The physician shortage continues, and 2012 will be even more competitive.

2011 saw increased demand for a limited supply of physicians in hospitals and primary care practices. 2012 will be even more competitive. Here are the top four issues we predict will have the greatest impact on recruiting success:

4. We’ll recruit through mobile devices.

Doctors are on the go and using smart phones more than ever. Emails and direct mail campaigns can’t keep pace. Extend your reach with instantly accessible messages — make sure they’re easy to look at and easy to read!

3. Employer branding will be huge.

The physician shortage is worsening. Doctors want to know who you are, what you offer, and why the environment and culture you offer should matter to them. It’s not enough to state that a position is available — you need to tell the prospect what’s unique about your organization and how it matches his or her needs.

2. The big guys will enter the fight!

We knew it was coming: The big healthcare systems that used to recruit through their “old boy networks” now have to advertise their opportunities. And they have deep pockets. That’s why it’s critical for you to communicate why a candidate should choose your institution over the competition.

1. As the economy recovers, retention rates will take a hit.

Doctors stay put in a tight economy. But as the employment market heats up, more physicians are willing to take that leap of faith to something better. Make sure your institution’s physicians feel valued for their loyalty. Keep them engaged or you could be in for a staffing challenge.

My word is invalid?!

Like Alec Baldwin, I’m addicted to Words with Friends. I can’t help myself. When I see a row of jumbled letters I get a rush of excitement and a compulsion to create the best words I can out of those letters. I’ll challenge people on Facebook that I don’t normally talk to just so I can feed my craving with minimal waiting between plays. In fact, I have a game going on right now against my favorite cousin, who lives in Brazil.

As I look at the letters I was dealt, I beam. Instantly, I see the perfect seven-letter word — one that will use all of my tiles in a single turn. The bonus points will be phenomenal. And the extra points I’ll get by placing this word alongside another word, thus creating two words at once? Well, that’s just the icing on the cake.

I wait patiently for hours for my cousin to take her turn already and give me my opportunity to shine. Finally, it’s my turn to play. I take a minute to rearrange the tiles so they once again spell my word worthy of a screenshot posted on my wall. I carefully place each tile on the board. I get butterflies as my cursor hovers over the play button.

Then my butterflies turn into bats.

My word is invalid! I type the word in a Word document and affirm that I have the correct spelling. So I turn to Wikipedia, where my confusion turns into incredulity.

You know that round plastic disc you throw around in the park? Your dog catches it in his teeth. You accidentally hit unsuspecting picnickers and sunbathers with it. A Frisbee®. Yeah. Turns out the word “Frisbee” is a registered trademark, owned by the Wham-O toy company. Add another word to the pile of brand names that have become more or less generic, like iPod®, Q-tips®, Kleenex® and — my personal favorite — Velcro®. That last one I found out about when watching “Penn and Teller Tell a Lie” on the Discovery Channel and I couldn’t understand why they kept saying “hook and loop fastener.”

Back to my game: I played the word “BRIEFS” instead, for 4+1+1+1+4+1 with a DL on the “F” for 8 and a DW, plus 7 points for “YOUR,” the other word I simultaneously created, for a grand total of 46 points. Not bad. How about it, Baldwin? Up for a game?

Hospitals are using Social Media

Some hospitals are early adopters; others are still waiting on the sidelines. Some are high-tech, while others are high-touch. I’m not talking about whether or not a hospital has the latest robot or a brand personality, I’m talking about a social media presence.

At AB&C, our healthcare clients range all across the social media spectrum. Some have jumped in with both feet and have been posting and tweeting for more than a year. Others are just about ready to make the leap, while others still are trying to convince their senior leadership that they need a social media presence.

Research shows that 906 hospitals in the U.S. are active in social media, with Facebook and Twitter being the most popular vehicles. With these numbers growing and marketing budgets shrinking, it’s becoming more and more clear to healthcare marketers that social media is here to stay and can be an effective and cost-efficient part of any marketing plan.

Regardless of where you are on the social media spectrum, here are a couple of my favorite sites:

Children's Hospital Boston

Regions Hospital

California Pacific Medical Center

The AB&C Twitter Team

The AB&C Twitter team recently went to the #deltweet event at Firestone, a quarterly (ideally) networking event for Delaware tweeters. Nine of our tweeters attended the event, one of whom attended virtually via tweets, following the team and the deltweet hashtag. We kept @ChrisMarts updated and entertained while he lay sick in bed. “Oh @ABCadvertising twitter team, I feel like I am there (#deltweet) reading all your tweets,” he replied. Sure, we wished he were there — “hey @ChrisMarts The tweet team will miss you at #deltweet” — but it was nice to be able to include him via the channel that brought us all together.

There was a pretty good showing — 81 on the RSVP list — and everyone’s name tag included their Twitter handle. People came for many reasons: to grab a beer, to meet the tweeters that they follow in person, to win something (@BessDenney and @cdberta won!), to meet people with similar interests, or to do some good old-fashioned networking. While @heycraigbrown jokingly tweeted, “#deltweet is this real life?” the team’s friends and family didn’t quite understand what a tweetup is. But a tweetup is just like any other networking event — it’s a way to bring a community of people that have similar interests or professions together. And Twitter is just another catalyst — and you can make what you want of it.

Marketing to the Baby Boomers

According to a recent report from NielsenWire, advertisers focus on reaching consumers 18–34 or 18–49. While these consumers spend billions of dollars every year, the report states that advertisers and consumer goods manufacturers are overlooking a group that has tremendous buying power — the 78 million Baby Boomers.

Born between the years 1946 and 1964, the Boomers are seeing the oldest of their generation beginning to retire. But today’s middle-aged and older consumers are different from their predecessors, the report says. The conventional wisdom that they spend little, resist technology and are slow to adopt new products should be reassessed. Boomers are an affluent group who adopt technology with enthusiasm and have shown a willingness to try new brands and products.

Boomers spend 38.5% of consumer packaged goods (CPG) dollars, yet it’s estimated that less than 5% of advertising dollars are currently targeted towards adults 35–64.

Pat McDonough, Senior Vice President at the Nielsen Company, says Boomers should be as desirable for marketers as Millennials and Gen-Xers — they are the largest single group of consumers and a valuable target audience.

And that’s the truth!

