Digital Influence Mapping Project

Social Marketing University in DC

Nedra Weinreich who has a great blog on social marketing also does training seminars. Most of the focus is on applying social media techniques to social marketing programs. Our team does a lot of social marketing - behavior change - mostly in the public health and driving spaces. So, I have a deep appreciation for what Nedra is doing to introduce a community driven by science most of the time to try and apply the techniques that truly amplify word of mouth.

You should check out her seminar. This one is happening in DC in March. Here is the skinny:

Social Marketing University

March 28-30, 2007

Cafritz Conference Center, George Washington University

800 21st Street, NW, Third Floor

Washington, DC

2007: Big Year for Social Media & Healthcare

Four things came together in healthcare and social media towards the end of 2006.

• A great phone conversation with Monique Levy from JupiterKagan
• My participation in the first Healthcare Blogging Summit
• My review of Steve Case's new online healthcare service, Revolution (review orthcoming)
• And my father's cancer treatment

Together, the impression is clear. 2007 will be a big year for consumers creating useful content to further their healthcare needs. Monique Levy, a researcher at JupiterKagan will be releasing some interesting research this January. She gave me a little preview and we discussed what some of the opportunities are for healthcare professionals to engage in a universe where peers are talking about issues, doctor and hsopital recommendations and treatments.

According to Monique/JupiterKagan

Of the people looking for health information online (65%), 41% are creating content; 69% are consuming and 32% are doing both. (look for her research soon and that will confirm the context I am remembering for these numbers).

Monique corrected me:

"- As many as 34 percent of online users said they connected to others or the content they created online about health and wellness issues using various types of peer-to-peer and social media in the last year.  Of these health connectors 69 percent are consuming content, 41 percent creating and 32 percent doing both."

The short story is that a ton of folks are creating content: either blogging or message-boarding about issues, treatments, hospitals & doctors.

The Healthcare Blogging Summit was the first in a series from Dmitriy Kruglyak. It felt like the healthcare bloggers were connecting offline for the first time. All povs were lumped together in one room (literally) - policy folks, marketing and business consultants, hospital CEOs, blogging doctors, and patient advocacy groups. Dmitri is rolling out more of these in 2007 (next one in Vegas) and the program will likely focus and get more sophisticated.

Revolution is in beta. They were nice enough to give me an account and I will be reviewing it this week. Fard has already provided a pretty good review.

Like some of my peers, my parents are struggling with new health issues. My dad (80) is undergoing radiation treatment for prostate cancer. Both the disease and the treatments have become common place. He will be getting a computer for the first time in his life in a few weeks ostensibly to share email with family members. But I am square in the bullseye of the generation using the Web to understand what choices he has (and what mine will be when my time comes).

What else will happen this year to advance social media in healthcare?

1. eons will really take off, my dad will become a member, and their most popular content will move from diets to health & wellness
2. a big pharmaceutical will announce a very pro-active social media "listening" program to better understand patients and share that with physicians. they will simultaneously announce a very pro-active adverse events reporting discipline
3. new Congress will revive healthcare reform "noise" (whether they accomplish anything is a whole different story)
4. expect some significant step forward in digital health records
5. consumer-driven healthcare as insurance providers define it will become more popular (i.e. consumers will prefer it and the benefits it brings)

healthcare, revolution, healthcare+blogging+summit, digital+influence, john+ bell

First Healthcare Blog Summit

Monday in DC was the first Healthcare Blogging Summit nestled into the much larger Consumer Health World event. This is Dmitriy Krugliyak's baby. He runs the Medical Blog Network which is both an aggregation of health-related bloggers and an attempt to bond them around common concerns related to the heavily regulated and sensitive world of healthcare.

He told me that they will hold 3 more of these next year bundled into larger events like this one. that's actually a great model and may do more for spreading the word than holding a little specialty event on blogging. 

I spoke on a panel that featured public health professionals, a CEO of a hospital system (who was very on-message about his "brand" - nice work), a communicator from March of Dimes who like me was a pre-bubble Internet professional.

Dr. Jay Berhardt from the CDC's Office of Health Marketing spoke about the small steps taken by his group with his blog. I actually blogged about this when he launched it and despite the few posts applaud his initiative. Small wins like this can be influential in an organization as large as the CDC.  Clearance is an issue. Every post is reviewed and scrutinized before posting - mostly for accuracy. He does write all his own material(never doubted that). Time is the biggest challenge. He did share about launching the CDC podcasts which are now available. (A neat resource within his team's site is a list of the public health/social marketing campaigns currently running at CDC.)

