Patients Force Progress for Hospitals to Use Social

It used to be that you would visit your doctor, receive a diagnosis and let nature take its course.

These days, in addition to routine doctor visits, many patients are taking matters into their own hands and using social media to help direct their medical journey.

“It’s all about empowerment,” said Shwen Gwee, vice president of digital health at Edelman. “Patients used to rely on their doctor to seek information. Now, they’re finding [online] communities that are related to the disease. They’re doing this because they can’t wait for the doctor. They’re living with this disease, and they need to find the answers.”

Social TV: Forget the Telly You Once Knew

With the onset of Social TV, and both hardware and software innovations on the horizon, television is on the verge of undergoing its most radical change since the introduction of cable/satellite.  But at the same time, viewers are exhibiting behavior that reinforces what’s made television so special up to this point.

We’ve all seen pictures of families in the 1940’s gathered around the radio.  They would even stare at the glowing dial, even though there was nothing to see.  But it was a special experience.  It was something families could do together.  They enjoyed discussing what was happening on the show.  And there was just one chance to hear it, after which, it was gone.  Every broadcast was an “event.”  That shared experience carried forward into the early days of television.

Five Considerations for Social Command Centers

It’s no secret that business has shifted to a real-time environment and social media tools are trying to keep up. As a result, organizations and brands must act in real-time. Some organizations have responded by building out what’s becoming known as “social command centers” in order to respond to this shift. Having built and operated our own command center (we call it the Social Intelligence Command Center or SICC), we’ve compiled five considerations for creating a similar space.

Are You Using the Social Business Model in Your Company?

Traditional business models, particularly in large organizations, have had as one common characteristic careful limitation of direct contact between those within the organization and those outside of it. Only certain specific individuals (most frequently in roles such as sales, customer service and field consulting) were designated as “customer-facing” personnel.

Organizations further limited outside access to internal employees through filtering mechanisms such as publishing only a main switchboard number (whether routed through a live receptionist or an interactive voice response system) and generic “sales@” or “info@” email addresses.

Sharpen Your Social Marketing: MarketingProfs’ Digital Marketing World Recap

Our friends at MarketingProfs hosted the most recent installation of their Digital Marketing World virtual conference series last Friday. The topic was that which no marketer can seem to get enough of these days, Social Media. It was interesting to see how social marketing has taken a profound shift from being about brand awareness to being about lead generation. Sharpening the harpoon of your social lead generation strategy is the new white whale that will be wrestled with and “white papered” to no end in this new era.

Integrate Social to Inform Product Development and Strategy

In this article, you'll learn...

• How social can fuel product strategy
• Three forms of social listening to incorporate in your online efforts

Though social media remains the hot topic in the larger marketing conversation, most marketers still rely on a diverse set of tools to develop their multichannel marketing campaigns and inform strategy.

In today's media environment, weaving diverse new and traditional tactics together in an integrated campaign makes the most sense.

Transforming into a Social CRM Enterprise

Being successful at social media often requires organizational change management. Here are some tips to follow.

It's no secret that the power of social media lies in the connections it creates. More companies, however, are also realizing that good social CRM connections can improve their bottom line as well.

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide is a case in point. The company's Starwood Preferred Guest loyalty program provides various ways for hotel guests to share their travel experiences and photos with family, friends, and other hotel guests on social media networks. As an added benefit, guests who check into one of its hotels with their Facebook or Foursquare account can receive "Starpoints," which can be applied toward free breakfasts and room upgrades.

Such social media efforts have helped to double the loyalty program's membership over the past five years. But, perhaps, more importantly, members are spending 60 percent more than they did five years ago.

These results would understandably whet any customer strategist's appetite. And, in fact, the promise of social CRM has done just that: Gartner is expecting social CRM sales to exceed $1 billion by the end of this year, up from $820 million last year.

From Social Sharing to Creative Collaboration

A Sharing Economy
The early part of the 21st century might be called the age of social media--though perhaps the era of sharing might be an even more appropriate description. Whatever we choose to call it though, there's little question that we've entered into a "sharing economy," creating an economic landscape wherein both for-profit businesses and non-profit organizations leverage the power of content sharing, to the greatest extent possible, to get the word out about their products, services, programs, and promotions.

The Social Evolution of New Media

The media industry has completely transformed in the last decade. While traditional media such as TV and print are regarded as evergreen, they no longer rule the roost in the marketing world. New Media – a term coined to represent a wide array of modern techniques including Web 2.0, Social Media and Rich Internet Applications (RIA) represents what is now the world’s most popular media.

Riding on the popularity of internet and explosion of social media, new media works on the unique principle of on-demand access to content any time, anywhere and on any device.

The Art and Science of Social Caring

How many times have you heard someone comment that they do not care about the idle chatter their connections publish on the social networks?

This may be what they enjoyed for lunch, how blue the sky is today, and that they are loving life or otherwise … HAVING AN AWESOME DAY!
The truth is you should care about everything your social connections share with you.

Here are two important reasons why.

Getting Ready For A Post-Search World

Search is no longer just one thing. At minimum, it’s two things: organic and paid. But, as the marketplace that holds it has evolved, search is so much more.

It’s a composite of methods; it’s an ingredient; it’s a mechanic; it’s a mindset. While it’s not yet unrecognizable, even marketers who once deemed it a silver bullet or their performance-marketing drug of choice must acknowledge that we have somewhat moved beyond search in its pure form.