Buying into Apple's branding.

I have to admit — from the moment I saw the original commercial my inner geek shouted with joy. Not only was the original iPhone the answer to what I had been dreaming about for five years — since walking around with a Palm Pilot and a rather large, uncomfortable cell phone tucked into my pants pocket — but it was also produced by a company that creates intuitive, sexy computers that I’ve been using since college — Apple! This was a dream come true.

Since picking up my iPhone I’ve come to realize something that no marketing professional ever wants to admit — I bought the brand.

Let’s look at the facts: The iPhone is not the fastest phone on the market. It’s only available through AT&T and their network is weak compared to a lot of other providers. The new iPhone features a new higher-resolution camera and video capabilities — but not as good as those of several phones already on the market. Other apps that make the iPhone so cool and fun to play with are also available on other phones.

In short, the iPhone isn’t bigger, better, faster or stronger — it’s simply sexier. And when it comes to cell phones, that’s an important attribute. I’m pretty sure it all started with the Motorola Razor, which, coincidently, would have fit well in my pocket with my Palm. While the new iPhone probably isn’t the best deal on the market, Apple continues to see huge numbers of sales.

So, Apple, in spite of your antenna issues, and accusations against some poor tech bloggers who beat you to your own iPhone 4 launch, I take off my hat to you. I was almost embarrassed to admit to buying so wholeheartedly into your brand. But then this crucial thought came to me: This is the product I waited five years for. It plays movies. It runs apps. It has a built-in GPS. It plays MP3s. It has a video camera. It…well, you get the picture.

And, obviously, so does Apple.

Traditional marketing tactics may be like your old mix tapes.

It seems like only yesterday. I wanted to catch the attention of that special person and I knew the perfect way to go about doing it — the mix tape! A combination of all those songs that would tell her exactly how I felt and why she should want my company as much as I wanted hers.

Times have certainly changed. Now you wouldn’t make a mix tape, or even a mix CD. Now it’s all about the playlist.

Are business relationships really any different?

Looking at it from a marketing perspective, traditional tactics are like that mix tape—time consuming, more expensive and once they are recorded they are unchanging.  Today’s nontraditional marketing tactics have a lot in common with the playlist. Messages can be shared quickly; you can ask friends and colleagues to share their opinions; and if the message you want is no longer being spread, it can be changed on the fly.

How do you communicate for your business? If you’re focused only on traditional marketing tactics, it’s as if you’re trying to reach your target with a mix tape. There’s a segment of the audience that appreciates the effort, and the medium, but the biggest part of your target has moved on.

It’s time to embrace new media, to realize that the Internet is not going away, that more and more people use it to do everything from shopping to getting medical advice. It’s time to realize that smart mobile phone use is not going to decrease. That within the next couple of years it won’t be enough to have a good-looking website — you’ll need a mobile-enabled, good-looking website. It’s time to think about how your company is going to tell those special people why they should want your company.

Cue up Lloyd Dobler with his boombox playing “In Your Eyes.”

I still miss those tapes  — the awkward “flip” after side A was done, the feeling of writing a title on the label — but I would miss my iPod even more.

Environmentally friendly & really loud!

You may have seen the latest campaign promoting the new compostable bag from Sun Chips. I myself started a compost bin last year, which literally cut our landfill contributions in half — not to mention the effect it had on my new garden. As an avid tree hugger I applaud this effort by our Frito-Lay friends, but their new package needs a warning label.

The problem lies in the bag itself. It produces by far the highest level of ear-piercing decibels in the history of chip bags. Quite frankly this crinkly cacophony has to be completely screwing with Frito-Lay’s main target audience — the late-night snacker. And yeah, I’m one of ’em. And there’s a technique to late-night snacking — a very challenging technique. I mean, you’re already dealing with a chip — come on, even the word “chip” sounds loud and crunchy. And you’ve always had to deal with the crinkle of the bag. Some bags are worse than others, am I right? And when you’re down to just crumbs, you wind up cutting the top half off with a scissors, ’cause that’s a lot of bag to work through. Really, it’s a losing battle that’s just going to drive your wife crazy.

OK, back to this new compostable bag. My advice? Forget it. Just pour some of these tasty chips into a bowl and get on with the snacking. And forget about sneaking into the cupboard while the missus is upstairs. Believe me, she can hear this bag crumple from three blocks away. It’s really quite impressive. You must go out and get a bag for yourself. Maybe on New Year’s Eve. Now that’s a time when you’re supposed to make some noise. That is a holiday they should be marketing toward. You read it here first.

And, oh yeah, I can’t wait to see how long this bag takes to decompose. I’ve got a quarter-bag left from the new Peppercorn Ranch flavor I just bought — it’s goin’ in the bin soon. I’ll get back to ya.

Is Twitter dead?

Every once in a while you’ll see an article asking “Is Twitter Dead?” even suggesting that if you’ve been avoiding Twitter as part of a “non-strategy,” it may be paying off!

The problem with that perspective is that Twitter is not a strategy. It’s not even a tactic. It’s a channel!

The strategy (and ultimately your goal) is usually specific to your organization so it’s hard to discuss. But we can identify a general growing audience: people who create and consume information, wherever and whenever, with increased frequency, increased brevity and often with groups of people (as opposed to one other person).

Think about how different that is from something that predates even e-mail: writing letters.

Letters were typically infrequent, long, tied to a physical location and timetable, and were exchanged between two individuals. We’re at the exact opposite of that now with text messages, status updates and micro-blogging in general.

As marketers, we need to be comfortable in these mediums so we can reach these consumers. Strategies to accomplish this include:
* Increase the frequency of communication with your brand consumers
* Drastically decrease the length of each communication
* Use more conversational language
* Enable consumers to respond or participate in the conversation
* Enable consumers to do this wherever they choose (e-mail, web, mobile phone, etc.)

Now, three questions: how much of your audience wants to communicate this way, what channel do they want it on and what information are they interested in?

Answer those questions and you’re on your way to some solid tactics.

One of those tactics may involve Twitter — a good channel to address the strategies above. But if Twitter dies, it doesn’t mean you were wrong, it just means people are moving to a different micro-blogging channel, and you should find out what that is and get involved.

Watch out for marketers who don’t have a firm grasp on the difference between goals, strategies, tactics and channels. Misunderstanding these components of a marketing plan can lead you down the wrong path.

