In his latest article Using Blogs to Build Relationships Geonetric’s own Ben Dillon sheds light on this timely topic. Published in the Society for Healthcare Strategy and Market Development’s (SHSMD) member newsletter, Spectrum, Ben’s article explains why so many healthcare marketers are reaching out to their audiences through blogs – and more importantly, how to develop a strategy that will ensure your blog delivers value.

The article provides numerous examples of organizations that are using blogs and succeeding – from Owensboro Medical Health System’s Beyond Five Percent blog to Overlake Hospital Medical Center’s cardiac blog – so you can see firsthand how others have engaged their readers.

When it comes to blogging, it’s tempting to jump right in. The best blogs may feel spontaneous, but the truth is few blogs actually are. Check out this article and learn what steps you can take now to ensure future blogging success.

I have an unhealthy connection to my laptop. I carry it with me constantly like a security blanket. Unfortunately, my handy-dandy Dell weighs a ton and takes a lot of space while providing about an hour of battery life between charges. It is not, therefore, the ideal travel companion.

This year, I let go of the laptop and took only my iPad and smart phone. Being on Verizon, neither provided the “always connected” experience that I rely on at home, but both were great tools on the trip.

Not having access to “the cloud” presented some challenges as I prepared for the trip, although we were able to connect to WiFi at each of our lodging points.  A few pieces of software proved to be critical:

• Tripit – This Web service, backed up by excellent apps on both Android and iOS, was the backbone of our planning. Every booking came with a confirmation email that was forwarded to Tripit. The service then parsed out the relevant details and built an itinerary that I could share with family members that could be saved on our devices for offline access and printed out nicely as a backup. When Internet access was available, the apps also offered one-click access to flight updates, weather, maps and directions.
• Offline Maps – I used DirectU Europe and MapsWithMe, each of which had their ups and downs, but they were free and proved to be very helpful in getting around town. We mostly used paper maps when wandering around, but these digital maps proved to be a serviceable backup when Google Maps wasn’t available.
• eBooks – I took a few travel books along, but wound up using eBook versions  more than their paper counterparts. For the most part, I checked these out from our local library using Overdrive (the service to which the library subscribes), although I also gathered some great audio tours through Rick Steve’s app.
• Mindmap – This is a strange one, I know, but I used this free-form brainstorming app to organize much of the trip. As I read about destinations, I’d drop ideas into Mindmap and then dragged them around to build our itineraries for each city.

Aggregators
There are a number of sites that help find the best prices and options across a range of different sites, eventually sending visitors to those sites to actually book travel plans. The leader in this space is Kayak, which searches hundreds of sites to help users with the travel standards of hotels, cars and flights.

Visualize Travel Data
Another entrant that brings some new twists to the aggregator category is Hipmunk.  Hipmunk has two major innovations that make it my new favorite site to search for flights. First, they put your flight options on a sort of Gantt chart timeline so that you can see when each leaves, lands, the length of connections and landings in a very intuitive manner. The second innovation is a proprietary sorting algorithm that they call “agony” that ranks sites not only by cost, but by the pain of flight, placing flights with multiple connections or that uses multiple airlines below some more expensive but less frustrating options.

Online Marketplaces
If you want to stay somewhere other than a hotel, there are a several great options to find a private apartment, house or even just a spare room for rent.  We used Airbnb to find a one bedroom apartment with a kitchen a few blocks from the Eiffel Tower for less than we’d have spent for small hotel room in the same area. The experience is very socially-oriented. Potential renters need to message landlords before getting a commitment on the space and everything gets reviewed afterwards – guests, hosts and properties.

Google Translate
Planning and booking proved to be very easy in part because of the ever-improving translation capabilities of Google. Whenever I hit a site or review in another language, Chrome prompted me to translate and voila! Those horror stories of the language barriers getting in the way are largely a thing of the past (at least until you actually get where you’re going).

Travel is one of those industries that has been dramatically changed in the last decade through technology and continues to be a great place to look for the cutting edge innovations that we’ll be looking to apply to healthcare in the next few years.