It’s ironic that the very folks who perhaps took a bit too long to adopt search marketing in the first place than they should have, and who now consider it a vital method, must accept its transformation. But, it’s clear: In order to compete, we must come to terms with what is starting to feel like a Post-Search world, as we raise the bar, yet again.

Maybe We Now Know Why Facebook and Mobile Have Not Gotten Along?

Many people complain about Facebook’s mobile experience.For the longest time their app was just not very good. Even with the latest improvements the Facebook mobile experience still leaves a bit to be desired.

While it seemed that Facebook was simply focused on building their 900 million user powerhouse and mobile was backburnered as a result, that may not have been the case at all.
CNBC reports that as a result of early investor meetings there has been a change to the filings for Facebook’s IPO which indicates the trouble Facebook has with mobile.

Facebook said growth in the number of users using Facebook on mobile devices, which is hard to monetize, “may negatively affect our revenue and financial results.”
In an amended regulatory filing, the company said the number of people logging into Facebook is continuing to grow more quickly than the number of ads delivered.
Facebook said this is in part because more people are using the social network on mobile devices, where it shows a very small number of ads.

3 Keys to Influence Understanding and Leveraging Social Capital

Not all brand influencers are created equal, say the folks at Awareness, a social marketing software provider in its recent report 3 Keys to Influence: Understanding and Leveraging Influence. Most companies can use the report to guide them through the sticky maze of online social influencers and learn how to identify and leverage their clout.

Grow Your Social Capital

The secret, it seems, is about identifying those who can drive a brand’s social capital. Social capital can make or break you. According to the report, “Brands with larger social capital also have higher valuations, which ultimately delivers value to customers and partners, as well as shareholders.” Getting there, however is not always easy, but companies can harness influence in two ways to increase social capital: By leveraging influence from external sources, such as domain experts, and from internal sources, such as the brand’s existing customers and partners.

Choosing and Weaving Social Within a Multichannel Marketing Program

The world of marketing in small and large businesses is a siloed one. Companies have ad campaigns, PR plans, social media strategies, and websites built independently and bolted together in a haphazard manner. It’s surprising how rarely these disciplines work together to achieve corporate objectives like establishing a second vertical for a product, or increasing website sales by 30 percent year-over-year.
Multichannel strategy revolves around choosing and weaving tactics across media type to achieve these objectives. Our new book Marketing in the Round provides means and methods to do that in the current of era of widespread corporate social media adoption.
Here’s a sneak preview on method.

Tactical choices begin with objectives. Strong marketing programs begin by setting corporate objectives and goals. From there marketers examine the resources at hand, competitive positioning, and the general market landscape. This research allows them to determine a primary market approach, which is usually led by one of the disciplines, direct marketing, PR, advertising, or social media/interactive.

What Does the Future of F-Commerce Hold?

Source: eMarketer

The rising popularity of social networks and online shopping represents a significant opportunity for retailers with an ecommerce presence. Looking forward at projections for ecommerce predicted at 14% growth this year, there’s no doubt that online sales will continue to increase as more consumers jump on their laptops, mobile phones and tables to make purchases.  At the same time, an increasing number of people are involved in social media with Facebook taking the lion’s share of attention with 15% of all online time spent connecting with friends and family there.
Many retailers have looked to Facebook, or F-commerce, for that opportunity.

Are Companies Missing a Social Opportunity?

A new social media study released by Market Force Information suggests that companies are more influential on social media channels like Facebook and Twitter than many think. The study found that 81% of U.S. consumers are influenced by their friends’ social media posts, while a comparable 78% reported being influenced by posts from businesses. One of the significant takeaways from this research is that companies participating in social media may have a large role in influencing purchase decisions.

The Psychology of Social Engagement

It’s the buzzword of the week- “engagement”. In regards to the world of social media, engagement refers to how people interact with one another, specifically with your business. Gone are the days of holding your consumers at arms length making way for new advertising campaigns aimed at bringing businesses into an era of developing branded company-wide personalities that can be related to on a much more intimate level that ever before.
But what does it all mean for your business? The first step is to understanding the psychology of social media trends.

The Next Phase of Social Marketing

So you have millions of fans and followers… now what?
In the past few years, the explosive popularity of social media has led brands to collect massive followings on Facebook, Twitter, and other networks in what seems little more than a popularity contest to build out a “social presence.” Now that most major brands have spent money and time focused on collecting Likes and followers, the question posed to social media marketers is rapidly shifting to: "What comes next?"

10 Great Social Networking Tips and Tricks

Finding Smarter Ways to Use Social Media

These 10 social networking tips and tricks will help you build a stronger network and take your online presence to the next level. All are designed to make you think strategically and take advantage of timesaving tools to boost your effectiveness.

Here are 10 ways to boost your social standing online.

1. Listen to Your Audience

   The three most important factors in social networking are audience, audience, audience. Identify what kind of people you're trying to reach and pay attention to what they're saying. Build RSS feeds and monitor conversations using listening tools like TweetDeck, Social Mention and Seesmic. (Take this 10-step tutorial on how to use Social Mention to monitor many social networks at once.) Learn the basics of social metrics, or what to measure and why.

5 Tips for a Truly Social Business

Signs of social business are readily found on the internet today. But when considering social business inside the enterprise, the evidence isn't always as clear.
A social business (referring to the common definition associated with enterprise technology, akin to enterprise 2.0, and not to be confused with the similar label used to describe socially "conscious" and community minded organizations) is one that actively uses and weaves social media technology into many or most aspects of content consumption by the target audience — outside and inside the business.