Posted by Brian Geyser on Mon, Aug 30, 2010 @ 09:43 AM
An increasing number of senior living, LTC, and home care companies are using social technolgies like Facebook, Linkedin, Youtube, and Ning to engage customers, employees, and prospects and to build a community presence on the web. Companies like Terrace Communities and organizations like ALFA are leading the pack in this space. One of the biggest challenges companies face is lack of involvement and participation from community members. Launching a Facebook Page is pretty easy. Building a vibrant engaged community around your brand on Facebook or any other community platform and extracting value from it is hard.
There are lots of mistakes companies can make with their new online community sites. These blunders can produce "ghost town" communities with nothing but virtual crickets and tumbleweeds representing the brand - not good. So how can your company avoid the virtual ghost town senario? Here a few pointers:
Build community around your members, not your brand. Remember this: your online community is not about you, it's about the members. Focus most of the activities on what is important to the members. Be community-centric, not brand-centric. Increased involvement (and probably sales) will likely be a nice by-product of this approach. To quote social media expert Chris Brogan, "To me, the new unit of business should be relationships. You get more fruit from an apple tree if you nurture it and pick apples when it’s ripe, instead of uprooting the tree and forcefully shaking the apples into your barrel. It takes a bit longer, but you’re a farmer and a steward, not a machinist."
Find your champions. Seed the community with members who are committed to its purpose, who care about the community, its members and its mission. Find employee champions who are dedicated to the cause and empower them to participate.
Keep content fresh and relevant. Know what your members want and deliver it on a regular basis. Post fresh content to the site twice a week, add photos and videos every other week, start or join a discussion several time per week.
Be informative. Offer interesting content that will help members solve their problems. What are the biggest problems your customers and their family members face? Provide content related to those problems.
Build a reputation as an expert. In your staff, family members, and residents, your organization has many experts in many fields. Allow these people to share their expertise in the forums or in a blog post.
Be persistent. You can't expect to build a large vibrant community overnight. Online communities are like marathons, not sprints - gardens, not fast food joints. Nurture, and keep at it.
Welcome new members and encourage them to participate. Send new members a personalized welcome message, make them feel at home, and teach them how to get involved. Avoid sending canned welcome messages.
Create interactions and contributions around your services. Foster opportunities for customers, prospects, and staff to talk about your brand. This is called "social commerce" and it can be a powerful tool to drive interest AND sales.
Focus on inspiring, not perspiring. Don't worry so much about how many people are visiting the site, how many members you have, and how many prospects who visit the site convert to sales. It's more important to focus on creating authentic emotional connectedness, interesting conversations, and a sense of purpose within the community. The rest will take care of itself.
Have a good community manager. Your community manager can help with everything listed above and can be a catalyst for growth and a partner for success. What does a community manager do? A lot. Here's a list.
What other things can you think of that will ensure the success of your online community?
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Posted by Brian Geyser on Wed, Aug 25, 2010 @ 12:28 PM
This new report issued by Altimeter Group can help senior living, LTC, and home care companies make the most of Facebook. The report, based on input from 34 industry vendors and consulting agencies, outlines eight criteria for determining the success of Facebook pages from companies’ perspectives, and in doing so provides a useful set of general guidelines for marketers managing or launching Pages. Here it is. Enjoy.
The 8 Success Criteria For Facebook Page Marketing
For industry-specific guidance and support with your social media or online community initiatives, drop us a line. We're here to help.
Posted by Brian Geyser on Wed, Aug 25, 2010 @ 12:16 PM
Mayo Clinic just announced in this press release that they have created a new Center for Social Media. They say that the Center "exists to improve health globally by accelerating effective application of social media tools throughout Mayo Clinic and spurring broader and deeper engagement in social media by hospitals, medical professionals and patients."
Since 2008, Mayo has been using social media tools for employee engagement and, over time, they have become a shining example of how health care institutions can leverage social media to educate and inform the public.