Here are some of the highlights:

• Revenue: For the sixth year in a row, we had record revenue growth, which should easily qualify us for the Inc. 5000 list for the sixth time. To me, as a business owner, this validates that we are building products and delivering services that our clients love and want to buy more of.
• New clients: We added 11 new clients, renewed contracts with 15 clients and added major new initiatives with several more. We started the year with about 30 clients representing about 200 hospitals and ended it with about 40 clients representing 500 hospitals.
• Client retention: Probably most important, we’ve done an exceptional job in building strong relationships with our clients across the country: We lost zero clients to competitors and we took two from significant competitors. Over more than 10 years of working in healthcare, we’ve retained more than 93% of clients over that entire time. We have competitors who try not to lose too many in a single quarter!
• Net income: 2011 was the second most profitable year we’ve ever had. As a privately-owned business, ensuring that we’re making money while we grow at a breakneck speed is obviously critical. But it also gives our clients and prospects the confidence in our ability to thrive over the long haul.
• Team growth: We hired 23 people in 2011 – and we’ve built what is now pretty easily the best team in our industry. Our Professional Services team added most of these team members including new leaders Bill Basler, formerly of Basler Design Group, and Keri Buscaglia, formerly of Frank N. Magid Associates. Both have already begun major changes to our creative and interactive marketing processes. I’m excited to give them their official debut at our 2012 eHealth Symposium in April.
• Software Engineering: This team made a major leap into fully automated testing in late 2011 with the intention of dramatically increasing the speed of software delivery and improving the quality of VitalSite. The engineering and QA teams did an exceptional job of, well, changing their entire software development process. The first release to demonstrate the new capabilities will be the 6.3 release in April.
• Turnover rate: Geonetric is a fast growing company and it attracts a certain type of team member: people who are wicked smart, fast on their feet and like to do amazing work. Turnover rate is a big measure of how well we retain those brilliant folks. For 2011, our goal was to keep turnover 10% or less – and we ended 2011 with only 7% turnover. We’re proud of the exceptional team of experts that we’ve built and go to great lengths to build an awesome team culture and environment.
• eHealth Symposium: Our clients-only 2011 eHealth Symposium was easily our largest ever, with a dozen or so sessions covering a wide array of topics. Almost every client attended. Our survey indicated 93% of sessions were “Valuable” or “Very Valuable” – a testament to the hard work of the Geonetric team in putting together an educational and enlightening experience.
• Webinars: As we’ve done for many years, our freely available educational webinars were held each month, covering a number of eHealth topics. 2011 saw record attendance levels and featured many of Geonetric’s thought leaders and our clients demonstrating the amazing work we’ve done together.
• Mobile sites and applications: We built our first iOS and Android applications in 2011 with many more planned to exploit the value of our VitalSite software and services teams. Almost every Geonetric client had (and has had for some time) a fully featured mobile website. Going into 2012, we have lots of new ideas to build in the mobile products we’re offering.
• VitalSite 6: In April 2011 we released VitalSite 6.0 – easily the largest advance we’ve made in a single software release – with an entirely new user interface, faster performance and hundreds of improvements. VitalSite leads the way in the industry in providing rapid value to our clients and keeping them at the forefront of eHealth.
• VitalSite features: We delivered 160 new features or major new improvements covering 18 areas of VitalSite’s Web and patient portal functionality. This included our patient portal qualifying for Stage 1 of Meaningful Use, major enhancements to the calendar of events with new “shopping cart” capabilities and cross-promotion tools, faster ways to build secure extranets, and hundreds more. And we’re on track to deliver about 50 new major features or improvements in the April 2012 release!
• Client satisfaction: We survey clients about once a quarter on the strength of their relationship with Geonetric and the value we’re providing for them. The survey is done on a 1-6 scale, with 6 being highest. The overall score is the most important. Our goal is to average 5.0 across all clients, which is a tough goal to meet since perfect 6’s are hard to get! For the entirety of 2011, we scored 4.97 – really close to our goal, but not quite what we wanted. In my calls and visits with clients I get an overwhelmingly positive feedback. I’ve picked out a few of my favorites:
  • “Our project manager does a fantastic job keeping track of projects and moving them forward. She is always available to assist with questions and issues. I feel very lucky to have her as our project manager!”
  • “Great job all around. You all just keep getting better every day!”
  • “Now that we’ve been a client for more than a year, I can say with certainty that I’m very happy we selected Geonetric as our Web partner! It’s been a great experience working with you to design, build and launch a new site.”

