Posted by Brian Geyser on Fri, Jul 23, 2010 @ 01:12 PM
This post is part of our Social Media Success Series, which features interviews with innovative and fearless socially networked senior living, home care, and LTC companies that are achieving positive business results using social technologies. If you would like to have your organization included in this series, contact us.
For this interview, Jennifer Hill connected with Erin Schmidt, Marketing and Communications Coordinator for one of our favorite socially savvy companies, BrightStar Care. BrightStar was just featured in our new Social Media Video, which you can view here.
Interview
Q: What is your company's primary goal of using social media?
A: Our primary goal for social media is two-pronged: we seek to “get found” by and add value for individuals, families and organizations who/that may need us (providing helpful content, serving as a resource), and then earn the trust of qualified leads that will convert into client business for our 150+ locations nationwide.
Q: What types of social media tools do you use and why did you choose them?
A: We maintain an active presence in Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and publish our videos to YouTube.
Twitter: Twitter serves as a great engagement platform as well as a river of information to stay on the pulse of what is being talked about in our industry.
Facebook: For starters, one of our target audiences (women aged 55+) is the fastest growing demographic on Facebook, but beyond that the platform allows for a lot more interactivity, better means of identifying where key audiences may be engaging and the ability to share multiple forms of content.
LinkedIn: LinkedIn has been important to our staffing and recruiting efforts, in both identifying qualified candidates to fill more skilled positions as well as key referral sources. But overall, the ability to serve as a resource in the Q & A forums is a value not to be ignored, as we view this type of activity as spreading seeds throughout the Web to help those in need to find us.
Q: Are you planning to expand your social media reach?
A: Yes, everything we do, both online and offline, is geared toward increasing our overall reach. In fact, we have seen significant incremental growth over the past six months and, with new features and functionality rolling out over the next six months, we predict that this will continue to grow.
Q: How much time do you invest in social media per week?
A: At the Corporate level, we invest no more than five to ten hours each week, but this does not include the time we’ve taken to create a series of “Inbound Marketing” webinars we’ve created to train our franchisees on how to leverage social media, online listening, link building, etc. to ramp up their online presence.
Q: Have you seen a return on your investment?
A: While it’s difficult to monetize the value of “reach,” having a captive audience of qualified leads with which to create multiple touch points has had a significant value in and of itself. In addition, a growing portion of our Website traffic comes from the various social media platforms and we’ve recently added some additional means to track these visits through the sales funnel on the back-end to calculate ROI from a dollar standpoint. Here are some interesting statistics:
Worth noting: we endured a Website re-design in February, so these numbers may be the result of a number of factors and not just social media.
- Reach. Our current reach is over four times what it was six months ago – equating to an average of just over 500 contacts per month.
- Website traffic. Site traffic is up by just over 20% in the past six months (potentially due in part to our other new Website changes), but the number of social media referrals to our site has quadrupled in the past year.
- Lead base. We’re still evaluating the impact of social media on our lead generation.
- Marketing costs. Aside from our time, social media is free, so the improved Web traffic and significant growth of our reach has cost us very little compared to other marketing initiatives.
Q: How do you measure the success of your social media strategy?
A: Primarily, the number of Website visits (and, soon, the number and quality of leads) and reach (number of blog subscribers, Twitter followers, LinkdeIn connections, Facebook fans, YouTube subscribers).
Q: What are your biggest challenges?
A: One of the biggest challenges has been conveying the benefits of leveraging social media to our franchisees and, again, the issue of “monetizing” reach.
Q: Who manages your social media initiatives?
A: At the Corporate level, our social media strategy is devised and executed upon by the marketing department.
Q: In regards to content, what do you think is a good strategy?
A: We’ve experimented with a few different things, but we love the idea of recruiting guest authors and tapping other industry experts to contribute. We’ve also set up an online listening station to gather content ideas in addition to taking common questions individuals, families and organizations have to inspire our content.