Do you care to watch them...24/7?

Remember the premise of what was arguably the grandaddy of all reality TV shows? “This is the true story... of seven strangers... picked to live in a house...work together and have their lives taped... to find out what happens... when people stop being polite... and start getting real...The Real World.”

New web reality series If I Can Dream (from American Idol creator Simon Fuller), which launched on Tuesday, March 2, takes that premise even further. It follows five aspiring artists live 24/7 on ificandream.com and in a weekly recap on Hulu.

The five hopefuls live together in a spacious Los Angeles home outfitted with 60 cameras following their every move. Viewers can engage with the cast members and the show in real time via Twitter, MySpace and blogs, and can select which camera feed they’d like to view. The contestants can even log on to their own computers and spy on their roommates down the hall.

As part of the series, celebrity mentors will come in to help the hopefuls in their quest for the Hollywood dream. Once they land a job and exit the house, a new aspiring artist will be chosen by viewers via MySpace auditions. What do you think? Worth checking out or a waste of time?

Even Barbie uses social media.

The 50-plus doll was once limited to traditionally “feminine” career choices such as ballerina, model, teacher or nurse. As times changed and women threw off their shackles (did Barbie ever even have a bra to burn?), her options expanded: paratrooper, paleontologist, pilot and even President of the United States.

Now, for the first time ever, loyal Barbie fans were asked to help her choose her 125th career for the “I Can Be” doll series by voting on the following: architect, computer engineer, environmentalist, news anchor or surgeon. Twitter followers and fans on Facebook voted for News Anchor Barbie — she’ll be available this fall. The social media campaign was such a success that fans insisted on choosing Barbie’s 126th career, computer engineer, coming in winter.

Barbie used her Twitter account (@BarbieStyle) to keep the conversation going with her followers.

Barbie: Secret agent? Publicist? Electrical engineer? Heartin’ your suggestions, dolls! @marielcisneros @sticktomyguns @rocquel74

This helped validate the suggestions people offered and kept the hype up about her next career. Barbie also sent out announcements through Facebook:

Barbie: I can’t believe it’s only one more week ’til I get my new dream job! Gosh, I better hit the beach and soak up the fun while I can…

Even with her new careers determined, The Barbster is still engaging with consumers and fans:

Barbie: This just in: I’m still deciding on a perfectly doll-tastic nightly news sign off…Suggestions?

Looks like Barbie is going to have a busy year. But not to worry — she’ll make time to keep in touch with her fans through Twitter and Facebook between reporting the news and developing the next big technology for computers.

Domino's - an example of social media success

If you missed the first part, check it out here.

Now for the good: a coworker in our PR department had an experience in which FedEx missed a next-day delivery. She decided to voice her frustration by tweeting, “FedEx really expletive deleted on me today.” Within 30 minutes, she got a retweet from FedexAl asking if he could help. This small effort from FedEx customer service immediately turned her from disgruntled to impressed.

An even better example would be Domino’s Pizza.

After the black eye Domino’s received earlier this year when a YouTube video of two employees defiling the food got national media attention, the company could have easily cowered in fear of social networks. A Facebook ad for Domino’s caught my attention. Partly because they pulled user content into the ad to point out that my friend Les had participated in their survey.

I clicked the video in the ad and, wow, what a bold move in spin control and using the social networks to listen and react. Domino’s took the general negative sentiment about the quality and taste of their pizza and used it as the focus of their new Pizza Turnaround campaign.  The site even has a live Twitter feed flowing in all comments positive and negative. Now, thoroughly intrigued, I decided to try the new pizza instead of just blogging about it. The whole process is so well done, I may just have to make my next post about everything Domino’s is doing online, and what I thought of the new pie (it should be here any minute).

As for the bad, there are too many examples to cite, and I don’t want to point fingers unnecessarily. I’ll just call them the people standing on chairs shouting over the conversation at the party. Anyone who is doing social network promotions without a predetermined strategy because somehow they heard that they should would fall into this category.

So, if you are considering getting into social network marketing, make sure you have a plan. Here is a helpful chart that lays out the types of things that can be achieved on the social networks. Once you have decided which ones fit your plan, then assess which networks will best help you accomplish your goals. And, as always, if you need some guidance, we’re here to help.

Sears - an example of social media failure.

Everyone seems to be buzzing about Social Networks and how to take advantage of them for marketing purposes. It is a great opportunity for companies to join a conversation that’s already taking place rather than trying to start a new one. As with any conversation, you have to listen. Imagine walking into a crowded party and just starting to talk about things that interest you without bothering to figure out the current topic of the conversation. How would people react?

Here is my step-by-step guide to getting into the social networking fray.

1. Plan: Before getting involved, ask yourself, “What are my business goals and how do I plan on measuring them?” Only then can you develop a plan to make social media a part of that success.
2. Listen: Begin monitoring the current conversations to find out if people are talking about you and what they’re saying.
3. Evaluate: Is there a prevailing positive or negative tone to the existing conversations?
4. Engage: Social networks can be a great opportunity for customer service, as you’ll see in the examples below.
5. Promote: The final—I repeat, final—step of playing in the social network sandbox is promotion of your goods or services. Once you are a part of the conversation, then you can start changing its direction.

Now for some examples, I’ll start with the ugly: a recent encounter with the Sears service department regarding my washing machine. I won’t bore you with the gory details of the electronic problems that are still ongoing. What I found to be interesting was a Google search I did when looking for their phone number.

To begin my search, I typed “sears service” into the search field. The first result, as you would expect, was Sears.com. It was the second result, right before service.sears.com, that really caught my eye: a YouTube video entitled “Sears Service Sucks”. Since this summed up my mood at the time, I clicked it first. A video of a very disgruntled fella in the same boat as myself then went on a rant about his experience.

“So what? What difference does one guy ranting make?” you might ask. Well, this video has been online for more than two years and continues to gather steam. It has over 44,000 views and most traffic is coming from searches for “Sears,” “Sears service” and “Sears repairs,” with another significant chunk of action coming virally. Sears has missed a gigantic opportunity to make things right with one consumer and change the conversation that’s happening online.

