Tag: social media as a marketing tool

Social media accessibility is a topic that all marketers should be talking about and addressing. We came up with the acronym FAVE to help marketers remember four of the most important and basic elements for social media accessibility: Formatting, Alt Text/Images, Video and Emojis. In this blog post, we'll explain why FAVE is so crucial and how you can use it to make sure your social media posts comply. And be sure to download our tip sheet for a printable checklist of dos and don'ts you can keep right on your desk!

This week Social Media Today picked up an earlier article from Harvard Business Review. Titled “Social Media’s Impending Flood of Customer Unlikes and Unfollows” it’s a call-to-action for brands to change their social media mindsets. Think it’s too early in the world of social marketing for brands to be set in their ways? Think again. Many brands are following an already tired formula. As quoted in the article, straight from a Facebook sales rep: “Don’t over-think any of this. …Do four things every week…ask a question, run a poll, share links, and engage with your fans. Oh, and have fun!” When he heard this, Brian Solis, thought leader on new media and the article’s author, was skeptical. So are we.

I’ve been a blogger in my personal life for years, so I was hardly unbiased earlier this year when The New York Times announced that short-form social media, like Facebook and Twitter, were causing the rapid decline of blogs. Even though I fell into the, ahem, older age group for whom blogging was reported as increasing slightly, I bristled at my most beloved medium being labeled out of favor. In February, an impassioned debate followed The New York Times article, “Blogs Wane as the Young Drift to Sites Like Twitter”), and the internet lit up with posts (blog posts, mainly) on both sides of the argument that everyone began to sum up as “The New York Times says blogs are dead.” Fast forward to yesterday when The New York Times’ Fashion & Style section published an article about the power of bloggers as influencers.

These days, even city dwellers can harvest crops, breed animals in a cow pasture and decorate a lighthouse all in a day’s work—from their cubicles. It’s all thanks to Zynga— the San Francisco-based social network game developer whose resume includes FarmVille, CityVille, FrontierVille, Words With Friends and Mafia Wars, among others. You may know them as the root of all those status updates from your Facebook friends who boast their bovine purchases at every turn, or perhaps you’re a digital denizen yourself? Whatever the fascination of thriving in a virtual world, it amounts to success. Available on multiple platforms such as Facebook, MySpace, the iPad, smart phones and Yahoo, Zynga’s games reel in more than 230 million monthly active users. That’s a lot of faux fruit! But lately Zynga and its following aren’t the only ones cashing in on the crop of games. Make way for the era of social gaming as a hot marketing platform.

When FYE offered a VIP package for the recent Lollapalooza festival, it was an intense competition on the brand’s Facebook wall right up until the final minutes. Candidates were rallying for themselves or friends by posting daily: “Please vote for so-and-so!” Once the winner was announced, people rallied around him to congratulate him, and after the winner returned from the trip, he shared his gratitude on FYE’s wall: "I cannot thank you enough for offering me such a freaking awesome experience! I literally felt like I was a celebrity for 3 straight days! Love you guys! Thank you SOO much again!!" Everyone now knows that this fan thinks FYE is the best brand ever!

In a recent AdWeek article, author Anthony Crupi talks about how NBC has already sold most of its Super Bowl spots for $3.5 million each – up from Fox’s $3 million price last year. While he points to the ever-growing popularity of the game and the commercials that surround it, Crupi fails to mention the most obvious explanation for the 17 percent increase: the powerful multiplier effect of social media and social networking.

Is it HIPAA-noia? A fear of lack of control? Whatever the reason, most medical marketers have been late to the social media party. All that, however, seems to changing according to a recent article on Portfolio.com: “This is new territory for medical marketing. Ten years ago, it was innovative if hospitals had websites. Now, medical institutions area tweeting, creating Facebook pages, making videos for YouTube and posting photos on Flickr.” While we cheer this growing acknowledgement of social media as a marketing tool, we wonder about the effectiveness of most hospitals' efforts as they "dip their toes into the water." Are they building engagement? Are they forming communities? Are they advancing their brand and differentiating?

The rumor is out. Ever since Digg CEO Kevin Rose slipped the juicy gossip about Google Me, speculations and predictions about Google’s latest foray into social networking have run wild on the Web. Will this alleged social platform be an innovative standout like Gmail was? Or will it just be an amalgamation of Google’s previous social letdowns – Profiles, Buzz and Wave? So many questions… But this much is clear: if there’s a company with the resources and talent to develop a real Facebook-killer, it’s Google. And given that social has proved to be the hardest nut for Google to crack, we have a few suggestions for those genius Google developers to consider if they are, in fact, building the next “super social platform”...

The June special issue of Fast Company featured "The 100 Most Creative People in Business". The section about JP Morgan Chase Foundation's President, Kimberly Davis, caught my attention instantly because her story helps illustrate some of our own findings here at Media Logic about brand engagement, and similar transparency versus authenticity obstacles that we have encountered with our financial clients and observed in our recent research whitepaper.

Media Logic is working with Atlantic Medical Imaging (a multi-site radiology/imaging practice based in New Jersey) to establish thought leadership, create engagement and preference among patients (and prospective patients) and referring physicians, and ultimately drive utilization. At the center of the strategic social marketing effort is a blog featuring information on the benefits of low dose radiology, a key differentiator for the practice. We also use Facebook and Twitter to create a fan base, encourage interaction and drive traffic to the blog. Even though the effort has just recently launched, we have used “best practice” techniques we have learned through our work with highly regulated industries such as banking and insurance to build-in security while optimizing engagement. Here are three key elements we believe are important in using social media for medical practices.