Seems like it should be easy, right? Just spell it out to them in logical terms, and they will play along. “Do these basic things for your health, you’ll feel better, live longer, and save money.” Case closed! But of course, it’s never that simple. Human behavior is complex, and difficult to sway. Just because something is right or smart does not mean people will embrace it.

Which brings us to the country of Namibia. It’s a relatively young nation, only independent for about 20 years now. It’s down by South Africa, a beautiful and lush part of the continent. It’s full of wild animals, including elephants, giraffes, lions, antelope… the whole African safari smorgasbord. Which makes Namibia a magnet for tourism, right?

But Namibia had a problem. Poverty was high, and exotic animal parts bring good money. The government tried to protect the animals in nature preserves and parks, but the people kept poaching. Animal numbers were dwindling. The government was stretched thin trying to enforce anti-poaching laws. Tourists weren’t coming. Poverty was getting worse.

So how do you influence human behavior in a situation like this? The people were not seeing the logic of the situation. A thriving tourism industry would benefit everyone. Jobs would be created. Standards of living would rise. But still they kept poaching!

So the government of Namibia tried something brilliant. They tapped into the power of human self-interest. They put the people… in charge of the animals. They told the locals living around the game preserves they could manage the animals and have all the income from the tourism trade.

Well, you know where the story goes from here. Today the citizens protect the wild game. Animal populations are up. Poaching is way down. Tourism is booming. The people of Namibia are living better. The government got what they wanted!

So what does this have to do with human motivation, and wellness initiatives in particular? It reminds us that we have to always listen for the note not being played. We can’t just say “Do it and be healthier!” That’s too superficial for most people. What do they really care about? What are the meaningful benefits of being healthier? What’s the underlying motivator?

In the case of the Namibian government, their first instinct was to say “we need to protect these animals.” But they weren’t looking for the deeper, more relevant solution. What they needed to do, and eventually figured out, was they needed to engage the people surrounding the animals. The Namibian farmers needed a personal stake in the action—both financial and emotional. They gained from the tourism certainly, but they were also moved by national pride and the weight of responsibility bestowed on them.

So, getting back to health and wellness motivation, it’s the same process. We have to look past the superficial top-line reasons and look at the profiles of our demographic. We should look at family dynamics, self-esteem issues, lifestyle pressures and financial factors. We need to define what’s really at stake and then effectively communicate how their choices will benefit them on multiple levels. The good news is, it’s not necessarily more time consuming or expensive to take this approach. You just have to recalibrate how you think about your target and how you craft your message.

“These are your elephants now. This is your tourism industry and your revenue stream. It’s your country, your community, your family, and your future.”

Well, when you put it that way…

Belief 1: Any web presence is better than none.
Once upon a time this statement was probably true, but not anymore. Today, competition in almost every industry is fierce, and with 58 percent of people doing product and service research online you can’t afford to make a bad first impression. Your customers will simply go somewhere else and never come back.

Belief 2: You need to have content on your website for every possible user.
Bill Cosby once said “I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.” You know what? He’s right.

Think of it this way, if you were a lawn care company you wouldn’t send a direct mail letter to everyone who lives in town, you’d only send it to people who have lawns. The same goes for your website. Just because someone happens upon your website doesn’t mean they are a qualified lead. When you create content for everyone, you dilute your message and lose your ability to connect with your audiences that intend to buy.

On top of that, good content takes time and effort to create—why would you want to use precious resources targeting the wrong people? Make sure your content is working toward profitable growth, not against it.

Belief 3: Users know what to do after digesting content.
Humans have limited short-term memory. The average short-term memory can only hold seven chunks of information for roughly 20 seconds. So that call to action you buried at the end of 1,000 words may not be sticking with your audience as well as you think.

Belief 4: Technologies and trends change so fast, playing the game is costly and time consuming.
Yes, it is difficult to keep up with changing technologies, but when the focus of your website is on your content and not technology itself, the need to stay on the cutting edge goes away. With few exceptions, your website visitors are not coming to your website to see the latest and greatest technology, they are coming to answer a question, conduct business or just enjoy the content you provide. When you give them that, technology becomes a non-issue.

Belief 5: The web doesn’t really impact my industry.
While it is unlikely that the web doesn’t impact your industry at all, it is possible you don’t need a full-blown website. Maybe a page or two will serve you just fine. But forgoing any web presence, without any research to support that conclusion, can be a dangerous thing. As stated above, people research purchases. If you think that someone isn’t researching what you’re selling, you’re mistaken.