Q: Do you think that companies are apprehensive about using social media because of HIPAA restrictions?
A: Yes, absolutely.
Q: Does HIPAA effect the way that you use social media?
A: The privacy of the individuals, families and organizations we care for is of the utmost importance to us. We are certain never to provide any information that may be remotely sensitive and/or confidential. This methodology is woven into the fabric of all that we do at BrightStar, both online and offline.
Q: What new features do you see your company using to help expand you social media outreach in the coming months?
A: We’ll be rolling out the ability for our franchisees to add up to five pages to their local Websites in addition to the ability to blog, which will undoubtedly ramp up their local social media efforts and, thus, contribute to our national strategy.
Q: do you view social media as a PR tool in addition to a marketing tool?
A: Absolutely! In addition to being able to publish content and interact with our target audiences, social media is a great means of highlighting key happenings via a public facing platform.
Q: Do you have any PR examples?
A: From time to time, our franchisees will get some media coverage and we’ll use our blog to feature these stories and publish them to our social media profiles as a means of giving them some additional “push” (and, of course, kudos).
Q: Finally, Do any of your C-level executives use social media? Why or why not?
A: Many of our executive team members maintain an active presence on LinkedIn and some on Facebook and our CEO is on Twitter. But LinkedIn makes the most sense from a networking and business perspective. In fact, our executive team’s collective presence on LinkedIn has generated just over 1,000 Website visits in the past six months.
Like this post? Read more like it here:
For more insights into emerging media and social technologies, subcribe to our blog, follow me on Twitter, visit us on Facebook, or contact us here on our site.
Ready to hire the folks behind this blog? Learn more >>
Posted by Brian Geyser on Fri, Jul 23, 2010 @ 01:07 PM
I was recently contacted via Twitter by Arbor Company Senior Living who informed me that one of their communities recently had three tours directly related to leads that came in from their Facebook Page. Here's the tweet...
Posted by Brian Geyser on Wed, Mar 03, 2010 @ 12:12 PM
At Home Personal Care, a Utah-based home care company that we've covered here before because of their amazing Twitter prowess just launched a new website with an impressive amount of social media integration. Noelle Kurth, who heads up AHPC's coroporate marketing and communications activities was intimately involved in the sites planning and design.
At Home Personal Care Website
Notice the many ways a visitor to the site can easily connect with the company and share site content with their various social networks. Right from the front page, a visitor can get information about the company and its services, sign up for a company newsletter, subscribe to their blog, connect with the company on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, add social bookmarks and much more.
The site is simple, clean, and easy to navigate with social connectivity built into every page. It's built on a powerful but easy-to-use open source platform called Modx which provides a simple content management system (CMS) allowing Noelle to add, edit, and manage site content herself anytime, from anywhere.
I suspect the combination of this well-designed new site and Noelle's keen understanding of how to use social media for business, marketing and PR purposes will serve AHPC well in the coming months and years. I'll be connecting with Noelle in a few months to get an update on how the site is help AHPC with business.
Related Posts:
_________________________________________________________________________
For more on how your company can benefit from social media and online community, contact us. You can also join our free Online Marketing Community for marketing professionals and executives in senior living, homecare, LTC, and hospice. Just click the image blow:
Posted by Brian Geyser on Fri, Feb 26, 2010 @ 01:25 PM
Check out these staggering statistics in this cool video produced by Jesse Thomas. Is your company leveraging the social web to connect with customers and prospects?
JESS3 / The State of The Internet from Jesse Thomas on Vimeo.
_________________________________________________________________________
For more on how your company can benefit from social media and online community, contact us. You can also join our free Online Marketing Community for marketing professionals in senior living, homecare, LTC, and hospice. Just click the image blow:
Posted by Brian Geyser on Fri, Feb 05, 2010 @ 12:16 PM
This is the latest post in our Social Media Success Series, which features interviews
with innovative senior living, eldercare, home care, and long-term care providers who are using social media as a business/marketing tool. If you would like to have your organization considered for inclusion, contact us.