So, our interactive department did a little social network survey to see how Sears is doing now. We found the current conversation dominated by people looking for do-it-yourself advice or seeking reliable local repair people with occasional complaints about the products. Daily opportunities for customer service and sales of Sears’ repair program continue to go by unnoticed.

Read more in part 2 (coming tomorrow).

Applying strategy is critical to social media success.

99 ways to use Twitter?

There are plenty of articles on the Internet that outline the 17 ways to use Twitter or the 32 ways to use Facebook. If your approach to social media has been to start with these types of articles, you may be focusing too quickly on tactics without an appropriate social media strategy. Tactics without a strategy are particularly bad because they often end up being ineffective, hard to measure and mask real opportunities a more strategic version of the tactic may provide.

Because social media tools are so accessible and seemingly easy to use, a planning/strategy phase is often skipped, perhaps also in part because the realm of social media seems so complex. Because there is no clear place to begin, there is a tendency to start with tactics, a fatal mistake.

How to approach the problem

One technique for approaching a problem that seems complex is to break it down into a series of simpler problems. This is a great approach when it comes to the social media landscape. Instead of looking at a list of 50 ways to use Twitter, it makes more sense to look at a smaller list of ways to use social media in general.

Such a list might look like this.

In fact, you’ll find that any social media strategy probably consists of several of the leaf nodes in this diagram being used in various channels. (For the purposes of this discussion, a social media “channel” is Facebook or a blog or Twitter).

Your challenge then is to identify:

1. the kind of information your organization has or can generate, ideally something conversational
2. the types of people you’re trying to reach through social media
3. the items from the diagram above that can be used to put that information from step (1) in front of those audiences in step (2)
4. the appropriate channel for each item in step (3)

Now, just because we have a plan of attack doesn’t mean this is necessarily an easy or straightforward task. The best social media strategies look easy in hindsight but have usually been cooked up with some outside-the-box thinking. The above map is not a magic wand, but it is a starting point.

Examples, please!

Let’s look at a real-world example. Imagine your real estate agent. There may be a temptation for him to jump straight to tactics and use Twitter to post listings. After all, he has listing information (this is his product) and Twitter is easy to sign up for. Plus, this is on the map under Sales/Marketing --> Product announcement. We’re in good shape, right?

Well, Sales/Marketing on the diagram has a red flag on it. That red flag means if you’re only using something from that category, you may be on the wrong track. In this case, our real estate agent’s listings probably aren’t that useful to most people (who only wants to see the listings from a single real estate agent?), it’s not very conversational (what would people say back to him about a listing?) and he’ll probably find he won’t get a lot of followers.

Even worse would be to have a Facebook page where he is re-posting the exact same listings. Now he has a situation where even if a person were to be interested in those listings, it’s not in their interest to follow him on Twitter and be a fan on Facebook because then they’ll just get the same information twice. As silly as that sounds, we see this all the time.

Lesson learned: Directly promoting your product or service on as many social media channels as possible is not a good strategy because it abuses your potential followers and misses the whole “social” part of social media. You’re not listening, you’re just talking. And you’re saying the same thing in multiple places. And nobody cares.

This can take many forms including using Twitter to post links to your press releases or using Facebook to post links to your blog posts. I’m not suggesting never doing that but only doing that puts you in the PR category on the diagram and it, too, has a red flag. Oops.

Okay, give me a better idea.

This real estate agent has a problem, however… Aren’t the listings the only content he has? Possibly, but remember the first step is to identify the kind of information your organization has or can create. The listings may be the only content he has at hand. Grabbing whatever information you already have and using social media as a one-way channel (outward) is a missed opportunity.

This is where the strategizing comes in. What about creating a tips/tricks list for homeowners? (See the map above under Educational --> Tips/Tricks). This could include reminders to disconnect your plastic hose fittings in the winter so they don’t crack or money-saving tips for efficient energy use. Maybe it’s one tip a week and every once in a while he throws in a property listing (Sales/Marketing --> Product announcement) or an open house announcement (Notifications --> Events/Reminders).

Now this real estate agent has something useful he is providing to his clients. All of his existing clients would potentially be interested and he’d stay top of mind when they’re looking to sell or buy or even just make a referral to somebody else: “You should use my real estate agent. I follow him on twitter and he’s got great homeowner tips.” This takes the form of branding (Topics/Issues --> Brand related) and on top of that, he gets his listings and open houses in the mix. He’s now using five concepts from the diagram!

Plus, followers who have tips of their own can reply to him which means (a) the rest of his followers benefit from the tip (“Comments” from the Social category on the diagram) and (b) he can file it away later to use next year (a form of Research on the diagram). Wow – we’ve got seven nodes covered on the diagram, only a couple are red-flagged and a real social media strategy is taking form!

Hopefully you can see the difference this approach can make. Obviously there are issues like staffing and creative elements and ongoing maintenance and monitoring but try this process with your organization or give us a call and we can walk you through it.

Soon, you can search within your circle of friends.

We can get overwhelmed sifting through blogs and online discussions. That’s why we turn to our social circle for recommendations. But our friends also have several social network accounts and each one has a lot of information. So how do we keep track of it all?

Don’t fret, fellow social butterflies: Google is developing Social Search. It enables users to add their networking profiles to a Google account and see search results filtered and prioritized based on their circle of friends. This means that we can turn to our social circle first when filtering results on the web. For instance, if I wanted to research restaurants in my area, results from my trusted social circle would appear more prominently in my search.

Click here for an overview of Google Social Search.

How much time are you spending online?

There was a very interesting study released by Harris Interactive showing that web users are online an average of 13 hours per week. This is a slight dip from the same observed period in 2008 where they saw average users online for 14 hours per week. The major change? In 2008, 43% of users were online at work. In 2009, that dipped to 40%.

Harris tracks use at home, at work and at what they list as “other location.” Online at Home and Online at Work have both seen Year-Over-Year growth since the study began in 1995, with this being the first year they have seen a dip for the Online at Work category. A simple explanation may be that there are fewer people at work this year then there were last year.

Beyond that, the study is a very interesting look at the growth within the last two years in the amount of time users spend online. In 2006, that number was 9 hours. 2007 saw 11 hours. 2008 and 2009 saw an average of 13.5 hours spent online per week. Even more interesting is the fact that this time does not include time spent on email.