Lee Aase, Mayo's Manager for Syndications and Social Media, also created Social Media University Global (SMUG), a free online resource for learning about all things social media. You can visit SMUG's Facebook Page here.
In this video, Dr. Victor Montori, Mayo's Medical Director of the new Center, discusses this potentially revolutionary new venture.
Need help with your social media initiatives? Contact us for a free social media assessment. We won't try to sell you anything, we promise:-)
Posted by Brian Geyser on Fri, Jul 30, 2010 @ 10:04 AM
If you're a fan of CareNetworks, you follow our blog, you're a senior living, LTC, or home care professional, or you just love social media and want to learn how to apply it to your senior care business, the CareNetworks Facebook Community is for you. This small but growing community is where we post interesting content, share tips and resources, and dialog with our fans and friends. Join us by clicking the image below. We'll see you there!
You can also visit us on:
Thank you!
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.
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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 Sun, Jul 18, 2010 @ 12:58 PM
After months o
f data collection, story boarding, editing, and motion graphic experimentation, we've finally completed and uploaded our first YouTube video. I want to thank Steve Povilonis for the many hours of work he put in on this project. Also, thanks to Eric Qualman, who's Social Media Revolution video, which to date has been viewed over 2 million times, inspired us to create this one. Finally, thanks to all of the early-adopter senior living and home care companies featured in the video. You're all pioneering social media best practices for the industry.
We plan to update the video each year with the latest stats and hottest social companies from the industry, so if you think your company is worthy of inclusion in the 2011 version, let us know. Enjoy.
Posted by Brian Geyser on Fri, Jul 02, 2010 @ 09:19 AM
Back in September 2009, I interviewed Noelle Kurth, Corporate Communications Director (and social media marketing machine) for At Home Personal Care based out of Salt Lake City, Utah. The article, "Home Care Company Uses Twitter to Build Brand Awareness and More," is one of our most popular posts. At that time, Noelle was helping the company design and build a new website and social media hub to replace their traditional brochure-style website.
Recently I decided to check in with Noelle to see how the new site was serving her and the company. Here's what she had to say:
Thanks for checking in! Wow, our new site has definitely served us well over the last 4-5 months!
When creating the new site, I knew we had to utilize a “contact form” in order to capture data for our leads. This has been the biggest difference. Users can fill out our specific form to include fields like who is in need of care, care level, location, email, phone, etc. Then I can distribute the leads based on location and our care managers can follow up on them. Most recently, our Utah office turned a web lead into a $5,000 a month client!
I have been working diligently at driving traffic to our site and keeping our content “fresh” with new articles, videos, etc. We have seen definite improvements in our Utah and Texas market as far as SEO. I use Google Analytics to track progress. In 4 ½ months, we have had 16,015 page views with an average of 4:23 seconds time on site. 76.63% are new visitors and we have a nice mix of traffic coming from direct, search engines, and referring sites. I use link building tactics, social media, and our email campaigns to help promote the site. I have also redesigned most of our promotional items and print material to include our web address. Some of our material did not have it included previously.
I also implemented some online web “contests." We partnered with a National Gift Basket Company and hold different contests depending on the holiday or time of year. During our Mothers Day Contest, we saw a 700% spike in traffic during the course of the contest, which was about a month. Each market promotes the contest with press releases, social media, and general networking. The Gift Company also promotes the contest on their site and social media outlets, so it’s a win-win. We do other fun things like “Caregiver of the month” etc. and promote with social media.
Not only have our patients and families commented on how well designed the site is, but also our referring partners and community alliances. I have even had competitors comment on our site. Its all very exciting and we are happy with the results thus far.
- Noelle
Now for a look at the new site compared to the old one...
OLD SITE
NEW SITE
The new AHPC website incorporates a search engine, contact forms, social bookmarking and sharing capability, a blog, and ample opportunity to engage visitors on various social outposts like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.