That’s not to say there’s nothing for us to work on – certainly there is! Some service processes were slow in the middle of 2011 as we ramped up and got teams organized. Some features we’ve been wanting to build for a while weren’t released in 2011 (but many are in the April 2012 release!). Some clients expressed concerns about the speed of change around here since we make decisions quickly and move on them just as fast.

All are valid concerns. That’s why we do the surveys and call or visit every single client every single year. We want to make sure we’re listening to our clients and can respond proactively to what matters to them. As we move into 2012, our clients are top of mind as we look forward and “get better every day!”

In short, I’m so very proud of the team of experts at Geonetric doing amazing work with incredible clients every day. We’re poised to do some amazing things in 2012 and I’m excited to see it all continue to grow and “Wow!” our clients!

Behind the trend are scores of new devices that rolled out over the course of the year at lower price points while sporting better bandwidth and larger, sharper screens. Millions now carry and use powerful internet-connected devices 24×7.

All of this has changed when and how we use the internet. New research from integrated marketing agency 11Mark backs up this change with some startling, some say disturbing, statistics.

75% of Americans report having used their smartphone in the bathroom. Most of you reading this probably fall in to this group, so this shouldn’t surprise us.  24% of people indicate they don’t go to the bathroom without their smartphones.

And they’re not just hogging the stall playing Angry Birds. Survey respondents indicated texting, emailing, social networking and even participating in business calls while in the loo.

Online purchasing is a growing trend as well, led by iphone users, traditionally known as “early movers,” 22% of which have made such a purchase.

The trend defies age and gender boundaries, although usage by Boomers and the Silent Generation, both old enough to have learned the benefit of a little extra fiber in one’s diet, is less common than their younger counterparts.

What does this trickle of new information mean to hospital marketers? I’m picturing a new mobile ad campaign for colonoscopies…

If you’re unfamiliar, FitBit is a tiny device that clips to your belt and tracks your movements 24/7, reporting on your activity level and sleep quality. It’s basically a souped-up, Kinect-era pedometer.

The FitBit wirelessly posts data to a website, updating regularly when you’re in range of its base station. From there, your data can be forwarded onto Twitter, Facebook, WordPress, or – more interestingly – Microsoft’s HealthVault.

The effect is something we are striving for with our patient portal – increasing patients’ access to data about their body, health and activities. Lab test results buried in a chart don’t help patients to see the patterns in how their body is responding to their daily choices – medication adherence, lifestyle changes, continuing treatment – that are necessary to improve their health.

Simultaneously, we’re investigating ways to present detailed patient data to the next generation of connected health devices, to help caregivers see the day-to-day reality of their patients’ lives.

At the end of a day spent running from meeting to meeting and chasing after a three-year-old, I was chagrined to see that my activity level still registered as pretty low. However, I’ve now got a baseline and tomorrow I can make better choices.

Now Twitter wants to get in on the fun. They recently announced the addition of “Brand Pages” to the Twitter service. These brand pages allow organizations to create customized Twitter profiles with logos, banners, taglines and “promoted tweets” that remain at the top of the profile.

This could be another great way to get your message across. You can utilize your Twitter brand page to promote a service line, upcoming event or provide public announcements in the case of an emergency. The possibilities are endless!

In December, Twitter said the brand pages will be rolling out to all accounts over the next few months.

Healthcare organizations tend to have strong brand recognition, but weak brand differentiation. It’s difficult for patients to recognize what makes you different from competitors, or perhaps they simply don’t care. Just as often, for a given service line, there really isn’t much that actually makes an organization truly different.

As I wrote this time last year, “Think back to the classic definition of what marketing is – the four P’s – product, price, promotion and place. Healthcare marketers are deeply involved in promotion, but how often do you get to direct where your services are delivered or set what they cost? Marketers in healthcare rarely even have the opportunity to determine what services will be delivered.”

Healthcare marketers have a particularly tough job with differentiation. Fortunately, there are areas in which you do have control:

• Campaigns, marketing materials, employee communications
• Events (health fairs, foundation galas)
• Website
• Social media and other digital outreach

There is a great untapped opportunity to differentiate organizations through the Web. Consumers’ perceptions of healthcare organizations are mostly driven by the experiences they have. Because they are unable to assess clinical competency, their experiences craft their perceptions on healthcare quality .