Content strategy: Something you can really believe in.
If you’re ready to challenge your beliefs about what your website should be and do, content strategy might be for you. Content strategy gets your content from where it is to where it needs to be and then shows you how to keep it there. It’s an interesting process that offers great insights into your company and your customers. I’ve written a few posts if you want to read more or leave me a comment and I’d be happy to talk in more detail.

About the author
Kate has turned her love of information architecture into a love of content strategy. And with a background in interactive design she understands how all of the pieces fit together.

Ruh-roh. This was a term I hadn’t heard before.

Reaching for my coffee, I settled in for some serious researching. But just a few clicks in, I realized I had nothing to worry about. As far as I can tell, DAO is just regular old SEO in fancy new clothes.

In fact, if you’re not including the tactics that are purportedly the province of DAO in your SEO efforts? I’d say you’re doing it wrong.

So what exactly is digital asset optimization?

I could give you a long-winded answer full of industry jargon and $50,000 words. But what it boils down to is this: you apply the same techniques you use to optimize the text on your website to all of your digital assets—images, videos, podcasts, blogs, downloads and your other social media goodies.

Why? Because it’s all searchable, of course. And the better optimized your digital assets are, the more chances you’ll have to reach your target audience—and turn them into paying customers.

After all, a lot of users aren’t looking for your website. They’re looking for pictures. Or videos (you do know that YouTube is the second largest search engine, right?). Or blog posts. And to capture them, you need to make sure your content in those areas is, well, findable!

Greeaaat. I have to SEO or DAO or whatever you call it everything now. How?

The simplest answer? Do your keyword research and use it. Strategically, and across everything. Things to look at include:

• File names and image titles—Got an eBook? A killer picture of your latest product? That’s great. But if the file for that rock star asset is just called ebook.pdf or product.png, Google (and the other search engine gods) can’t help people find you. Use descriptive text instead.
• Alt text and captions—You’re using these, right? If not, start doing so. Now. Make them engaging and use keywords.
• Video titles, tags and descriptions—Those YouTube videos you put so much time and effort into will work a lot harder for you if put some thought into what you call them, tag them using appropriate words, and write an engaging description.

There are many, many more things that you can and should do, of course. To outline them all, I’d have to write a book  (an eBook, perhaps?). But if you take only one thing away from this blog post, let it be this: don’t be fooled by fancy new acronyms.

Good SEO is platform agnostic. And good SEO practitioners? Should already be advising you in all of these areas. Enough said.

Got an SEO question you want answered? Leave a comment below or email me at apage (at) finelight (dot) com.

According to a study recently completed by Edison Research, more than 70 percent of these Facebook moms post status updates every day. More importantly for this discussion, 40 percent of them are willing to follow brands and marketers—provided there’s a reason for them to do so.

That’s good news for you. After all, as this article in MediaPost reveals, women make more than 85 percent of the purchasing decisions in the United States, controlling more than $20 trillion in consumer spending each year.

And that makes them an audience you can’t afford to ignore.

So now that we’ve established why you should be on Facebook, let’s discuss how you should go about using it.

1. Engage with your fans. Ask for their opinions. Ask them what their biggest concerns are. Make sure they know that what they think matters to you. Remember, by “liking” you, they’ve asked to become part of your community. Make them feel like there actually is one.
2. Abandon the broadcaster mentality. Yes, your patients want to know when you’ve won a great award. No, they don’t want to hear about it ten times. If your stream is “me, me, me,” your audience will lose interest. Fast. Keep that in mind.
3. Act as a content curator. Facebook is as much about sharing content as it is about sharing status updates. So make sure you’re finding and sharing useful information with your audience—from sources other than your own.
4. Show restraint. While Facebook is a faster moving platform than traditional media, it’s not as fast as Twitter. So if you’re blasting post after post, you’re going to fill up your audience’s stream—and become more of an annoyance than a resource. The “rule” for marketers is generally one post a day—but really? It’s however often you have something valid and useful to say.
5. Offer your Facebook fans real value. Remember, no one’s going to follow you on Facebook unless there’s a reason to do it. Before clicking that “like” button, the viewer wants to know “what’s in it for me?” You need to know the answer. It could be access to content they won’t find anywhere else. Discounts for health screenings. Opportunities to ask questions of your organization. There’s no one right way to solve this problem. Just make sure you do.