Hats off to Noelle and the AHPC team for designing a great site that serves as both a resource destination and a social media hub for visitors and a lead generator and relationship builder for the company. As you can see from Noelle's note, positive results do not come easy. She spends a ton of time nurturing the hub and it's various outposts, creating content, building partnerships, monitoring for comments and inquiries, and designing engaging campaigns that - like gravity - pull people into the site's orbit. So, if you think you're simply going to launch a Facebook page and have a volunteer or intern manage it for one hour per week and suddenly get results, think again. Noelle is a skilled social media practitioner with all of the qualities necessary to help her company succeed in this socially networked world.
If you don't have a social media rock star like Noelle Kurth at your senior living, home care, or LTC company, but you want to leverage social media for your business, contact us, we may be able to help. And yes, that is a call to action;-)
Kudos to Colby Wright of CW Design for his work on AHPC site.
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Posted by Brian Geyser on Tue, Jun 29, 2010 @ 09:00 AM
I co-manage a vibrant online community for senior care marketers called the Daily Grind, and every so often, I pose a question to the community members. Back in April, 2010, I asked this: If you could ask any question about social media as it relates to our industry, what would it be? Many people responded. You can view the entire thread here. Below is a summary of some of the questions, and the answers I gave...
1. How do I find a credible vendor that I can trust that understands social media. What should I look for when selecting a vendor?
Look for a vendor that has a good track record of using social media for their own business. If the vendor is not blogging, using Twitter and Facebook, etc. successfully themselves, they cannot do a good job helping you. Also, if they tell you social media is easy and will provide huge returns, run. Finally, try to use someone with knowledge of and experience in our industry.
2. How do I overcome the IT department's lack of support?
Education. Education. Education. IT departments need to develop a meaningful understanding of how social technologies both inside and outside the corporate firewall can benefit, and possibly harm, the company. Those of us within companies that have this knowledge need to demonstrate the transformative potential of social technologies to IT and other stakeholders. We need to champion the cause. We need to bring these tools to the right people and prove their value.
3. How do I find the time to manage social media?
The first and most obvious answer is you need to make time - you can't afford not to. Find things you spend time doing in your week that are not working and replace them with new media initiatives. Your customers make time to get online to do research and make purchasing decisions and your competitors make time to provide your customers with information and help them with purchasing decisions. But beyond that, you need to develop a strategy that keeps you focused on the business goals of the tools you choose to use. Pull to together a team of internal folks and disperse the work load. If you need to, hire a pro to help you out.
4. We don't have the money to invest in the development of social media. What does an on line community cost?
I can't be more clear about this - you can't afford not to invest some resources in social media. The longer you wait, the more invisible you become. Early adopters will have a distinct advantage in this space as time goes on. This has been proven by large companies like Zappos and Coke. If you have the right people in your organization - staff who use social technologies in their personal lives - and you dedicate some time to the cause, you can start using social media for very little up front cost.
5. What does it typically cost to start using social media?
See above. If you do it on your own, it could only costs your time. Then again, time is money, so it's going to cost you money regardless of how you do it. Right now I'm working with a small homecare company that has chosen to "go social" using me as their guide. They are dedicating $1000 per month to the effort and together we are going to transform their online presence over the course of 6-12 months. They elected to shift dollars away from T.V. and radio ads that were not producing desired results and move that money into a social strategy. This is just one example and cost can vary. There are generally three ways to do this: 1. Do-it-Yourself (DIY), 2. Done-for-You (DFY), 3. Done-with-You (DWY). I prefer the Done-with-You approach and that's how I work with my clients.
6. How do we get our residents families to participate in our social media?
By marketing your social sites effectively and giving them a reason to participate. First, they have to know about the sites and how to access them. Second, if you have a blog or Twitter account and all you ever do is shout about how great you are, nobody will care. You have to provide value in order for people to keep coming back. See my articles, "What Every LTC Organization Needs to Know About Their Website" and "Ten Reasons Why Your Company's Blog Sucks" for more on this.