Another interesting takeaway from the study is subject audience itself. Harris Poll culled this data from 2,029 men and women aged 18 and over through phone surveys. It would be very interesting to know if these were randomly selected phone numbers, since landline use across the globe has been dramatically decreasing. Nielsen reported in September 2008 that nearly 20% of all households in the US do not even have a landline, effectively removing them from Harris Poll’s eligible subject group. This group also scores high for broadband web use, pointing to a population of web users that have been potentially ignored by the Harris Polls study.

Why online advertising is important for hospitals.

By: Kelly Hocutt and David Michaluk

Are you still reluctant to advertise your hospital on the web? Maybe you’re bound by tradition. Or maybe you think healthcare is too private for the web — and people seek information only from people they can trust. But research by OTX and Google shows that adding search and web advertising to your marketing mix is more than just helpful — it’s essential.

That’s right. Consumers are increasingly going online for hospital information. 41% go to the Internet before seeking advice from healthcare professionals or friends and relatives. When these information-seekers get to the Internet, 76% go to hospital websites, 62% to search engines and 56% to health websites. They’re using more than one destination — which means if you’re not using search engine ads and ad networks, you’re missing a sizable audience. If they don’t see you, you don’t exist.

And they’re not just window-shopping, either. After finding information, 59% of these consumers take action. This includes 46% who look for more information, 16% who clicked on an ad, 14% who forwarded a link or video and 10% who booked an appointment. These additional actions translate into greater awareness of your organization, good feelings, referrals and appointments. Do these goals sound familiar?

Just as important: Recall is higher for online search than for any other medium. Yep, more bang for your buck. 43% remember online ads while only 32% recall TV ads, 28% informational brochures, 18% newspaper ads and 18% billboard ads. Isn’t your aim in advertising to get your audience to remember you? You’re spending a lot of money advertising, so get more value for your money and welcome online advertising into your marketing mix. Plus, when people recall an online ad, 43% look online for more information, 38% ask a medical professional about a hospital, and 38% ask a friend or family member about a hospital.

So, should your hospital advertise online? The numbers say it all.

Putting social networking to work...literally.

Yammer is a simple way for employees to connect and share by posting messages. As more employees participate, it becomes a corporate social network, discussion board and knowledge base. Yammer is like a combination of Facebook and Twitter. Your company can create a profile that mimics the look of Facebook: picture, wall posts/messages, an information page, etc. Your company also has a “network.” And the Yammer is protected, permitting only people from your company to join by requiring your company’s domain (@yourcompany.com). The homepage resembles Twitter — members of your company can post messages about what they’re working on or post questions to coworkers.

But what happens when employees start spending more and more time chatting on Yammer? Will it be a time-waster? Or a morale-booster? Only time will tell.

Creating a new way to Twitter for your business.

The “Contributors” feature from your friends at Twitter, currently in beta testing, will enable your company to have multiple contributors to its Twitter feed. Each Tweet will include the writer’s byline. In addition, “Contributors” promises two different levels of access: Enhanced and Partial.

Enhanced Access will allow contributors to view the account dashboard and it may include data and analytics about your Twitter feed, followers, etc. Partial Access allows them to write Tweets but not see the entire dashboard. Other business-specific features are in development as Twitter makes a concerted effort to address business needs. How will this change the Twitter game? Watch and see for yourself.

Changing the way they advertise.

Everyone wants to reach the top. Mountain climbers have always set their sights on conquering Mt. Everest. Baseball players have always aimed for the World Series. Big companies have always budgeted to advertise during the Super Bowl.

Until now. Pepsi is ending its 23-year run as an advertising staple during the most watched television event of the year. According to the Wall Street Journal, the soft-drink powerhouse is moving its advertising dollars online to kick off the “Pepsi Refresh Project” that will “award grant money for community projects proposed and selected by consumers, such as helping high-school students publish books to develop their writing skills.”

ESPN reports that the website will go live on January 13, and voting will start February 1 to determine which projects receive money.

A 30-second spot during the Super Bowl costs an estimated $3 million and reaches 98.7 million viewers. Pepsi’s new cause-related initiative is reported to use up at least $20 million of its 2010 marketing budget. Apparently, Pepsi has noticed all of us flocking to the Internet for every purpose imaginable. No doubt this site will draw hundreds of thousands of applicants who want to win these grants. Of course, when Pepsi awards the money, it’s a huge PR coup. Most likely Pepsi will plant its name on each winning community outreach program, bestowing an almost sponsor-like status upon itself — for a lot longer than 30 seconds.

We all love watching what agencies come up with for Super Bowl ads, but that tradition may be dying as big companies bail — FedEx has also opted out of the big game. Whether or not the giant courier will sponsor its own cause-related initiative remains to be seen.

Social Media Strategy and Success Stories

About to plan your social media marketing strategy? Wondering about the return you’ll get on your investment? Check out Socialnomics: Social Media ROI. This short video showcases success stories, plus some interesting facts. For example:

• More than 300,000 businesses have a presence on Facebook; about a third of these are small businesses.

• A Wetpaint/Altimeter Study found that companies that are heavily into social media blow away their peers in both revenues and profits. The study also found that companies using social media the most increased sales by 18%, while companies with the least social activity saw sales decline 6%.

• Dell sold $3,000,000 worth of computers on Twitter.

• eBay found that participants in online communities spend 54% more money.

What’s your social media strategy?

Twitter updates...brought to you by Saks Fifth Avenue and Microsoft.

As part of its legendary holiday display, Saks Fifth Avenue has partnered with Microsoft to put video screens, hooked up to computers, in its windows. The screens will display real-time tweets. When people use the #holidaywindows hash-tag on Twitter, their beaming tweets about Windows 7 (and their holiday wishes) will pop up in the Saks display. Hard-core Apple fans reportedly have tried to hijack the Twitter feed by writing anti-Microsoft tweets. But they aren’t getting through to the public. According to Microsoft, most negative tweets are being filtered out automatically. Plus, the company says, there’s a human backup.

Tweet now and see if you can reach New York’s holiday shoppers!

Sometimes you have to get mean.

If your communications department has been enlisted to shore up compliance with hand hygiene requirements (pre- and post-patient contact), take a lesson from Denver Health. As reported in the February 2009 issue of the Journal of Communication in Healthcare, Colorado’s primary “safety net” institution tried humor, incentives, prizes — but nothing worked until they got mean. They put a button on the home page of their intranet so employees could report offenders anonymously. Communication professionals are taught to rely on positive messaging to initiate change. But the Denver example shows that sometimes you have to slap a few hands to get them washed.

