In times of need and tragedy, when everyone is feeling helpless, the desire to provide service of any kind is overwhelming. And not so surprisingly, that is where Facebook can come into play. When catastrophes like the Oklahoma tornado occur, there are stories of hope and good will that emerge – stories that will touch and break your heart, restoring your faith in humanity. Social media has become a key player in these stories…

 

Facebook Group Brings People, Belongings Together

On May 19^th, not long after the horrific EF 4 tornado ripped through Shawnee, and Moore, Oklahoma, a Facebook Group was created titled May 19^th 2013 OK Tornado Doc & Picture Recovery. Even in the chaos and confusion, local residents began posting images of documents and photos that they’ve found on their property:

Found in Ronda Humphries yard north of Bristow

Found in Bartlesville

Found in sapulpa on 5/20/13 in the am please message to claim.

As of 8:30am (AZ Time) on Tuesday morning, this Facebook Group had approximately 8,700 Group Members. We expect that number to climb.

In the face of such a tragedy, it is the little things like a lost photo of brother and sister that can give people the hope and courage to continue on. Since the moment of the tornado, there have been numerous Facebook Pages and Groups popping up in service and support, from lost pets to missing family members.

So, as Facebook takes heat for it’s advertising and privacy methods, it’s failing stock market numbers, and a million other things, people often forget how valuable, how beneficial having this amazing resource is in times of need.

Think seniors aren’t on Facebook? You could be thinking wrong, very wrong, and it could cost you and your healthcare marketing budget. According to Forbes.com, those 65 years and older are changing: they are living longer, are more active, and becoming increasing literate online. In healthcare marketing, where seniors are a very large demographic for many of our clients, it’s important not to forget how important they are to the overall bottom line.

65+ on Social Media

According to Forbes.com, not only does this age group have 47 times the net worth of households headed by those 35 and older, but they are now the fastest growing users of social media. Forbes.com goes on to say that there are currently 39 million people aged 65 and older using Facebook, Twitter, and Skype, making them the fastest growing demographic on these sites.

Seniors are flocking to social media for many of the same reasons that everyone else is – to connect with friends and family, to share photos, and, ironically, 20% are joining Facebook for the games. Grandparents are highly attracted to the concept of seeing photos of grandkids and family members at any time, from any place. Birthday parties, graduations, summer vacations and more can now be shred instantly with grandparents across social media.

So, how does this affect healthcare marketing and your bottom line? Targeting seniors via social media and social media advertising is no longer just a thought, it’s a reality. Consider separate Facebook accounts that can be highly targeted to this demographic.

For example, physicians can create a whole new campaign targeting seniors on topics of Medicare, senior discounts, senior health and wellness, and much more. These are topics that might not engage your younger demographic, so a new FB page targeting this specific crowd won’t leave anyone in the dust.

While seniors might appreciate more emotional posts with children and families portrayed in advertising and images, the younger crowd will overlook these strategies in favor of those with more creativity, more punch, and more spontaneity.

Though seniors are online for many of the same reasons the younger demographics are, they are attracted to incredibly different aspects of healthcare marketing campaigns. Keep this in mind when developing your next social media strategy.

Need help targeting this ‘fastest growing demographic on Facebook?’ We can help! Give Quaintise a call today!

I didn’t necessarily want to write about this ‘epic’ failure, simply because if you are online and you haven’t heard about it, you’ve probably been living under a rock. Amy’s Baking Company Bakery Boutique & Bistro, located right here in Scottsdale, Arizona, has been all over not only local news, but also national news as well with their Facebook fiasco. Being that we are in healthcare marketing, and from the same city where this debacle took place, I had to post something.

Amy’s Baking Company Bakery Boutique & Bistro

Right here in downtown Scottsdale is Amy’s Baking Company Bakery Boutique & Bistro, a small bakery/boutique that, until recently, was fairly unknown unless you had visited their location. However, that all took a turn for the worse when Amy’s Baking Company was offered the spotlight on Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares. Whether you are a fan of the show or not, the drama exploded and Chef Ramsey refused to work with Amy and Samy, and the show ended in high entertainment fashion.

 

To make a long story short, Fans and bystanders flocked to Amy’s Facebook and Yelp pages, leaving scathing reviews and comments. Amy and Samy returned fire with relentless rants, blaming each and every individual for corruption and a plot against them and their Scottsdale bakery. Currently, Amy’s Bakery is in full reputation management mode with a newly hired PR firm and rebranding effort.