There is, of course, much more that can be done with Facebook and the other platforms that make up the social web. When used correctly, these channels can not only bolster your traditional marketing efforts, they can be effective lead generators in and of themselves!

Have other social media marketing questions you want answered? Let me know in the comments below and I’ll address them in a future post. And don’t forget to come back on Thursday for my BlogHer 11 recap.

About the author

During the daylight hours, Amber Page is a copywriter/SEO specialist for Finelight, specializing in digital marketing in general and social media marketing in particular. At night? She switches sides and becomes a mom blogger—giving her a unique perspective on how companies market to moms.

Then suddenly in January the switch was flipped. It wasn’t just a new name. It was a new look and logo as well. Check it out.

A community perspective on the name change.

At least in this community, the name change from Bloomington Hospital to IU Health Bloomington seems to have barely caused a ripple. However, it does provide an interesting case study for company branding.

Friends and colleagues spoke out about the overnight switch that was Bloomington Hospital one day and IU Health Bloomington the next:

“How did they get away with using such a distinctive mark that’s so different from traditional IU block letters?”

“Have you noticed the new hospital signage? It’s very sharp and I like it.”

“I don’t remember reading anything in the paper about that change. I don’t relate black and white with IU. Aren’t their colors were cream and crimson?”

“That new IU Health logo is popping up everywhere—on billboards, in the doctor office, in the newspaper, on the internet, signage around town, on the TV and on my bill from the hospital. It’s even on the highway when I travel to Louisville or Indianapolis.”

“Why would you make an ambulance black? Isn’t that a bad omen?”

How the re-branding was done.
In Bloomington, IU Health used tactics that targeted the masses and created a conversation buzz overnight. No soft teaser campaign. No need for an introduction or explanation. No time for confused or mixed messages. Just a strong new look with a broad, bold statement of who they are and what their brand represents.

Some in the branding world would say this is risky. David Moore, of Leo Burnett, noted in a different name change discussion that, “You risk losing all the good equity you’ve managed to build.”

But Rob Graham on ClickZ might argue that, “a new name often does a better job of branding the benefits the company offers the marketplace.”

The hospital’s branding challenge would not be an easy assignment for any healthcare system that operates more than 20 hospitals and health centers throughout the state of Indiana. But here in Btown, we’re comfortable, and even proud of, the association of Indiana University and the medical facilities in Indianapolis that have excellent reputations.

It helped that they launched their name change on the wings of a campaign that captures the essence of a comprehensive and unified program and reflects the strength of Indiana University and their commitment to advancing healthcare across the state of Indiana.

Their campaign speaks of unparalleled strength: The strength it takes. It’s a brilliant phrase that pulls in the perfect mix of softening elements that seem to neutralize any negative connotations of  change.

It’s also a phrase that speaks to many important elements of powerful healthcare marketing. It’s emotional: “the strength it takes to save my life.” It’s high tech: “the strength it takes to make better decisions, backed by the latest innovations.” It inspires: “the strength it takes to find the breakthrough.” It gives voice to patients: “the strength it takes to lessen my pain.” It speaks to families: “the strength it takes to easy my pain.” It resonates with employees: “the strength it takes to push myself beyond my own expectations.” It’s a promise for community: “the strength it takes to never lose hope.”

In short, it’s a campaign that has legs to stand the test of multiple audiences with multiple needs.

And the results of the re-branding?
And how is the new brand faring after six months in the market?  Here’s a sampling from my own personal focus group:

“The new logo is so professional. It has meaning behind it.”
“I think ambulances with mostly black just don’t look right.”
“The new logo is fine. It ties everything together nicely and makes it clear that the facility belongs to the IU Health system.”
“I will probably always call it Bloomington Hospital even though I know the name has changed. Old habits are hard to change.”
“My friends in West Lafayette hate seeing that IU logo on the side of their hospital!”
“It’s confusing for the IU Bloomington students who use the campus health center (Indiana University Health Center) which is NOT part of the IU Health system.” Hmmm, that is confusing.
“The black ambulances don’t show up well. They need to be bright yellow or eye-catching color so people recognize them as emergency vehicles and get out of their way.”

It seems that Bloomington has embraced the new look and name change. And I’m sure they had their reasons but we don’t agree with their choice of color for the ambulances. On the other hand, maybe it’s a good compromise for those that wear the black and gold!

Photo courtesy of Indiana Public Media.