For this post, we pick up where we left off with Roxann Rogers Meyer, Director of Sales/Marketing
for Immanuel Senior Living, the leading provider of senior living in Nebraska. For Part 1 of this interview, click here.
12. What is your primary goal for using social media?
To get people to understand senior housing options and to be a trusted resource in the community for retirement living. Our goal is to transform lives through innovative programs and services for seniors and their families.
Immanuel Senior Living On Facebook
13. Are you planning to expand your social media reach?
We continue to look at more ways we can reach people with new social media tools and we’re looking at industry experts to see what they’re doing
14. Are people responding to your social media efforts?
Yes, people are responding. Lora recently shot video with the Flip Cam of one of our community’s Christmas parties and put it on our website and social media sites including Facebook, Youtube and Twitter and we received a response from a fan on Youtube who commented, “Original human interest adds to your videos. Great job.” Another time Lora put pictures up on Facebook about a recent fund raising event that took place at our community and also tweeted about it and received a response from someone who had attended, telling us what a fabulous event it was.
15. Have you seen a return on your investment so far?
It’s hard to put a hard dollar amount on the value of social media, but I think educating the public and helping them understand what active aging is all about is priceless.
16. What are your biggest challenges so far?
The number one goal of our marketing department is maintaining our occupancy goals. We exist to support the senior living consultants at each of our communities in reaching prospective residents and adult children. So we’re adding social media to our traditional marketing and communication strategies. It doesn’t replace what we’re currently doing. Time management is another important factor to consider and also doing things that make sense. Other challenges include staying on top of the current trends in social media.
17. Did you have to try to convince someone at your organization to try social media?
I had to create a presentation for the executive leadership team on the value of being involved in the conversation. Especially when you see the numbers and the amount of actual dollars attached to it, it’s not hard to convince your CEO and CFO that it’s money/time well spent.
18. Are employees on board with your efforts?
Yes, employees are excited by what we’re doing, They’re following us, watching the videos and commenting on what’s going on. They also forward our stories and videos on to their family and friends.
Immanuel Senior Living On Twitter
19.How are you measuring success?
By the number of followers and fans, how often our communities are featured in Google, and how often the media is picking up on the stories that we’re doing.
20. It sounds like your success measures, while important, don't necessarily translate into sales or a higher, more stable census (your stated number one goal). How can your executives justify the expense of engaging in social media if you're not able to prove that it's having a direct effect on the bottom line?
Our executives justify the importance of being involved in social media because, above all, it’s vital to be part of the conversation. And while it may not necessarily translate into a reservation right now, it begins the conversation and may turn into something in the future. In addition, Immanuel Senior Living also measures success by the number of people we educate about who we are, what senior living is all about, and the benefits of staying active in a retirement community. I think that if you can show someone—be it a prospective resident, an adult child or even a grandchild— what their loved one is up to and the amount of fun they’re having/activities they’re taking part in—that’s worth it.
Recently I also put up a couple of winter pictures of one of our communities, with the caption, “Baby it’s cold outside. Glad we're staying warm and cozy at the Village, where the fire is so delightful so let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!” There was a response from a person on Facebook—who’s not even a fan, but is a prospective resident, who said, “I want to live here….someday.” To me, that begins the conversation and gets people to think about senior living in an entirely new way.
21. Can you offer another interesting short story about your social media efforts thus far?
We shot a short 2 ½ minute video of an 89 year old resident who directs the resident chime choir at one of our communities and tweeted it and put it up on our Facebook Page and Youtube Channel. I then pitched it to the media who were able to view exactly what I was pitching. They in turn decided to come out and film the video for themselves and turned out to be a great story.
Also, we sponsored an Aging Conference and I shot a video of the dancing grannies - ladies who range in age from 62-82 years old. I put the video
up on our social media outlets and, currently, it’s been viewed 179 times and has a five star rating. Also, Immanuel Senior Living has been featured in a blog on how senior living communities should brand their Youtube channel. Here's an example of one of Immanuel's YouTube videos:
22. What's the one piece of advice you would give other senior living, home care, eldercare, or dementia care companies about getting into social media?