Physicians: Teachable Moment

As a physician, you treat hundreds, if not thousands of patients with the ultimate goal of providing quality service, diagnosis and treatment. You just want to make people feel better. However, because you can’t please everyone, occasionally you will receive a poor review on Yelp or a scathing comment on Facebook. It’s inevitable. What is not inevitable, however, is the manner in which you handle this poor comment, or comments.

Do not do what Amy and Samy did!

Do Not respond in anger! If you feel the rise of disgust, walk away from the computer and take a moment to collect your thoughts.

Do Not call your patients, Yelper and Facebook Fans ‘punks!’ In fact, don’t use any harsh tone or reckless name-calling. You are a professional, and you represent your entire brand image. What you do on your personal, private Facebook page is your business, but Do Not transfer these emotions to your business brand.

Do Not repeatedly post negativity! This doesn’t just go for those moments when you feel attacked, it goes for every single moment that you are utilizing Facebook for healthcare marketing. Posts should be informative, educational, fun and positive on all levels!

Do Not yell at your Facebook Fans with caps locked! Never, under any circumstances reply to a comment or poor review in caps locked. Even if it happened on accident, even if you were responding from your phone and didn’t realize the caps were locked, edit that response and fix it immediately.

Do Not refer to religion! Unless you are a religious organization or your business brand has a religious affiliation, do not bring religion into any discussion on your business Facebook page.

When handling poor reviews or a stream of inappropriate comments, remain calm.

Do respond immediately with sensitivity. The sooner that you can squelch the negativity, the better.

Do offer to fix the problem. As a physician, it is your responsibility to make your patients feel better. No matter what the situation, as horrible as this sounds, you need to fix it. I didn’t understand this many years ago when I first got started in healthcare marketing because if a patient deserved poor treatment, it was justified in my eyes. However, if you want to utilize healthcare marketing on social networks successfully, you absolutely have to fix the patient problem, whatever it might be. You cannot have a negative review or poor comment available for everyone to see with no response.

Do respond with positivity. Be as positive and light-hearted as possible. Take blame if you need to, take responsibility, and own up to the problem.

Do respond with responsibility. Another one of the best ways to squelch an onslaught of poor reviews is to respond by taking responsibility for the problem.

Do apologize! I can’t stress this enough. Sometimes an apology is all it takes.

Above all, remain humble in healthcare marketing when responding to poor reviews. Sometimes, the best medicine when dealing with poor reviews is to let an expert, a 3^rd party who is not as emotionally connected with your business, to handle the situation. Quaintise is that 3^rd party. Give us a call today!

By targeting the right consumer at the right time, the right place with the right message, we can get the most out of a marketing budget.  In other words, fish where the fish are.  Put your time, effort and money where they can do the most good. – Forbes.com

In healthcare marketing, many times the budget dictates the campaigns, which reverberates into results. The bigger the marketing budget, the more flexibility an advertising firm has and the greater reach that agency can accomplish for its clients. However, spending that budget wisely, no matter how large or small it may be, can truly mean the difference between results and waste.

Improved Data and Targeting

Healthcare marketing agencies in Los Angeles with their hands on the pulse of big data have the right idea. Not only understanding your audiences demographics, but their behavior during any given moment of the day increases the likelihood that you’ll hit them at the right time, in the right place, with the right message. From loyalty cards to credit card spending habits, from the types of food purchases made to the types of interests on Facebook – all of these things and more are categorized, reviewed for behavior patterns, relationship patterns, and much more with one goal in mind – to improve targeting and remarketing.

So, the process of marketing becomes less about split testing and wasting half of your budget on advertising that is not effective, and more about developing ad campaigns that will hit the right audience, at the right time, on the right platform. In terms of healthcare marketing, this not only retains and optimizes a much greater percentage of the client’s budget, it improves upon the money spent – and that’s money spent well.

Consumer Intent and Marketing Budgets

In addition to more efficient audience targeting, healthcare marketing agencies on the cusp of advertising trends know how to identify and market to a consumer’s intent, creating a personalized online experience that reaps some serious results.

Marketing to a consumer’s intent is superlative, and the future of healthcare marketing. Healthcare agencies with their fingers on the pulse of the future of advertising understand that when a consumer clicks on your banner ad, FB page, or mobile app, there is intent to complete a purpose. What is it that made them click through and how can you capitalize on it?