He also shared about an initiative to reach out to mombloggers regarding flu communications and actually allowing them to communicate directly with scientists. We do a lot of work with moms and mombloggers and this is a great idea. There is no reason the CDC couldn't form a group of moms online to help guide them on health communications that impact the family and then actually become ambassadors of that message. The question is will they ask them for that level of involvement or only look at them as messengers. 

Patricia Goldman from MOD shared about shareyourstory.org where they connect NICU (preemies) families into an active community. If you dive inside to the Parent to Parent boards there is a lot of posting activity. This is a great example of hosting a dialogue that really helps people (and was probably happening in some other, less powerful way).

Great stuff. More later.....

The CDC has a Blog! Sort of...

We often wrestle with just how to apply some of the new, new media "best practices" we employ on behalf of our commercial clients for our government clients. Blogs and other formats that invite people into a conversation mean letting go of some control. Generally, that "letting go" is a good thing - a demonstration of willingness on the part of an organization to really engage in a conversation and not rely on throwing messages over the transom to communicate.

In many cases, government teams within agencies struggle with layers of communication requirements: scientific fidelity, risk-aversion and sometimes the burden of a large bureaucracy.

Well, here's a case where there's a face out there: Dr. Jay Berhardt, the Director at the National Center for Health Marketing at the CDC has a blog. First of all, it's interesting that there is a National Center for Health Marketing at all. Here's how their mission reads:

"The mission of the National Center of Health Marketing is to protect and promote health and advance CDC’s goals through innovative health marketing programs, products, and services that are customer-centered, high-impact, and science-based.  NCHM helps define the future of health marketing within CDC, the federal sector and beyond."

Their definition for "health marketing" sounds very close to "social marketing" perhaps without the leading "behavior change" implicit in the latter. Still, I think we are talking about the same thing. I suspect that the Center is trying to aggregate best practices from within the Centers and NIH (they feature the NCI "Pink Book" in their Resource area).

It's great that they are putting a face on this initiative (see Dr. Jay's video). As for the blog, there is a single entry from July 15 so far. And a handful of comments from academic peers. The "comments" are actually a "mail-to" feature which is probably smart at the end of the day. Still, I am not sure wrapping this Web page in some of the trappings of a blog without the functions and openness is all that great. We will see how the blog unfolds overtime. And it is a start.

The Power of Angry Moms

We are deeply respectful of the power of moms in the new personal media space. We have been paying a lot of attention to how moms are using blogs and other personal media.

[tidbit: when we asked our panel of mombloggers about whether they used any of the message board-centric services such as ParentCenter/BabyCenter, they all seemed to have used message boards and in particular at least one of the two brand sites mentioned but all had stopped their message board activity in favor of blogging]

Take a look at the online efforts of Two Angry Moms. They are pretty much what their label suggests: two moms who are sick and tired of the unhealthy food choices in the public school system. They are actually creating an online documentary in installments. Here's how they describe the situation:

"Are you sick and tired of making your kids a brown bag lunch everyday because lunch at their school is unfit for human consumption? Do you feel guilty when your children “buy” instead of “bring”? Are you annoyed that the healthy school lunch you pack your kid is undermined by a barrage of birthday cupcakes, candy rewards, holiday treats and vending machine cuisine?"

The two women behind this are seasoned pros. Amy Kalafa is a TV poducer. Dr. Susan Rubin is, well, a doctor who has wrestled with food and nutrition issues in schools for years. While they must struggle with causing change from within the local school board/government system, they will develop a large grassroots following on the Web that will add power to their effort. The unfolding of the documentary in segments, as it is produced is a great way to keep people connected to the issue.

Co-creation and Social Marketing

How do you innovate on the tried and true races and "walk-a-thons" used by many non-profits yo raise money and awareness? It remains a solid and mature tactic used by many organizations around issues from breast cancer to MS.

Well, for the second year in a row, the American Cancer Society is running their Second Life Relay for Life and it happens from July 22-23rd in...Second Life. The virtual race will unfold in the MMORPG taking advantage lof the established community there and the more elastic laws of physics and economy that can happen in a made-up world. Here's how they describe this:

"The main difference is location. SL residents set up and decorate campsites, and sell small items to help raise Relay money just like at your local relay. However, since this is a virtual environment you may see some teams offering blimp rides, or holding sailboat races inside the park."

And before you dismiss this tactic and the MMORPG community at large as some fringe activity, realize that Seond Life "members" are somewhere around 313,000. And when you qualify that "audience" as lean-forward, world-builders, their value goes through the roof. This is such a great move. Next for ACS is a contest within Second Life for the rights to design/construct their office within Second Life. These folks will get some major credit from the SLers for taking their Youniverse seriously.  You can get some of the numbers on user-base for other role-playing universes here.