Marketing via a NYC cab

The old adage in New York City is never watch the road while being driven in a cab (I use the word “driven” loosely). Well, over the past year, that advice has become a bit easier to follow — LCD screens have been added to the backseats of NYC yellow cabs! Now, the once white-knuckled passenger can sit back and relax while catching the latest movie reviews, learning about the hottest new restaurants and, of course, watching countless marketing messages, specifically directed toward those of us who find ourselves bracing for the next brake-screeching halt or other equally surprising evasive maneuver.

From H&M to HBO, from Starbucks to State Farm, advertisers of all shapes and sizes are making the most of our commute, and are finding ways to engage with us as we sit in the comfort of a “pleather” bench seat. At times, I even find myself ignoring that blinking red light on the Blackberry or the melodic tones of the iPhone ringer (no, it isn’t Miley Cyrus) and instead directing my attention to the center console for some good old-fashioned digital entertainment and marketing messages, while doing 90 MPH down 9th Avenue!

Here’s a clip showing how Corcoran, a high-end real estate group, uses the in-cab screen to promote property listings with an interactive delivery. And the next time you’re hurtling down 9th, remember — keep your eyes off the road!

How to measure effective recruitment marketing?

Recruitment marketing is a simple balancing act, right? Place your message on one side of the scale, and your communication medium on the other. If your message clearly illustrates the value of the position you are trying to fill, great. But if you don’t balance your strong message with an effective way to get it across to potential candidates, well, not so great. Conversely, if you have excellent communication tactics but a weak message, your scale will again be out of balance.

But something’s missing in this scale analogy: the fulcrum.

Which, in this case, is ROI tracking and reporting. You have to know how to track a campaign’s success — or lack thereof. More important, you have to know how to report the results to the folks in the executive suite. Otherwise, they won’t be writing any more checks for any future campaigns.

Track how many candidates you get from your campaigns and where they came from. Note how you stack up against the competition. It’s the best way to prove your value to the suits — and the best way to maintain balance between your messaging and media.

What happened to old-fashioned communication?

Remember “The Telephone Hour” from the early 1960s Broadway show and movie Bye Bye Birdie? The song depicted a teenager talking to a friend on the phone, then that friend talking to another, and so on. This was — and may still be for many Boomers — the quintessential method of communicating. One friend tells another a story, and then a third friend hears it from the second.

These days, many Boomers communicate via Facebook — its fastest-growing demographic is people over 45. I have embraced Facebook myself. I enjoy catching up with friends and family, seeing photos, learning what’s going on.

On the other hand, “embrace” is not the word I would use with Twitter. But because I am in the marketing/advertising industry and always try to keep up with the times, I recently made a commitment to engage in the conversation. So I went to my local library and checked out The Twitter Book, which promised to deliver “a bunch of sensible, down-to-earth material on using and enjoying Twitter.” The book has me trying to wrap my brain around “hashtags” and “tools for tracking trends” while generating click-throughs and sharing photos with “TwicPic.”

So, even as I am unavoidably assimilated into the social networking generation, I ask: if Mad Men can devote 10 minutes to Bye Bye Birdie, why can’t we all just pick up the phone when we want to engage in “ambient intimacy?”

Creating demand for Paranormal Activity.

Have you heard about Paranormal Activity, the low-budget horror movie that has been terrifying audiences over the past few weeks? It was reportedly produced for $15,000! But the very strategic marketing paid off as well as a multimillion-dollar campaign.

First came very scary trailers, followed by updated trailers with footage of terrified moviegoers at a sneak preview of the film. This was followed by a limited release in a handful of college towns around the country.

Then came the really clever part: what appeared to be a grassroots campaign to get the movie distributed nationwide. By teasing us, the filmmakers created a public demand for the movie. They drove us — both in commercials and online — to eventful.com, where we could demand that the movie open in our hometown theaters. The site had a real-time running tally of votes and bragged that Paranormal Activity is the first movie to ever be “demanded” by “we the people.” We could also show friends and associates that we supported the “movement” by spreading the word via Twitter, Facebook, a MySpace widget or links in emails.

The best part? It worked — whether or not they ever needed the votes to obtain a national release. How’s that for creating artificial demand? I wonder how future marketing campaigns will incorporate Paranormal Activity’s grassroots web marketing.

Getting creative with billboard design.

Yeah, yeah — we know all about Facebook, Twitter and all the other types of social media. But where does that leave traditional media? Where does that leave the billboard?

It’s hard not to feel bad for traditional media trying to keep up with all of the new technology. But you don’t have to worry about the billboard — some very creative people (not as creative as us) came up with some very clever ways to breathe new life into these oft-maligned road signs. In fact, they may be too eye-catching — it’s easy to imagine drivers so distracted by these works of marketing art that they sail off the overpass.

Check out 50 mind-bending billboards from 10Steps.SG for yourself — but keep your eyes on the road if you drive by them.

The emerging trend of Nowism.

Instant gratification is nothing new. For years, we’ve had instant coffee, microwave ovens and FedEx. Today’s attention-deficit-disordered generation has taken this institutionalized impatience even further with iPhones and BlackBerrys — the information superhighway is right at our fingertips. With iTunes we can find any song, movie or TV show as soon as we want it — then put it on our iPhone to take wherever we go. And digital cameras — remember film?

Now comes a social movement called Nowism. According to trendwatching.com:

Consumers’ ingrained lust for instant gratification is being satisfied by a host of novel, important (offline and online) real-time products, services and experiences. Consumers are also feverishly contributing to the real-time content avalanche that’s building as we speak. As a result, expect your brand and company to have no choice but to finally mirror and join the ‘now’, in all its splendid chaos, realness and excitement.

Nowism is hot — companies such as Details are creating walk stations that let you exercise while you work. The Shazam app lets your iPhone analyze a song on the radio, tell you the name and artist, show you where you can buy it and give you the option to purchase on the spot. These are just two examples — more and more companies are cashing in by meeting the demands of an increasingly restless public. But, as with all trends, Nowism will eventually be relegated to “Then-ism.” What will replace it? And how will you make it work for you?