Don’t just post something about your community. Look around and find interesting articles, blogs, tweets, etc. that you can share with your fans or followers of active seniors in general, what other communities are doing, or just a quote. It encourages collaboration and not silos. it also shows that you’re keeping in step with what’s going on in the world. Also, with social media, it’s constant—you can’t just post something and a month later, post again. You constantly have to monitor, check and react to it.
Contact Information
Roxann Rogers Meyer, Director of Sales/Marketing
rrogers@ihsi.org
6757 Newport Ave. Suite 200
Omaha, NE 68152
__________________________________________________________________________
For more on how your company can benefit from social media and online community, contact us. You can also join our free Online Marketing Community for marketing professionals in senior living, homecare, LTC, and hospice. Just click the image blow:
Posted by Brian Geyser on Mon, Jan 25, 2010 @ 10:53 AM
This is the latest post in our Social Media Success Series, which features interviews with innovative senior living, eldercare, home care, and long-term care providers who are using social media as a business/marketing tool. If you would like to have your organization considered for inclusion, contact us.
For this post, we interviewed Roxann Rogers Meyer, Director of Sales/Marketing
for Immanuel Senior Living, the leading provider of senior living in Nebraska.
1. What online properties, aside from your website, do you own/operate and how long have you been using each?
We've been using Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn since October 2009.
2. Do you have a blog?
We do not have a blog right now, but it’s something we’re looking into launching in the near future.
3. Why did you choose each of these particular social media tools?
Because social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are where our target audience is searching and these are the tools they are using. As a retirement community, Immanuel Senior Living is in the midst of a perfect storm. The 2000 census found that there were 35 million Americans at the age of 65 or older. In addition, the U.S. Census Bureau projects that by the year 2030, approximately 71.5 million Americans will be over the age of 65. That means the percentage of people 65 or older will more than double from 2000 and will make up nearly 20% of the entire projected U.S. population. In addition, adult children and prospects are actively using these popular social media sites to network and gain information.
According to a digital marketing firm iStrategyLabs, from January to July of 2009, the number of Facebook users older than 55 jumped by more than 500 percent. In addition, people 35 to 54 now are the largest age group on the site, accounting for 28.2 percent of users in this country.
For us, it’s the opportunity to connect with these people and show them what kind of lifestyle they or a loved one will have if they choose to come live in our community. It’s also an opportunity to educate the general public on senior issues and aging.
4. Why haven't you launched a blog yet?
We decided against blogging right from the start because while it’s important to have a social media presence, it’s also important to put out fresh content on a regular basis. We felt if we launched our social media sites & also started a blog—that would be a lot to handle all at once. Right now we are going through a brand study and once we’ve completed that, we will make those decision about when to launch the blog. As for content, ideally, we would like several blogs from various perspectives including a day-in-the-life of a resident, from a CEO’s perspective as well as health care.
Immanuel is the leader in senior housing in our area, so we have a lot of expertise on a variety of topics. We are considering using WordPress to build a blog, and then linking it to the homepage of our website, but that too is still in the developing stage.
Immanuel Senior Living Homepage
5. Who manages your social media sites?
Our corporate marketing assistant, Lora Ullerich.
6. How much time does it take Lora to manage your social media activities per week?
She usually checks in several times a day, tries to tweet/retweet at least once a day and post fresh content on Youtube and Facebook once a week. It’s something that you continually have to keep up and not just post and ignore.
7. Are your senior executives planning to use the social media tools you've chosen?
We have asked some key members at each of our communities if they are interested in joining in the social media conversation. People like activity directors, wellness managers, health care directors and others who can provide some interesting insight into the day-in-the-life of a senior living community. The key again, is, someone who can consistently provide fun, interesting content that is also meaningful for our audience. Immanuel Senior Living YouTube Video
8. How are you using each tool and who are you trying to reach?
Again, we’re trying to reach prospective and current residents along with adult children to educate them about the lifestyle at Immanuel Senior Living and to gain insight on how we’re doing.