Ogilvy and HIV/AIDS

Our agency has been fighting HIV/AIDS for as long as we have been around. We have our own personal stories (everyone does, unfortunately) and we have stories of working on campaigns for the CDC and many other organizations. Like it or not, HIV/AIDS has informed our group culture. Now that the world is marking 25 years of the disease, we wanted to give our people a forum to share their stories. And we also wanted to sound a rallying cry about the power of communications and the need to stay committed now more than ever.

Check it out. 

Is this effective social marketing?

When I saw this site, I thought, "Refreshingly straightforward. Boldly risky. I'm just here because I am in the business..."

Checkoutmybreasts.com

Then I asked my wife. She felt differently. She felt the url was made for men and the cleverness of the double-entendre was reaching for the wrong audience. Had it been named "Check out your breasts" and had the model been a bit more on the Dove campaign-side of reality, it would have been okay, good even. 

I think its still a bold move. But then again, I am a guy and in the business....

Blogs and Healthcare Report

The Pew Internet & American Life Project has published a preso they created on Blogs and their impact on Healthcare. It was presented to the National Association Children's Hospitals and Related Institutions. It starts with some of the fundamentals like broadband penetration and the access trends that we have all seen before (e.g. usage highest in households $75k+, low usage for widows, etc...)

Here's what they say "ePatients" do:

• Tentatively diagnose their own diseases

• Confirm their doctor’s diagnosis and suggested treatments

• Check their doctors’ credentials

• Research all available treatment options – not just those recommended by doctor

• Give themselves a crash course on a specific medical condition when they (or someone they love) is diagnosed

• Exchange information and support with other patients with the same disease

• Research medicines

• Obtain online second opinions

• Explore and sign up for clinical trials

They also have an interesting pair of slides that compare Indutrial Age medicine and Information Age medicine. The rest is really Blogs 101 showing examples of health-related blogs.

INDUSTRIAL AGE MEDICINE:

INFORMATION AGE MEDICINE:

World AIDS Day

This past Thursday was World AIDS Day. There are so many advocacy campaigns for HIV/AIDS that it is hard to keep track. Imagine if they all came together to support each other and reinforce a finite number of important messages. I realize it is not as simple as all that. Different groups have different agendas - what they feel is important. How the use the Web is very interesting. Here is some of the interesting ones that I have found:

Video from Medicins Sand Frontieres - the "snowball" is a clever, impactful symbol well worth "sending to a friend." I don't know how it has performed virally which begs the question: why don't viral elements have tickers telling me how many others have sent the thing. If I saw that I could be part of a larger movement at the same time as sending something cool, I might be more apt to do it. ( This also builds on Cialdini's concept of Social Proof)

World AIDS Day 2005, the "official" site from the National AIDS Trust in London - They are pushing the red ribbon ina "Wise Up and Wear It" campaign push. They offer a "virtual" red ribbon - a button you can place on your Web site or email signature to demonstrate your support - again, no ticker. There is an interesting competition within the site driving users to create a unique image of the red ribbon being worn. This gets more people engaged in creating media and more invested in the cause. People can also share their "stories." These are fairly frail little sound bites but the pictures of real people helps.

We All Have AIDS site/shirt - from the KnowAIDS (Viacom & Kaiser FF) folks is a bold t-shirt- based campaign. Celebrity-driven, the microsite drives us to get the shirt and click through to a dozen or so sites which would each have some call-to-action. The celebs also "left their mark" in cement in Bryant Park, NYC  - something that will go "on tour". I love display of solidarity and the invitation to link arms with celebs but the overall call-to-action is a bit hard to decipher.

Light to Unite from BMS - the pharma site invites users to post their stories (or light a candle which I don't quite get). Yet there is a pretty scary waiver that posters must click through to do so ("all rights to BMS....") I have nothing against pharma companies hosting advocacy alongside drug promotion which is what this site is doing. If Reyataz was one of the drugs keeping me alive, I would feel pretty good about it. Problem is the interface doesn't do anything. I can post a story but I cannot read any stories. Anywhere I click on the map interface doesn't do anything.

Wikipedia - World AIDS Day - I add this entry because it has a terrific list of past WAD "themes":

World AIDS Day Themes 1988 - 2005

1988	Communication
1989	Youth
1990	Women and AIDS
1991	Sharing the Challenge
1992	Community Commitment
1993	Act
1994	AIDS and the Family
1995	Shared Rights, Shared Responsibilities
1996	One World. One Hope
1997	Children Living in a World with AIDS
1998	Force for Change: World AIDS Campaign With Young People
1999	Listen, Learn, Live: World AIDS Campaign with Children & Young People
2000	AIDS: Men Make a Difference
2001	I care. Do you?
2002	Stigma and Discrimination
2003	Stigma and Discrimination
2004	Women, Girls, HIV and AIDS
2005	Stop AIDS. Keep the Promise