Social media is here to stay.

It’s all the buzz. Social media has exploded. It's everywhere. Some might say there is a revolution going on. Have you seen the YouTube video about this very topic? It has some very interesting statistics, such as:

• By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers.
• 96% of them have joined a social network.
• Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web.
• 1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media.
• Facebook added 200 million users in less than 9 months.
• 80% of companies are using LinkedIn as their primary tool to find employees.

Check it out for yourself.

Newspaper advertising will recover.

There’s going to be an ad revenue recovery for the beleaguered industry, and it’s coming soon. Yes, the decline is about to end, according to a new forecast that projects print ad revenue will actually rebound 2.4% next year.

Beyond 2010, ad research firm Borrell Associates forecasts that by 2014 newspaper income will be up 8.7% over 2009 and that newspapers’ share of total ad revenue will jump from 14.4% to 15.9%.

How is this going to happen? The thinking is that newspapers are going to stick around as niche players serving a “greatly distilled” audience of well-educated, higher-income readers. Smaller-market publications are actually doing well and, overall, the medium is doing a better job of selling ads and using their sales staffs effectively.

Also good news for the business: 59% of adults still use newspapers for planning, shopping and purchase decisions, making it the leading advertising medium for these activities. And other media trail well behind newspapers as the primary medium for checking out advertising. The closest competitor, the Internet, trails newspapers by 20 percentage points.

A great alternative for out-of-home spending.

According to Media Life, digital out-of-home spending will leap 13.2% from 2008 to 2013 — total spending will reach $4.53 billion, up from $2.6 billion this year. Video ad networks (screens in office buildings, health clubs, fast food chains and gas stations) will make up the largest portion, but the fastest growth in the category will come from digital billboards.

Digital billboards are currently available in the Philadelphia market on the I-95 corridor, but there’s also good news for our Delaware-based clients: The first digital billboard in Delaware will launch mid-September on I-95 near Newark. Digital billboards allow for unlimited design executions with no associated production costs and can be purchased on a weekly, every-four-week or annual basis. Yet another outlet to keep in mind as we search for the most effective ways to get our message out there.

Tourism and economic development

Tourism. It’s vital for many countries and many island nations. It’s also important for the economic development of the State of Delaware and its neighboring states. Millions of dollars are brought into these states through businesses that serve both tourists and locals, and thousands of jobs are created in service industries associated with tourism.

Whether it’s trips to nearby attractions (25% of the population of the United States is located within a four-hour drive of Delaware) or weekly visits to the lovely beach communities that line the eastern coast of New Jersey and the Delmarva Peninsula, tourism is key to this area’s economic development.

Want a novel way to raise awareness of your state? Missouri created a lot of buzz recently by giving away a Harley Davidson motorcycle and later contacting the contest entrants with information about the state and its attractions. It makes sense for states to invest in tourism, because tourism pays back. According to Rich Harrill, director of the Institute for Tourism Research at the University of South Carolina, “Tourism is the world’s largest industry and it’s going to continue to be very important as an economic development strategy, as an industry nationally.”

Here are some fun facts, courtesy of the U.S. Travel Industry Association:
* Travel and tourism is a $1.6 trillion industry in the United States. If one dollar bill equaled a second of time, then $1.6 trillion would equal almost 51,000 years.
* Travel and tourism generates $110 billion in tax revenue for local, state and federal governments. If you placed 110 billion one-dollar bills end-to-end, they would circle the world 419 times.
* Each U.S. household would pay $995 more in taxes without the tax revenue generated by the travel and tourism industry. That $995 will buy about five weeks of groceries for a family of four, will fill the average car with gas 17 times, or will even pay the average cost of a ticket to a Michigan vs. Ohio State football game.

Never underestimate the power of tourism and its ability to generate dollars for the local economy.

Am I too old for Facebook?

So it’s no secret — I’m well into my 50s. I learned the basics using pencils with portable erasers that were the size of small Volkswagens. Eventually I graduated to relying on secretaries who used carbon paper. These same secretarial resources also made my thoughtful presentations come to life using some low-cost overhead projections. Then life got fancy and we all started using slides! The fax machine really changed the whole mindset though — I was suddenly able to “do my own faxes” (well, usually).
I’ve been able to stay abreast of all this change because for the past 30-plus years I have worked in the communications industry surrounded by lively, smart young people — all using the latest technology. But there have been personal influences as well — my 20-something daughters! Their school demanded that they own laptop computers starting in 8th grade!

So in the last two years along comes this opportunity called “social media.” Employees are (for the most part) abuzz, trade journals provide weekly updates and editorial positions on this thing called “social” and family is already there with Facebook. Hmmm. If 20-something daughters can chat with friends and show pictures, why can’t I? And after all, this is the business I’m in! So the combination of pressures was too great and with one nervous leap I was officially on Facebook. My first week on “The Book” was memorable. Tons of people were “on my wall,” others invited me to be their “friend” — what had we been up until then? I was tagged, blocked and God knows what else. And while all of this was memorable, it was not stimulating! Why?

1. Most of the early respondents were my daughters’ friends from high school! All nice kids, some were noticeably more mature but most were offering comments like, “Mr. G. — Cool to see that you are doing Facebook!” or “finally you’re on The Book — where is Mrs. G.?”
2. Most of the messages were weird “inside” jokes or outright dumb remarks.
3. Truthfully, to be “good” at this social media thing, you have to be on the edge of your computer as much of the day as possible and, quite frankly, I’d rather be on the golf course.

Please don’t misunderstand — I like technology and I love people. But The Book is too much for me. Besides which, golf is a very social game.

Don't mix texting and driving!

Of all the new media, texting has exploded in the last year and, together with its sibling, twittering, it may now come with a caution label attached. While many of us are accustomed to listening to the radio in the car, very few of us watch television in the driver’s seat. The logic is obvious, and yet many of us engage in texting behavior that defies that same logic.

According to The New York Times (7-18-09; 7-28-09), two studies have shown that this new media and driving don’t mix. A study conducted by Virginia Tech showed texting truckers (on actual runs) were 23 times more likely to have a crash, and a University of Utah study showed that college students (in simulators) were eight times more likely to crash.

About the same as cell phones, you say? The Times notes that drivers using cell phones are about four times more likely to cause a crash than other drivers — about the same impairment as drivers with a .08 percent blood alcohol level, the legal limit in many states.