Quaintise has the answers to that question and many more. No matter how large or small your healthcare marketing budget is, we have the resources, experience, and proficiency to accomplish your goals. Give us a call today!

Creating an entire content marketing campaign is more than just posting a blog and sharing that blog on Facebook and Twitter – it’s about focusing all of your creative, advertising and healthcare marketing attention onto one topic and making that one brand message, that one discussion, go viral. For the purpose of this article, let’s focus on a content marketing campaign that we have launched for Skin Cancer Awareness Month with a very special client Family Practice Specialists.

 

Creating the Content

Family Practice Specialists has two dermatologists on staff, both of which concentrate on skin cancer prevention. Considering this is already a focus on the client’s, we developed a content marketing strategy to promote these dermatologists during Skin Cancer Awareness Month.

Step one is to create the content. All throughout the month of May we are creating highly optimized blogs related to skin cancer, prevention, protection, treatment, diagnosis, concerns, and much more. Each piece of content is saturated with keywords, relevant to Skin Cancer Awareness Month, and contains a strong call to action. Each blog is a landing page in itself, engaging to the reader, educational to those interested in learning more about skin cancer, and ultimately a source for targeted traffic for our client.

Step two in this specific healthcare marketing case is Facebook. In order to maintain the brand message throughout the month, Quaintise developed custom, branded images both for specific Facebook content posts as well as the Facebook Cover Photo. By updating the client’s Facebook Cover Photo we can alert Facebook users to the fact that May is Skin Cancer Awareness Month and Family Practice Specialists has all of the answers.

Included in step two is the integration of the client’s blogs onto Facebook is a strategic and enhanced manner. There is no way a healthcare marketing campaign such as this will succeed with simple blog posts. This campaign takes custom created and branded photos with enriched text and data collection. The posts must be perfect in order to create the biggest buzz.

Step three is in this client’s healthcare marketing campaign is advertising. Facebook advertising through Power Editor allows Quaintise to target exactly who might be at risk for developing skin cancer in Arizona. Through the Power Editor we can hit a specific demographic based on their geo-location (near the Family Practice Specialist offices), the gender, age, activities and lifestyle. While statistics show that men are at a greater risk for skin cancer, it is women who are more receptive to taking in our information and converting it.

We create an enhanced ad that appeals to our target demographic to drive traffic back to the website.

Step four is to monitor, rinse and repeat. Healthcare marketing content campaigns such as the one we are currently running for Family Practice Specialists must be precise, relevant, immediate, transparent and efficient in order to be effective. If you’re interested in running a full-scale content healthcare marketing campaign, give Quaintise a call today.

Business-2-business marketing is an important aspect of many healthcare marketing campaigns, with the ultimate end goal being strong lead generation among a targeted audience. There are still many in the healthcare marketing field that avoid social media like the plague, foolishly believing that B2B marketing cannot be successfully achieved on social media. When, in fact, social media is the perfect and most effective place to start.

 

Google+

With a slow and steady start, Google+ is becoming the next big thing in social media, especially when tied to SEO campaigns. As of last month, Google+ had over 350 million active users, and while that number might pale in comparison to larger platforms such as Facebook, that is a great number then LinkedIn, a popular B2B medium.

The pure genius of Google+ that works into an overall Google SEO campaign is it’s integration into social search results. Content that is posted on Google+, or content that is branded with Authorship Markup, has a greater chance of ranking higher on search results because that content is fed into the personal search results of Google+ circles.

Because Google+ is a Google product, it behooves any B2B healthcare marketing agency to utilize it to it’s fullest capabilities. And from Google+ business pages to personal pages to local searches based on geo-location and product associations, this social platforms offers endless possibilities.

LinkedIn for Healthcare Marketing

Initially created to build business relationships, Linkedin is another wonderful platform for B2B healthcare marketing. According to SearchEngineWatch.com, the obvious opportunities in using LinkedIn as a marketing tool include personal branding for executives, sales development for business development professionals and marketing opportunities via LinkedIn targeted, real-time lead gen advertising.

Paid marketing on Linkedin is highly sophisticated, allowing the healthcare advertiser to target specific demographics by location, industry title, company, as well as gender, schooling, and much more.

LinkedIn also provides business owners with the ability to connect personally with followers on a daily basis. LinkedIn users can follow a company, much like on many other social platforms, allowing for comments and engagement.

