Blog. Blog. Blog. Blog. Blog. Haven’t quite wrapped your head around the importance of blogging and social media in healthcare technology? Yet to embrace these outlets as part of your marketing strategy? When others discuss the subject of blogs, does it come across more as the “Wah, wah, wah” Charlie Brown hears when grownups talk? 

These days, it’s misguided not to at least become knowledgeable about blogging and social media as it relates to your business. Blogging can have a measurable impact in both sales and visibility when integrated with the right public relations and marketing strategy, so understanding the benefits of creating a blog is Step One down the right path. Below, I’ve outlined 10 main reasons blogging is a crucial component to the marketing efforts of healthcare technology companies. (more…)

Social media offers the promise of far-reaching, online exposure at a relatively low cost. And today in healthcare B2B marketing, having a social media program as part as your overall promotional efforts is now more likely the norm than the differentiator. But there are companies that rush into social media marketing programs without a true strategy.  They recognize the value, but  fail to map out the right amount of time, budget and other resources they will need to devote to social media activities in order for such a program to be successful. With such a low barrier to entry, it’s easy for companies to rush into social media and forget that they should still be approaching it with the same considerations that they would with any other marketing method.

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As the healthcare industry discussions continue surrounding the definition of meaningful use for electronic health records (EHRs), others have been seeking to define meaningful use as it relates to more appealing concepts.

Photo credited to Neil Versel’s blog with the original source as Pat Wise of HIMSS.

That’s right. Social media isn’t a fad, but instead a fundamental shift in the way we communicate in both business and personal aspects. A few months back, I wrote the blog post, “Social Media: A passing phase that’ll never catch on…just like the Internet,” and to that same point, the video below from Socialnomics demonstrates an excellent compilation of striking statistics revolving around the growing use of social media and technology.

“I’ve come loaded with statistics, for I’ve noticed that a man can’t prove anything without statistics.” —Mark Twain (more…)

When discussing social media with our healthcare IT clients or industry colleagues that are new to the realm of Web 2.0, the inevitable question we’re often faced with is “how do you find the time to keep up and do all this blogging and twittering?”

Yes, blogs, RSS feeds, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and other social media sites have the potential to be overwhelming and unproductive at first when you’re in the experimental phase, but the art of mastery comes with following your objectives and managing your use of time wisely. After all, when it comes to social media, YOU control the clock on your social media activities. (more…)

Unsatisfied with Google’s seemingly widespread domination of all things online, Microsoft reloads with Bing, adding to an already saturated market of search engines. Bing is the replacement search engine for Live Search (also formerly known as Windows Live Search or MSN Search) and the latest effort from Microsoft to compete with tech rival, Google. Microsoft’s many search engine versions never really gained ground on Google, occupying only a relatively small percentage of its market share, as shown in recent comScore stats – likely due to its comparatively lackluster and detached SERPs or search engine results pages. But Bing is a horse of a different color and is on the cusp of becoming a definite game-changer in the ways we conduct Internet searches. The draw for Google has always been the ease of use and instantaneous access to relevant Web pages, blogs, images, videos, among anything else that we may be seeking. Bing brings all of this and quite possibly more with the attractive interface and features, “decision-making” predictive results, and (most-importantly) relevant and organized interactive search engine results. Kudos to Microsoft for seeming to finally getting it right. (more…)

Simple answer – you can!

Longer answer – you can, but with different expectations…

As those of us who have been using social media for awhile know, the true value of social media platforms like Twitter doesn’t lie in the tangible metrics. Twitter’s sole purpose isn’t sales, but active participation in real-time information sharing. But of course, demonstrating value and return on investment of using social media networks as business tools is a concern for many healthcare B2B companies as the movement into new media trends upward in our industry. Is it possible to fill both needs?

In what I deem to be a highly-noteworthy “Twitter Success Story,” Dell, a top PC manufacturer worldwide, has generated around $3 million in the last two years through Twitter. This comes from actively tweeting and offering Twitter-specific discounts, rebates and offers that direct followers to the Dell Outlet Web site. Granted, Dell’s Twitter sales account for less than a sliver of its multi-billion-dollar annual sales, but its success in attracting buyers shows healthcare technology companies that money can be made through the micro-blogging service. (more…)

In case you have yet to see Ross Martin’s brilliantly creative YouTube video explaining “everything you need to know about the Health Information Technology for Clinical and Economic Recovery (HITECH) Act in under four minutes” it’s a definitive must-see. Should you not learn anything new, it’s at least entertaining! Check out HITECH: An Interoperetta in Three Acts. You can also read a little background information on Ross Martin and the ‘making of the video’ in a recent Modern Healthcare article.

As history has shown us, most great inventions or innovative ideas have been greeted by a slew of skeptics and nay-sayers. But isn’t that a sign of true innovation? In my lifetime, the most influential innovation I can recall (and one not immune to skepticism) was the Internet. Just for laughs, see the 1995 Newsweek article from Clifford Stoll proclaiming why the Internet will never work. Of course, there were some other highly notable ones worth mentioning: “horseless carriages,” telephones and personal computers… I could go on for days with a little research using the “over-hyped” Internet.

Was it just that these inventions and ideas had no practicality and made no sense at all? It’s difficult to say in hindsight, because I can’t imagine what we’d do without these things. But I do know that change is scary for some, especially those that are being asked (or forced) to alter their normal routine or how they’ve been doing things for many, many years. But let me steal a tagline from one of our clients and say “Change is essential to survival.” If you and your company are going to be relevant in today’s marketplace, you must not put up a barrier against new ways of conducting business such as social media. Social media is not just for college students or consumers – it has taken root and blossomed into a multitude of tools that continue to increase in variety and prominence within the business-to-business healthcare IT space. (more…)

Feel like you’re the only one NOT using Twitter? Well, you might eventually be right! According to comScore’s recently released numbers, worldwide visitors to Twitter.com increased 95 percent in the month of March 2009 from 9.8 million to 19.1 million, making it the fastest-growing site last month. Of this, U.S. visitors represented 9.3 million alone. What’s more impressive about those stats is that those numbers are only the users that visited www.twitter.com and do not include the masses of people that access Twitter on mobile phones or through third-party applications.

As impressive as those numbers are, there are still many people who haven’t yet joined the Twysteria. But projections estimate by summer the worldwide numbers will climb past 50 million. Wondering what the heck are “tweets” and why would you want to “Twitter”? Watch “Twitter in Plain English” for a great video explanation. (more…)