9. Do you have a social media strategy?
Our social media strategy is to inform and respond to issues regarding Immanuel Senior Living, the senior living industry and those affecting seniors.
10. Are you getting help from outside professionals or are you trying to do it all on your own?
Staying on top of the current trends in social media involves research, attending conferences/webinars, and looking to experts in the social media realm who continually are putting out fresh content and answering questions.
11. Do you have a social media policy or set of guidelines? How are you addressing HIPAA?
We are currently working on one. We are looking at what other industry experts are doing and then fine-tuning it for our purposes. Since we’re not talking about a senior’s health issue, there’s not necessarily a HIPAA violation--at the same time, our resident’s privacy is something we take very seriously. For some videos, we do have consent forms signed and make sure our residents feel comfortable being part of the story. If they don’t feel comfortable, we do not feature them in the story, video or picture. Each community is the resident’s home and we are fortunate enough to work there.
Part 2
Be sure to read Part 2 of this post where Roxann provides insight into the realities of social media time management, success measurement, and ROI; and shares some real-life stories about how Immanuel is benefiting from their social media efforts. Stay tuned by suscribing to this blog via RSS or email.
Contact Information
Roxann Rogers Meyer, Director of Sales/Marketing
rrogers@ihsi.org
6757 Newport Ave. Suite 200
Omaha, NE 68152
__________________________________________________________________________
For more on how your company can benefit from social media and online community, contact us. You can also join our free Online Marketing Community for marketing professionals in senior living, homecare, LTC, and hospice. Just click the image blow:
Posted by Brian Geyser on Mon, Jan 25, 2010 @ 08:07 AM
In Part 1
of this series, we reviewed some of the important lessons we learned in 2009 from the world of social media as they apply to the senior living and long-term care industries. In this segment, we will look at lessons learned from interviews I did with real people within senior living and LTC companies who are actually using social media applications to drive business and improve the customer/prospect experience; and we look ahead to 2010 - the year that companies will "go social." To read all of the interviews in the Social Media Success Series, click here.
2009: What We Learned From The People Doing It
- The vast majority of senior living and LTC companies are not currently using social media. However, we are seeing a lot of evidence that this will change in 2010. Everyday, new blogs, Twitter accounts, Facebook Pages, and online communities are being launched by companies across the country in every segment of our industry.
- Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn seem to be the tools of choice right now in the industry. Blogs and branded online community sites are close behind.
- Most companies are attempting to dip their toes in the social media ocean by using internal resources. A few have hired professionals to launch their social media campaigns, or to take existing campaigns to the next level.
- Senior living and LTC companies are very interested in using social media tools to listen to what customers and prospects are saying, as well as to join in on the conversations.
- Social tools are helping companies build relationships with customers, prospects, partners and referrals sources.
- Several companies are using social media tools for recruiting and employer branding purposes.
- It often takes a team of people within each organization to manage the social media work load.
- Keeping up with advances in social technology is one of the biggest challenges companies face.
- Many senior living and LTC companies are hesitant to get into social media because they fear the things people may say about them online. They also worry about privacy and HIPAA issues.
- None of the companies we interviewed had formal social media policies or procedures in place.
- Companies are using social media to position themselves as online resources where customers and prospects can obtain helpful information about the challenges they are facing.
- Content creation and community management are two major challenges for companies in our industry.
- None of the companies we interviewed are particularly focused on ROI. They tend to be more interested in building relationships and brand awareness at this point and looking at social media as a long-term investment.
- Several companies are going all out and allowing residents, family members, and staff to post to their sites.