One of the greatest aspects of LinkedIn for B2B healthcare marketing is the ability to research prospective clients and even the competition, their employees, services, and much more.

Facebook for Healthcare Marketing

While there is still great discussion and heated controversy regarding Facebook’s influence in the B2B healthcare marketing industry, the professionals at Quaintise still find this platform incredibly useful. One of Facebook’s greatest assets is it’s ability to reach thousands of potential customers and business owners on an extremely targeted level.

With Facebook Ads, you now have the ability to target specific business owners in specific fields and industries, giving B2B healthcare marketers the power to customize a FB User’s experience with your brand.

Another powerful tool that Faceobok allows is the opt-in feature for email marketing. Taking advantage of email marketing in the healthcare field has been shown to greatly increase brand awareness and engagement.

While there are many social media networks available for B2B healthcare marketing agencies, it’s important to select the most efficient in order to improve ROI. Let the team at Quaintise assist you! Contact us for more information:

According the a recent blog on VentureBeat.com, the term “marketing automation” has had more Google searches in the beginning months of 2013 than it has at any other point over the past three years. What does that tell healthcare marketing agencies like Quaintise? It says – business owners want to add aspects of marketing, but want to keep a small budget while still having complete control.

 

Marketing automation gives business owners a false sense of security regarding their marketing efforts. It’s a system that leads physicians and business owners to believe they have complete control of their marketing campaigns, and that they are succeeding at the marketing game. When, in fact, it is quite often the exact opposite.

Healthcare Automation vs Healthcare Marketing Agencies

Marketing automation is quick and easy, but not always effective. Physicians can set up a campaign, an email campaign for example, and let the automated service take care of the rest. I really can’t say it any better than the author in the VentureBeat.com article – marketing automation is nothing but a glorified spamming engine.

Automated marketing campaigns were designed to make life simpler for the average business owner or physician. They were designed to power your marketing efforts so that you wouldn’t have to. However, in this industry of automated marketing you ultimately run into the problem of bad habits and just plain bad marketing.

Automated marketing systems to not understand your Fans, nor your demographic, like you do. These systems cannot integrate relevant topics the way an agency can, nor personalize an ad campaign or evaluate real-time responses and comments the way an agency can.

Worst of all, automated marketing systems will forget bad habits, where the small business owner or physician will eventually fall into complete dependence on automation for email blasts, FB posts, Twitter updates, even blog and press release development.

Marketing agencies like Quaintise, with expert, professional team members who have years of experience in your specific industry of healthcare are unmatched by automated marketing systems. With a personal touch, passion, know-how and dedication there is really nothing that automated marketing systems have on the team at Quaintise.

For more information or to contact us directly…

The days of one-way, one-sided promotional brand messaging are over. In reality, they’ve been over for some time now in the opinions of many expert Quaintise healthcare marketers. With the remarkable and various brand messaging channels available today providing multiple consumer interactions, if you are still adhering to a one-sided conversation you have already fallen light-years behind. Let’s take a look at where your healthcare marketing campaigns should be in 2013.

Conversational Healthcare Marketing

Despite the fact that social media has been practically overly-publicized, many physicians and healthcare providers continue to ignore the obvious. Whether it’s fear of the unknown, an unwillingness to progress with the ebbs and flows of healthcare marketing, or downright stubbornness, conversational marketing is here and many in the healthcare industry are choosing to ignore it.

According to a recent survey by Zeno’s Group, over one-third of CEO’s fail to consider their company’s online reputation when making business decisions. From our experience, it would seem that statistics on physicians probably show a far worse scenario.

Here’s the rub – avoiding conversational marketing and social media brand messaging does not mean that your business becomes invisible to consumers and patients. What many physicians fail to understand is that they are already on social media and already have a very large online presence, however (if we’ve said it once we’ve said it a million times) it’s whether that very large online presence is voiced by your, or by your audience.

Ignoring conversational healthcare marketing does not make it go away – in fact, it leaves your brand completely vulnerable to becoming a target of potential negative activity and online conversations completely out of your control.

Conversational Marketing and SEO

For the sake of this argument, let’s say that you are not concerned with your online reputation; whether it’s good or bad you are indifferent. However, you are concerned with your brand’s search engine rankings. Your SEO team works tirelessly to increase your online rankings for local keywords in order to drive increased traffic to your website, and consequently increased foot traffic through your doors.