So texting is anywhere from two to six times more dangerous than drunk driving. Why do we do it? As with most things, “I’m good at this — the other guy is the problem.” The 2009 Traffic Safety Culture Index study released last week by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety showed that nearly 90% of those surveyed said texting or emailing while driving was a very serious threat to safety, yet 18% of those same people admitted texting in the past month.

BTW: Both studies found that drivers really do get absorbed. The Times reported, “In the moments before a crash or near crash, drivers typically spent nearly five seconds looking at their devices — enough time at typical highway speeds to cover more than the length of a football field.”

So please, when you’re driving, put down your phone — and your makeup and your coffee!

Where is today's face-to-face communcation?

Much of what you read here in AB&C Blogland relates to technology. We offer our thoughts on the latest developments, trends and leaps forward in the rapidly advancing world of web connectivity. Things have reached the point where you can’t go too many places without spotting someone staring down at some sort of handheld device. Even my travel plans have been affected! It used to be that long car trips to client meetings meant there’d be time to catch up on the latest office gossip.

Not too long ago, we’d have a grand old time chatting it up about former employees, quirky clients and weird stuff lying by the side of the road. The vehicle’s driver would have a pocketful of change to make a pay phone call, if and when that need ever arose. Remember pay phones? But now, car trips mean catching up with others — electronically. Just last week, I rode shotgun to a client meeting with several coworkers. Instead of nonstop conversation as the car bounced down the road, there was silence — as my traveling companions furiously tweeted and texted away. It seems that everyone in America is staying in touch with each like never before — but sadly, not necessarily face-to-face.

The power of celebrity.

Celebrity is potent. We’ve seen the power of celebrity recently with the death of a certain music icon — how it takes over the news and, in his case, a city budget.

The power comes from celebrities’ ability to generate awareness — whether it’s fashion, diet or a cause, if they are affiliated with it, attention will be paid. Sometimes the attention comes about unintentionally, as with the awareness now surrounding prescription drug overdose.

This is the second public figure in two years to die from suspected prescription drug abuse. Too many pills from too many different people. Many contraindications. Is the problem that celebrities have too much access to whatever they want? Or is the problem that we have a healthcare system that enables someone to fill multiple prescriptions from different physicians? Will the deaths of Heath Ledger and Michael Jackson prompt real action on this issue or will it simply raise awareness?

Consider what can happen when a celebrity purposely supports a cause to generate awareness. After the country watched Katie Couric get a colonoscopy on The Today Show, a national study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine reported a monthly increase in colonoscopies from 15 to 18.1, with a hike in the percentages of women perceiving themselves at risk and being screened. Michael J. Fox not only educated the public about early Parkinson’s diagnoses, but then went on to raise close to 150 million dollars strictly for Parkinson’s research. The power of celebrity can launch foundations, research initiatives and important public discussion.

But what happens when the celebrity raises the awareness of an important cause with the wrong facts?

On the 1997 April cover of Ebony Magazine, Cookie Johnson claimed “God Cured Magic!” Those in the AIDS community knew what this meant — his treatment had been so successful that his viral load was deemed undetectable. Did the Ebony readers know this? Did they know enough about the disease to even comprehend this? Cookie’s celebrity could have helped spread valuable information — but instead, it fueled rumors and myths that the AIDS virus could be cured by prayer. The readers never learned that Magic had to take 900 pills a month and those pills came with their own brand of side effects that required their own clinical management. The readers never learned that an undetectable viral load goes right back up to highly detectable if all of these medications are not taken precisely according to protocol. All the readers learned was that God had cured Magic Johnson — imagine how disappointed they felt to later learn it was not true, or even possible.

The power of celebrity can be a phenomenal force. It can generate awareness, inspire action and create change. And apparently this is the case in life or death.

A new look for Twitter.

In a need to monetize, Twitter has redesigned its homepage to make search front and center. The simple search box lets you search (duh), and below it is a ticker featuring three rows of popular topics, broken down by minute, day and week. “Popular topics by the minute” take precedence, and appear in a larger point size, indicating the general of-the-moment nature of tweets. Real pulse-of-the-marketplace info, especially if your market has a presence in the Twitterverse.

Paid search is next, folks. Give Twitter a few days (or weeks) to serve up this feature.

Everyone needs an advocate.

Imagine getting a blood test and never hearing from the doctor about the results so you assume everything is OK. Now fast-forward eight months — you’re paler and more bruised than usual so you go get more blood work. Then you wake up on your birthday and get a call from your doctor telling you to get to the emergency room. That’s exactly what happened to Matt Sheehan a month ago. After going to the ER at Hackensack University Medical Center, Sheehan learned he has a rare blood disorder — aplastic anemia. This means that the bone marrow does not make enough blood cells. It also means that Sheehan has to go through countless tests, transfusions, biopsies and other health nightmares.

After his diagnosis, Sheehan decided to share his story with the world. He uses his blog to not only update his progress or setbacks with treatment, but to document his experience with doctors, nurses, insurance, bureaucracy and all the confusion within the healthcare industry. Sheehan’s message: Be your own advocate. Read more at www.mypiccline.com.

While Sheehan’s blog isn’t technically a “care page,” it serves a similar purpose: an easy way to update those around you without having to pick up the phone every 10 minutes. Care pages are becoming increasingly popular with patients and their loved ones. As the CarePages website (www.carepages.com) says, “Through it, you can receive emotional support with loved ones and friends during a health challenge.”

And, just as individuals need an advocate when dealing with the healthcare system, a healthcare system needs an advocate when dealing with social media and the web.

Give yourself a Mad Men makeover!

Didn’t work at a Madison Ave agency in the early ’60s? Tired of dirty looks for drinking in the office at 11 a.m.? Now at least your Facebook icon can live the life, thanks to AMC’s MadMenYourself.

Suit or skirt? Martini or whiskey on the rocks? Cigar or cigarette?

Too much fun. Unlike ElfYourself, SimpsonizeMe and FaceYourManga, you don’t actually upload an image — one less hurdle, which is good. Oh, and (somewhat) easily Facebooked, Tweeted, Dugged and StumbleUponed.

PS - We couldn't help but get in on the action. Try it for yourself.