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Why Health Professionals Should Pay Attention to Local Search

image credit: And so it goes in Shreveport

Proximity and word-of-mouth have always been influential (if not the most influential) factors in choosing a hospital or doctor. I recall hearing my mom mention that she often used doctors that her sisters had visited. She also took my siblings and I to the same doctors that my cousins saw.

Location was always important as well. If one was short on recommendations, they could pick up a trusty old phone book and find a provider nearby.

This is still true today as it was in the past. But in a different way. "Word-of-mouth" recommendations now include comments from Online communities and social media contacts. And younger generations are more likely to check local listings Online with a Google search or local site like Yelp or YellowPages.com.

Both of these methods are related to local search, which is why it's important providers pay attention. It should be a priority for doctors and hospitals to manage their local listings. You'll want to make sure first and foremost that you have a listing and that it is accurate. Much of the data provided for local listings is pulled from data providers like Localeze and infoUSA, so make sure to check with them first. If they get an address or phone number wrong, it could be shared with dozens of other sites, including Google.

Somewhere along the line, you'll also want to monitor any ratings or reviews associated with your listing. Clearly, negative reviews can have a large impact on whether prospective customers take the next step in contacting you. It's a good idea to ask satisfied patients to leave a review for you.. Sometimes a nudge is all it takes. And if you do have negative reviews, use them to improve the way you do business. These can be valuable insights into how people view you from an outside perspective.

Brand Transparency in a Social Media Age

Internet access provides consumers with endless amounts of information at their fingertips. To put this in perspective, let's compare our process of collecting information today to that of 15 years ago. Imagine a grade school student in mid-90's. If this person needed information they would probably start out by asking their parents or another family member. If that proved insufficient, the next stop would an encyclopedia or perhaps a trip to local library.

Image courtesy of flaivoloka on stock.xchng

Now compare that to today. You want to know how to tie a knot, cancer research, book reviews, etc. - it's all a search and a click away. And since this information has become available, we have become much smarter consumers. We care more about what's in our food, what effect our actions have on the environment and so on. If a brand is unethical in any way, we are going to hear about it and hear about it fast. It's the new word-of-mouth and it's much more accessible and viral.

This is why brand transparency has become increasingly important. Brands can't hide behind walls and tell us who they are. We decide who they are by how they act and the quality of their product. Our purchasing decisions will be made with more information at hand. To succeed brands will have to be open and part of the discussion so that consumers are aware of the value their brand has on issues we care about.

We've always been social, we just have the technology now to easily connect with others on a massive scale. Word-of mouth has never traveled so fast. Brands need to remember that with every decision they make.

3 Simple Ways Non-profits Can Promote a Cause Through Social Media

1. Tweet. Find people who are interested in your topic by searching conversations on search.twitter.com. Reach out by following them and sending them a personalized message. You'll be surprised by how many follow back or find you by searching through conversations. Once you've built a following. Share your important announcements and hopefully some of your followers will Retweet it to their followers.

Just make sure that you're not only tweeting about yourself. Converse with your followers by answering or asking questions that pertain to them. Be active within your online community.

2. Create a Facebook page. Add your cause to Facebook and Causes.com and share your story. Make sure to let your Twitter followers and others that you have a Facebook page.

3. Rich media. Create videos and upload them to YouTube. Take pictures and add them to Flickr. Not only are these sites search engines in their own right, but can easily integrate with other social media platforms. You might embed a video or slideshow on your homepage or provide links as references in a tweet or Facebook post. Content is critical when it comes to social media, so never stop creating it or sharing it.

Once you've mastered these tactics, you can look into some additional ways to get involved. Make sure others can easily share your content with the click of a button, no matter where it is located. You might even contact a popular blog or social media guru and ask them for an interview concerning your cause. Getting visibility on a site like Mashable or Digg can turn a campaign viral in the blink of an eye.

Hosting videos on your Site vs. YouTube

Many marketers are already aware of the benefit of using video in B2B marketing. But once you’ve decided on this strategy, you still have to decide where you’d like to host the videos - your own Web site or YouTube. There are pros and cons to each, which I explain below.

The benefits of hosting videos on your site are that the user will be spending time on your domain and that links to the video will empower your domain and not YouTube.com. When a user is on your site, you have the added benefit of promoting your brand. YouTube does allow you to customize your channel, but control is limited.

Some companies may not have the time, bandwidth or resources, however, to implement videos on their site. There is a level of programming involved and you will have to embed some type of video player. If the technical issues are too much of an obstacle, you might strongly consider the YouTube route.

Creating a YouTube Channel and uploading videos is very simple and can be accomplished in a matter of minutes. You can also optimize your videos by giving them appropriate titles and tagging each one with related keywords.

It’s important to remember that YouTube is currently the second biggest search engine in the U.S. as far as volume of searches. Using YouTube allows your videos to be found by users who are searching within YouTube.com, as well as those who are using Google or Bing.

B2B Videos for Search are More Important than Ever

Image courtesy of Search Engine Land

As search engines and social media continue to evolve, it has become more important than ever for B2B companies to use videos for search.