7. Are videos the way to go and how does it affect our SEO?
Absolutely YES to both. Video is taking over the internet and can drive tons of traffic to your site. I refer you to this article
I wrote on Brookdale Senior Living. Take a look at the video on the bottom of the post. You should also take a look at Brookdale's YouTube Channel
- It's awesome! They know how to rock video and are a model for how YouTube can be used by senior living/LTC companies for everything from marketing to SEO, to customer support. Finally, check out "HOW TO: Boost Your SEO with a YouTube Channel" which was just published by Mashable.
For more discussion on social media best practices for senior living, LTC and home care, join us over at Daily Grind and/or consider a free membership in ALFA's new online community ALFA Exchange, where you can dialog with me and other pros in the Social Media Best Practices Forum.
Posted by Jennifer Hill on Mon, Jun 28, 2010 @ 01:19 PM
These days, an increasing number of senior living, home care, and LTC companies are using social media to reach out to social customers and prospects. At CareNetworks, we're always on the look out for companies who are innovating in this space and who are helping to shape social media best practices for the industry. So we scanned the web and found five companies worth taking a look at.
1. Senior Helpers. This non-medical home care company has a well designed website that acts as their social media hub with active outposts on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. They also have a WordPress blog
where they post generic articles about wellness, aging, and care giving. Their reach is pretty significant with 2,302 Twitter followers, 488 Facebook fans, and thousands of views of their many YouTube videos.
2. Adeste In-Home Care. This welcoming site is definitely one of my favorites. The non-medical home care company has an awesome blog
that is updated multiple times per month with search-optimized articles such as, "Questions to Ask Before You Hire a Companion Agency for Your Elderly Parents." The blog provides great information and tips, especially for people whose parents need home care. On Twitter, they post tons of informational articles to over 1,550 followers. I was also very impressed with the list of resources they provide. They suggest support sites like Senior Information Network and SeniorNet to help family members feel comfortable and confident with their decisions. Their Facebook page seems to be new with very little content and only a few fans.
3. Emeritus Senior Living.
This national senior living company has definitely made a dent in the social media world. They have one of the best senior living Facebook pages
I’ve seen with over 1,440 fans. There are tons of images of different events they've held or conferences they have attended. It includes discussion boards and personal testimonials about the transition into senior living from both residents and family members. I was also impressed by the “Ask the Expert” portion of the website. Viewers can ask Dr. Vicki Rackner, M.D. any question and have an answer within 24 hours. Emeritus has partnered with an agency called Aging with Grace that seniors and their loved ones can call with questions and see what others are asking. They also have a Twitter page with about 345 followers.
4. Provision Living. This senior living company website includes links to developing Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn pages, as well as a tab dedicated to their Senior Assisted Living Blog. The blog is updated often and keeps readers informed on current events and happenings in the each of the companies communities. Blog readers have the option to e-mail articles or share them on Twitter, Facebook, Digg and LinkedIn. The blog's most popular article to date is "Green Tree at Post Road Opens New Units and Adds Jobs."
5. Senior Living Communities. While this senior living company has a Fledgling social media presence, what they seem to do very well is video. For example, Donald Thompson, the company CEO, has a series of video blog posts where he talks candidly about everything from the cost of living in one of their communities to the company's stability over the past 21 years. The videos are very well done, except for the fact that there doesn't seem to be a way to share them across the social web - big mistake! Additionally, the company's Facebook page is not very engaging and doesn't take advantage of the great videos they produce. This is a good example of missed opportunity where a company has great social objects (videos) to share, but no way to easily share them on social sites.
If you find other senior living, home care, or LTC companies experimenting with social media and they're worthy of writing about, let us know about them in the comments section below. Also, we welcome your feedback on these sites!
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To learn more about how we can help you build or enhance your social media presence, 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:
Jennifer Hill
is currently at senior at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York. She is a Communications major concentrating in Public Relations and Journalism and minoring in Psychology. You can connect with her on Twitter on LinkedIn.