What To Expect In 2010
Based on trends in our industry and others, we can expect 2010 to be the year that senior living, homecare, LTC, and other eldercare providers begin adopting social media on a large scale. ALFA is dedicating resources to it, AARP has a major social media presence - including an online community, heck, even the Pope is getting in on the action!
The bottom line is that websites alone are no longer enough. The new social Web demands that companies use social tools to listen, communicate, engage, dialog, publish, support, respond, and, most importantly, build trusting relationships with customers. Here's a bonus SlideShare presentation from my favorite new media analyst, Jeremiah Owyang. Enjoy.
To learn more about using social media and online community for business, contact us. You can also join our free online marketing community specifically for senior living, home health, LTC, and hospice providers.
JOIN OUR FREE MARKETING COMMUNITY
Posted by Brian Geyser on Wed, Dec 30, 2009 @ 10:30 AM
This was the year that senior living, long-term care, homecare, and hospice providers began experimenting with social media. Social tools like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn; blogging/publishing platforms like WordPress; and white-label social/group networking platforms like Ning and Groupsite have started to penetrate these industry segments and are slowly beginning to change the way these companies are doing business. Even ALFA, the Assisted Living Federation of America, launched a social media initiative this year and is active on multiple social sites.
Since August when I launched this blog, I have posted many articles about companies in our industry, both small and large, that are beginning to use social technologies to derive business benefits. Some posts feature interviews with industry insiders who share their experiences and offer great insights into what's working, and what's not. Other articles provide information, tips, and resources designed to help your company navigate the social media landscape. In case you missed any, here is a list of my Top 10 Most Popular Posts for 2009:
- California's Largest Retirement Community Kicks Butt Using Social Media [Interview]
- Home Care Company Uses Twitter To Build Brand Awareness And More [Interview]
- 7 Best Social Media Tools For Senior Living And Long-Term Care
- Social Media And HIPAA: What You Need To Know
- Nation's Largest Senior Living Company Embraces Social Media [Interview]
- How Senior Living And Eldercare Companies Can Build A Winning Social Media Team
- Senior Living Companies: You Must Blog Now!
- Beacon Hill Retirement Community Launches Resident Blog - Smart Move
- Blog, Twitter, And Facebook = Big ROI At SeniorsForLiving.com [Interview]
- Web-Savvy Senior Living Companies Are Making The Move To Social Media. Are You?
What We Have Learned: A Year In Review [Part 1 of 2]
Below is a summary of important lessons from the world of social media as they apply to the senior living and long-term care industries, along with links to more detailed content if you want more juice:
- Social technologies are transformative and are here to stay. The statistics are mind blowing. This video drives that point home.
- The static, brochure-style website is going the way of the dinosaurs. Dynamic, interactive websites that encourage dialog and participation and help you build relationships with customers and prospects is where it's at. If you don't have social and community-building elements built into your website, it's time to rethink your online strategy.
- Your customers are online, in a big way, and they love social networking and social media. This video from MSNBC is one example. The fact that seniors are Facebook's fastest growing demographic, by far, is another.
- Many experts, including myself, believe that social media/networking can and will have a profound impact on the quality of life of seniors living at home and in retirement communities - allowing them to stay connected to friends and family like never before. This study from the University of Alabama, and others like it, aim to prove that point with real data.
- Social media can be used for employer branding purposes and to help you recruit top talent. Sites like LinkedIn and Twitter can help you attract and engage both management and care staff. Branded online communities, like the one over at Terrace Communities, can function as a recruiting tool by posting jobs in the discussion forums and asking prospective employees participate in the online community during the interview process.
- Privacy and HIPAA issues, while important in our industry, should not prevent companies from adopting social technologies. With the proper strategies, policies, and guidelines in place, senior living and LTC companies can safely participate on the social web.
- A company blog is a critical tool in the social media tool box. It can drive traffic to your site, position your company as a trusted resource, and help you build community on the web. Whether you have a company blog or have yet to build one, these articles can help with your blogging strategy.
