this, “We don’t have anything new to publish.” it’s pretty much a death sentence for the web site.  Businesses that are actually involved with meeting the needs of their customers, that take the time to learn pain points and solutions, that innovate, that participate in their industry or community, have plenty of reasons and content to publish.

It’s an important mind shift, which is why I used the stark title, Content or Die.  If the people responsible for the success of a company web site don’t have the resources or skills to make the shift from tombstone web site to active content marketing, the options are: hire people (internal or outside consultant) that can champion, implement and manage the change or get existing staff educated on to do so. Or things could remain as they are. Traffic dwindling, inquiries drying up and desperation.

When presented with a reasonable argument, most business web site owners will agree that content creation and promotion makes sense.  The more useful web pages that are published, the more there is for others to link to them and to show up in relevant search results. This can easily be demonstrated by showing how the competition is dominating the search results. Additionally, more search traffic means more data to analyze in terms of conversion optimization and the creation of new content to meet customer needs as they move through the site and into the sales pipeline.

These benefits are not realized over night. It takes a commitment, a plan, education and a bit of faith. The question is, “How bad does it have to get for a company to change?”.

I challenge companies that are seeing declines in their organic search based traffic to re-evaluate their web marketing strategy. Where does content creation AND promotion fit?  Are you SURE the content you’re creating is achieving the maximum possible effect?  How much content is enough? How will you manage content? How will you promote it? How will you plan the editorial of  content to be as efficient and productive as possible?   Are you measuring customer interactions with your content ON and OFF the site? What feedback mechanisms are in place for your content creators to know what’s working and what’s not? How can multiple departments responsible for creating content work together?  How can you make the corporate approval process more productive and less like a stranglehold on your content publishing plans?  How are you measuring up to competitor content strategies? What content strategy is reasonable given current resources but IMPACTFUL enough to give you a competitive edge?

I also challenge companies that are starting new web sites to take a fresh look at the content component of their web marketing strategy. Don’t make your fancy, flashy web site a tombstone for search marketing. Assess the landscape in your topical category and identify what kind of content structures, topics and audiences make the most sense for your own editorial plans. What will distinguish you from the competition? What are the most cost effective, yet high impact investments you can make to reach content marketing goals? What technologies will help your content creation, management and promotion yield the best possible results?

How has your company and web site have addressed these challenges? Is your company a tombstone web site? What objections are keeping you from making these changes?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
A Challenge: Content or Die |
31 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

As someone who has been successful with creating content that goes hot across social channels I’ve come to appreciate the art and challenge of crafting sticky headlines. In fact, crafting headlines is equally if not more challenging than leads and even content itself.

Something many bloggers have down, but communications professionals aren’t always fluent in, is the art of crafting headlines specifically for social news sites/users. While there is no one formula for success, I’m going to share 5 things I’ve learned from experience as a blogger, social news user, PR pro and marketer.

1. Work backwards - content first, then headline

If you’ve got an idea for a piece of content you think will be popular or if you’v done your homework and researched the types of content that resonate on social channels, great – the hardest part is done. Now jot down a title as a work in progress and create your content. After completion, bearing you know you’ve knocked out a winner, challenge yourself to re-create the headline specifically to resonate with your key audience. You’d be surprised at how much easier this is than working on the perfect headline up front. Having great content in front of you, then selling it through a sticky headline is always easier than writing it staring at a blank screen.

2. Leverage archetypes/formulas which work for others (especially outside your niche)

Smashing Magazine has made page one of Digg more than 200 times, frequently using the same headline formula (number + adjective + design-related item + sticky message – i.e. 83 Beautiful WordPress Themes You (Probably) Haven’t Seen). Why would they change something which is causing users to instinctively share posts like crazy? Also, don’t be afraid to use archetypes that work in categories external of yours – especially if no one in your niche is using them.

3. Headlines should be outrageous, engaging, emotional, useful, counter-intuitive or remarkable – not to the world, but to your community

Your headline doesn’t have to make sense to everyone. There isn’t enough space to do that and still fit within something like a Tweet (only 140 characters + 20 character tiny URL) or Digg headline (60 characters). What it should do is conjure one or more of the adjectives listed above to the influencers – or 1%’ers as Jackie Huba calls them – of your community. To achieve this you must first understand your community – ideally by being a member yourself and able to empathize with them.

4. Don’t just create content, actually use social news sites

You can’t understand social communities at the level necessary to permeate them consistently with your content/headlines without being a member of those communities. This is not optional, and if you’re a blogger or marketer who merely creates content but doesn’t participate you’re missing half the picture. Learn the hot buttons of the popular, macro communities and you’ll get a general sense of how to craft headlines for social news. Then, drill down and become a member of more targeted communities relevant to your niche to learn what resonates with specific groups.

5. SEO intersection – frequently forgotten, always vital

A by-product of news stories which go popular on the social web is links. Content created goes popular, gets a ton of links up front and as a by-product the engine juice delivered helps create authority for that page. If the content is really good, it will continue to receive organic links months or years after it’s been posted due to visibility from search engines (and create a ranking that’s self-reinforcing). In other words, social news success can be long term: a story that’s successful has the potential to be a high visibility entry point to your site for years to come even after the initial wave of buzz.  Craft two headlines for your stories to help achieve this: 1 for search engines (title tag) and one for users (page title).

Conclusion

As social Diva Liz Strauss has pointed out, it’s not just about the headlines – you also need equally remarkable content to back it up in order to achieve any kind of worthwhile goal such as attracting subscribers or sales leads. But the importance of using clever headlines to help your content stand out in the first place is vital.

As the firehose of real-time social content speeds up, the value of well-crafted headlines will increase. And the truth is, tips can only help so much. Writing headlines is more art than science. The best path is to consider it an iterative process, experiment with different structures, study your analytics and find what works for you.

What are your tips for writing effective social news headlines?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
How to Write Compelling Social News Headlines |
16 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com