Bing and Google have admitted that ‘social signals’ are taken into account when ranking websites. With that understood, it is important that you incorporate social media into your healthcare marketing campaigns if nothing else but for SEO benefits. However, there is a stark difference between having a blog and social media accounts and having interactive, conversation accounts – and Bing and Google do take note of this.

Let the healthcare marketing professionals at Quaintise get you on the right path to successful conversational marketing.

I’ll share a Quaintise secret with you – nearly 80% of all new client Facebook Likes comes from mobile devices. This should be no surprise to other healthcare marketing agencies, seeing that by the fourth quarter of last year, mobile generated 23 percent of Facebook’s advertising revenue, up from 14 percent in the third quarter, and at the end of last year had over 600 million active mobile users. Facebook and mobile goes hand-in-hand, and you need to know how to develop a physician Facebook Page that can compete in the mobile world.

 

Facebook Mobile Healthcare Marketing Tips

A recent study was conducted of 7,446 iPhone and Android smartphone owners between the ages of 18 to 44. From this survey, researchers discovered that Facebook (70%) use on mobile phones trailed only behind email (78%) and web browsing (73%). These are important statistics to keep in mind considering how important and how much focus Facebook is placing not only on mobile advertising, but on mobile ‘nearby’ apps.

Nearby – Though this mobile feature is new, and currently not known by many mobile Facebook users, it has great potential for the future. Nearby uses the social graph of you and your friends to suggest nearby restaurants, retail stores, and other places of interest. The potential here is that if a potential patient’s friends or family has Liked, Shared, Checked In or Recommended your physician offices in the past, that potential patient will see your offices pop up before any other physician’s offices in the Nearby App. Why is this important? Because 68% of Facebook users (in a recent study) have said that a positive referral from a Facebook friend would make them more likely to buy a specific product or visit a certain business.

Offers – Facebook Offers is exactly what it sounds like – offers that you can create on your physician page for your Facebook Fans. By providing offers to your Facebook Fans, those on mobile devices will be far more likely to utilize your physician offices for, let’s say, allergy shots or flu vaccines then they’re local pharmacist.

Promoted Posts – Promoted Posts are a way to get your Facebook status updates in front of more eyes, ultimately increasing Reach and growing brand awareness. As the title suggests, promoted posts do exactly that – they promote specific posts to the top of the News Feed of your current Fans (to increase engagement) and to Friends of your Fans (to increase brand awareness). It is a wonderful little tool that is easy to use, highly efficient on Facebook mobile, and inexpensive to get started.

With a variety of options for increasing mobile engagement, it’s important that you make each and every Facebook post count, that you continue to drive traffic to your website by including your URL in posts, and that you provide relevant and engaging information to your Fans.

If you want the best social media marketing team in Los Angeles to handle your Facebook healthcare marketing campaign, give Quaintise a call today!

Do your patients watch Dr. Oz? Do they enjoy The Doctors as well? How about shows like The Biggest Loser or read Runners Magazine? If you know these details of your patient’s interests, you can develop incredibly targeted ad campaigns on Facebook. Let Quaintise take you on a little trip through some of the Facebook Advertising secrets of the trade.

Understanding Your Audience – The Red Tape

As the title of this article states, most physicians and specialists do not have the correct forms for their patients to fill out. Welcome forms are pretty standard, including medical history, insurance information, and some of the most personal questions that some can think to answer. But, they are missing some key ingredients to assist in a physician’s overall healthcare marketing campaign.

 

Your new doctor welcome packet should include the patient’s email address for your records, as well as their hobbies, interests, favorite sports teams, favorite tv shows, foods and movies. You want to gain an understanding not only of this patients simple demographics (name, age, workplace, income, etc), but their behavioral statistics as well. Where do they shop? What restaurants do they frequent?

Why do you want to know these things? So that you can create the most advanced, efficient, targeted ad campaign possible, creating a complete healthcare marketing experience both online, in print, tv, and even in your offices. By completely understanding your patient’s interests, needs and hobbies, you can customize the entire medical experience for them, from the design of your offices to blogs on yoru website to posts on your Facebook Page.

Quantifying the Data

Include an interest form in the welcome package – one that is easily quantifiable and can be placed into an excel sheet effortlessly. Over time, you will begin to see patterns of interests based on ages and gender. These patterns can be used to target specific campaigns to specific audiences, thus increasing efficiency and engagement.

How well do you understand your target audience? Let Quaintise help you master the art of audience targeting and market research!