- Keeping up with the fast paced world of social media can be a job in and of itself, and presents as one of the biggest challenges for companies in every industry. New tools and applications enter the market every day. For companies in our industry, these 7 tools are the best place to start.
- Most senior living and LTC companies I've interviewed believe that social media ROI is difficult, if not impossible, to measure. Lucky for us, a couple of smart social media pros have shown that this is not necessarily the case. These articles cover the all-important ROI issue.
In part 2 of this series, which will be published next week, I will summarize what we learned from the interviews I conducted in the Social Media Success Series.
Build Your Social Media Presence In 2010
Thinking about starting a company blog? Interested in getting into social media but don't know where to start? Fascinated by the prospect of online community? Contact us. CareNetworks is the only company dedicated soley to providing social media strategy and solutions to senior living and LTC providers.
Brian Geyser, APRN-BC, MSN is a clinician, consultant, educator, blogger, social media strategist, online community manager and the founder of Carenetworks, LLC. He blogs regularly here at Carenetworks.com and would love to connect with you on Twitter, Linkedin, and/or Facebook.
Posted by Brian Geyser on Mon, Nov 30, 2009 @ 01:57 PM
As we've seen from my Social Media Success interview series and related posts, innovative senior living and LTC companies are beginning to discover the many benefits of social media and online community. These early adopters are paving the way for everyone else as they discover what works, and what doesn't on the social Web. Based on these posts, I've compiled a list (not in any particular order) of the top seven social media tools for the industry, along with some descriptions of why they made the list and how they can help your organization.
Social media is not a panacea. Your online presence and activities won't replace the relationships you build with residents and families and the great work you do in the physical world. However, used properly, these tools can accelerate your growth by helping you expand your online reach, attract and engage new customers, build relationships with prospects, and participate in the online conversations. Here's the list:
- Twitter. Noelle Kurth, Marketing Director for At Home Personal Care in Mesa, AZ showed us in this post that Twitter can be an easy, powerful, and free tool for networking with other professionals, broadcasting news and information about your company, recruiting, and building brand awareness. Twitter can help you build a community around your brand as well as keep you on top of important industry news and events in real time. By syndicating content from your blog or website to Twitter, you can build a following, enable sharing of your content, and drive traffic back to your website.
- Facebook. If there is one place online that you can bet many of your customers and prospects are hanging out, it's Facebook. Building a Facebook Page is a smart move for companies in our industry because it allows you to tap into an existing popular online community of boomers and seniors that's growing by the minute, literally. People who already have a Facebook account (and there's only about 300 million last I checked) can easily follow and engage with your company. The best part is that they can easily share their love for you with their friends. Like Twitter, Facebook Pages can be used to syndicate blog content, post news, information, and events, and share other multimedia content (like YouTube videos) with your followers. And like Twitter, Facebook can be used to help with employer branding and recruiting.
- Linkedin. This is THE social network for professionals. If you're a senior living or LTC professional, you should have a free Linkedin account. Linkedin allows you to build a professional network, share content, post job openings, research prospects, join industry groups, participate in forums, scan industry news, and much more.
- Blog. These days, a company blog is an essential tool in the online arsenal. I review the details of why you need a company blog in this post, but the bottom line is that a blog is a fantastic tool for building community, and for many companies, it can serve as a social media hub. Content and links are currency on the new social Web, and a blog allows you to publish content and distribute that content to your social media outposts like Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin. From there, your community can share your content with their friends - driving traffic back to your blog and website organically. This is called inbound marketing and it's much more powerful these days than in-your-face interruptive marketing. Another creative way to use a blog is to build one for your customers to use, like Beacon Hill Retirement Community did. You can check out an example of that here.
- YouTube. My friends over at Brookdale Senior Living do some good stuff with YouTube. Here's an example. YouTube makes it very easy to publish video content to your Website. If you have a blog, it's even easier to take your YouTube videos and embed them right into your posts. Video is an incredibly powerful medium, and with little or no money, you can create fantastic video content that your Twitter and Facebook fans will love (and share).