What does this have to do with search engines?
In today’s world, which is heavily influenced by social media, search engines return results that include Web pages, blogs, products, images, videos, maps, local businesses and more. It’s called social, universal or blended search. Because of this, it’s important for companies to create content in these ways so that they might have more visibility. Not every form of content is appropriate for every company, however, so it’s important to find which are relevant.

Why is video generally a good option for content for B2B companies?
This one’s pretty simple, if you think about it. In many cases a B2B purchase can be very technical and research intensive. Videos make it easier to explain content and give the user a break from having to read an extremely long document. In addition, it gives the B2B company a chance to show their product in action. This does not in any way mean that written content shouldn’t be available as well, just that having the extra option can make the process much easier for you and a potential client.

So, whether you create a YouTube channel or host the videos on your existing site, make sure to consider this option if you are a B2B company. Not only do you give the user what they want, but your videos have a chance to increase your brand visibility in search results.

Nonprofit social media marketing on Facebook

Because of the valiant deeds that many non-profits perform, it's no surprise that people can have a strong emotional bond with a particular organization that may have helped one of their friends or family members in the past. Because of this affinity, it's reasonable to believe that a non-profit can successfully find friends to follow them on Facebook.

Just think about the number of people involved with a non-profit organization. It's very likely that many of them have Facebook accounts, simply considering the number of people that use this platform.

It is free to setup a Facebook fan page. It just takes someone to manage it and make sure that content is being provided. Posting event updates and pictures to your page is a great way for a non-profit organization to start.

Customer service monitoring online

image courtesy of Patrick Thibodeau

Online discussions have revolutionized how businesses must serve their current and potential customers. Through savvy tools, companies can monitor what people are saying about their brand, which puts them in a position to have customer service representatives react.

One such tool is a product from Salesforce appropritately named Salesforce for Twitter. An interesting function of this program allows you to automatically turn Twitter mentions (@ replies that include your Twitter handle) into customer service tickets.

Rich Cherecwich explains this well in an article on iMedia Connection: "For example, if a subscriber had a problem with their Comcast service, they could simply tweet at a Comcast account, and that tweet would be turned into an active ticket, similar to phoning a corporate call center."

If you've used any of these products or have others to recommend, we'd love to hear about it.

Additional online monitoring/organization tools worth looking at:

Social Mention

Google Alerts

Seesmic or TweetDeck

Twitter Search

3 social media marketing tools that track your brand

As a company, it's important to know what others are saying about your brand. Thankfully, there are tools to help us keep track of what is being said and who is saying it. Here are three tools to help discover these online conversations:

socialmention
This site allows you to create alerts, just like Google Alerts. You'll receive e-mails of the latest mentions of your company on blogs, bookmarks, comments, images, events, news, videos, audio and Q&A.

TweetDeck
Download TweetDeck and you can keep track and organize conversation on Twitter and Facebook that involve your brand. You can also save searches and see who is replying to your Tweets. Best of all, it's all in one window that you can customize.

Keotag
Search for tags that mention your brand (or any keyword). It's simple to use - just type in the keyword you'd like to search and then click on the engine you'd like to search through. There are a number of engines available including Technorati, del.icio.us, MSN, Digg, Reddit, Yahoo! and YouTube.

Know of any others? Feel free to mention them in the comments.

Baby steps

The hot topic in marketing these days is how a company can use social media and social networking to their advantage. If you’re new to the scene, you might be wondering how you can get started without getting in over your head. The answer is LinkedIn.

You probably have your own profile and company page right now and if you don’t, you’re already behind. They're very easy to set up and if you have any problems, you can contact the LinkedIn staff for assistance. The company profile page describes your company's offerings and also allows current employees to link to and appear on that page.

Once you have a profile and company page setup, it’s time to move on to the good stuff. There are an endless variety of groups for you to join and become involved with. You can search by keyword to find groups that interest you. Some groups are open to everyone, but others require permission. After you’ve become a member, make sure to stay involved by joining discussions and starting your own.

Why LinkedIn? LinkedIn is the ideal platform for beginners because it is easy to use and it is a professional social networking site, which means it is relevant to every company. How much you get out of it depends on what you put in. Go ahead, give it a try.

What’s everyone Tweeting about?

If you don’t believe Twitter has any marketing value, get this. You can use Twitter as a research tool even if you don’t have a Twitter page. Would you like an example? I thought so.

Let’s take one of our friends - Stericycle. This company offers an array of product recall services. If they want to know what the Twitter community is tweeting about in regards to the keyword ‘recalls,’ they can go to search.twitter.com and find out. See for yourself: recall-related Tweets.

The search results mentioned above show all the Tweets that mention the word ‘recalls.’ Savvy companies have used this to see who’s talking about their brand and counter it with positive PR messaging. Companies with a Twitter account can reply directly to the user and try to resolve issues, thank them for being a patron, or whatever makes sense. There are endless creative ways to use Twitter. I suggest you start by searching to see what the community has to say about your company. This is similar to Google Alerts, which we’ve mentioned in a previous post, but it only involves people on Twitter.

How have you used Twitter for your company?