So when you do great things online (an area marketers do control), it has an opportunity to change the patient experience (which patients value). You can use this to differentiate your organization in the marketplace.

Hospitals are using the Web to make it easier for patients to work with them and creating personalized, tailored experiences. When you do these things, are you promoting them?

For example, are you promoting your convenient online appointments in TV ads, putting your live ER wait times on billboards and getting detailed news coverage for your patient portal? Some online capabilities are differentiators on their own, and they should be promoted to strengthen and reinforce the brand in the marketplace. Other times, they’re a newsworthy discussion item that allows you to communicate about something else you are doing at the organization.

In each case, they’re opportunities to do something different and that is often a rare commodity. Healthcare organizations that are winning this game do so by seizing these opportunities and making the most of them.

Join us for our webinar Tell Your Story and Promote Your Online Initiatives on February 16 at 3:00 p.m. CT to learn how your organization can more effectively promote your online investments.

Keeping the goal of promoting Methodist Medical Group and its physicians in mind, we evaluated site analytics and performed usability tests to improve the information architecture. Then we assessed the content of the existing microsite. We identified unnecessary and unused content and streamlined the content to make it easier for users to complete tasks and find important information.  Overall, this improved overall site usability.

The fresh, new design of the Methodist Medical Group’s microsite reflects the branding of the hospital’s website so users don’t feel disconnected from one site to the other. But at the same time we were able to incorporate distinct touches and a layout to give the microsite its own unique look and feel.

Ultimately, Methodist wanted to better promote their medical group and with the great new look, navigation, and content they have accomplished just that!

• Broadcasting the speech online live through several channels including an “enhanced broadcast” which includes supplemental charts and graphs
• Using the hashtag #SOTU for discussion during the President’s delivery
• Offering the ability to submit questions via Facebook, Twitter, Whitehouse.gov or YouTube.
• The President will participate in a Google+ Hangout on Jan 30, responding to questions from YouTube.

The White House is capitalizing on a few big trends that healthcare organizations should be watching:

• Consumers don’t just watch TV on TV – YouTube, Netflix, Hulu and others have made PCs, tablets and smartphones TV program delivery devices.
• We don’t just watch TV when we watch TV – Today, viewers are using Twitter and Facebook to chat with both friends and total strangers about the programs they’re watching.
• We want to be involved – Sure they’ll be answering about 12 questions in the Google+ Hangout out of the hundreds that get submitted, but anyone who would like to has a chance to be heard with the knowledge that someone reasonably close to the President is going to listen to their concern.
• We all go social in different ways – Most importantly, the White House recognizes that the American people have embraced social networking, but they all go about it in their own way.  Some people use Facebook, others Twitter or Google+.  Some will just watch the banter while others will share comments, ask questions and post videos.  The thing that the President’s team is doing particularly well is that they’re catering to most of the major social channels with a nuanced strategy that plays to the ways each platform is used.

So tonight, break out the remote control, laptop, tablet and smartphone and enjoy the State of The Union address.

Most of us have landed on Web pages that aren’t helpful, or are confusing and make it difficult to find the content we want. The content is either buried by ads, large images, lists of links or a combination of those things.

Yesterday, Google announced a new change to their search algorithm that focuses on page layouts and how users find the content they need on websites. It’s really not a new concept for Google – they have always been a strong advocate for user experience. This change benefits content pages that put the content first and any advertisements or secondary images below the fold.

Some takeaway items from this change:

• Page layouts that center around content and user experience will help you in organic search rankings. Depending on the quality of your page layout, you may notice your search rankings shift over a period of time.
• Make sure your content pages are user-focused. Users want answers to their questions – so make sure each page focuses on those answers.
• Be aware of design decisions. Make sure content takes center stage. It’s easy to get caught up in what a design looks like, but how functional is it for the end-user?
• Google says this affects less than 1% of search queries performed. It’s a small change to a very complex process, but still worth noting.

Overall, this is a minor change to the search algorithm that Google uses. According to yesterday’s blog post from Google, Google will also release over 500 other improvements in 2012.

Keep your focus on the user and you’ll likely enjoy some benefit when it comes to search engine rankings.