- Branded Online Community. For a more comprehensive social media solution (and here's the shameless plug for my business), a branded online community like the ones built by Terrace Communities and Living Well Assisted Living At Home may be your best bet. Branded online communities have a distinct advantage over using, say, Facebook to build community in that you have much more control over the platform, the features, the branding, the ads, and the content. Most community platforms include a blog and discussion forums and some, like the ones mentioned above, come with community calendars, file cabinets, and photo galleries - all of which can be syndicated to your social media outposts like Twitter, Linkedin, and Facebook. Learn more about branded online communities here.
- Email. Yes that's right, I said email. Email is actually the largest and most popular (by far) social media and online community platform in the world. If you think about it, anybody who uses email has an address book filled with the contact information of people in their various networks - and they connect, communicate, and share with their networks via email all the time. Tools like eNewsletters using platforms like MailChimp and ConstantContact can be a great way to stay in touch with your customers and provide them with interesting news and information (with linkbacks to your site or blog) that they can pass on to their email networks.
While all of these tools take proper strategy, resources, and time, the potential benefits to your organization, your customers, your staff, and your prospects are clear. Social networks and social media are fundamentally changing the way your customers and prospects learn, evaluate and ultimately make decisions. Social tools like the ones mentioned above are increasingly influential in marketing and sales practices. Customers seek evidence online to validate decisions and get instant feedback from their peers through social networks. By joining the conversation and giving people an opportunity to connect with you online, you have the ability to educate, inform, support and engage your audience in new ways never before possible. Are you using social media?
Related Posts
Are You A Marketing Professional?
Are you a marketer in senior living, home health, private duty homecare, or hospice? Join our new free online marketing community specifically for built for you. Get all of the networking benefits of attending a conference without ever leaving your office. To check it out, click here.
Brian Geyser, APRN-BC, MSN is a clinician, consultant, educator,
blogger, online community manager and the founder of Carenetworks, LLC. He blogs
regularly here at Carenetworks.com and would love to connect with you
on Twitter, Linkedin, and/or Facebook.
Posted by Brian Geyser on Wed, Nov 25, 2009 @ 12:49 PM
1. Just had a great conversation with @ over at Social Fish. She's for real, check her out
about 1 hour ago
from web
Brian Geyser has amazing vision; his new business, , seeks to connect patients, residents, families, staff (cont.)
2:25 PM Oct 3rd
from txt
3. What Senior Living Companies Can Learn About Community Building From Dell [Interview]
2:16 PM Nov 18th
from HubSpot
4. Any senior living or
homecare companies have a formal social media policy? I'm writing an
article about this and would like to include.
1:08 PM Nov 18th
from web
5. Why makes fiscal sense for [video]
1:44 PM Nov 17th
from bit.ly
6. Senior Living And Socialnomics: Why Online Community Makes Fiscal Sense [Video]
11:26 AM Nov 16th
from HubSpot
7. Interesting post - Social Media ROI: The Real Deal [SlideShare].
9:08 AM Nov 16th
from web
8. New online community for marketers in , , , , . Join here
3:58 PM Nov 15th
from bit.ly
9. Social Media ROI: The Real Deal [SlideShare]
11:34 AM Nov 14th
from HubSpot
10. Join the new online marketing community for senior living, homecare, LTC, hospice marketers. Connect, discover, share
4:22 PM Nov 12th
from bit.ly
11. CareNetworks.com Launches New Online Community For Marketers In Senior Living, Home Health, Private Duty Homecare, ...
2:49 PM Nov 11th
from HubSpot
12. @ Interviewed by @ for their prowess
3:37 PM Nov 6th
from web
13. Nation's Largest Senior Living Company Embraces Social Media [Interview]
3:13 PM Nov 6th
from HubSpot
14. Fourty-five % of 70-75 year olds are online How are you engaging them?
10:31 AM Nov 1st
from Twitterrific