Marketing View on Blogging
Blogging has moved from fringe to mainstream marketing. Healthcare technology has its tribe of bloggers, and the vendor big boys such as Microsoft and IBM run respectable healthcare blogs. Schwartz sat down with blog design and strategist Steve Turcotte, president of Backbone Media Inc., to discuss how blogging should be pursued by healthcare IT vendors. Turcotte explores such issues as:
- Why blogging, and why now?
- What is good corporate blogging strategy?
- What about commenting outside of your corporate blog?
- How do you transparently comment without spin?
Read on for insightful advice for your own blogging efforts...
Schwartz: Why blogging, and why now?
Turcotte: Healthcare practices in the United States will be adopting electronic medical records at an increasing rate in the coming years. According to a report published this year by the CDC http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/ products/pubs/pubd/hestats/electronic/electronic.htm, entitled "Electronic Medical Records Usage by Office Based Physicians 2005" there has been a reported 31 percent increase in EMR's between 2001 and 2005. Further, this study notes that the trend is expected to continue into the foreseeable future.
Concurrently, the healthcare blogging community is growing. Envision Solutions' report, "Healthcare Blogosphere: What is it & Why does it Matter?", found that healthcare blogs are already influencing how patients are attaining information, and the study predicts that thought leaders within the community will emerge within the coming years. Both of these factors represent an opportunity for healthcare technology companies to enhance their reach to target audiences through channels beyond advertising and PR. Our research into the healthcare blogs has found a that many doctors and practice executives are currently cynical about marketing messages from healthcare IT companies, while customers want to talk with the technical specialists and fellow customers about IT products.
Just as any company would change an advertising vehicle to be more effective, we think a healthcare IT company must conform to the mode of communication that other community members use. Physician and executive reluctance to learn and communicate through traditional media creates an opening to converse with healthcare IT customers through consumer generated media platforms, such as forums and blogs. Recently my SCOUT team analyzed IT healthcare consumer sentiment in 56 blogs and 20 fourms, finding that customers use blogs and forums to talk with peers about IT products. To effectively connect with customers on such web sites it's important to keep the conversation strictly around the issues that face medical practices using IT today.
Schwartz: What is good corporate blogging strategy?
Turcotte: Steady constant discussion within a growing healthcare IT blogging community will build a permanent archive of relevant pages, links, and credibility in the healthcare IT blogging community. These practices result in higher search engine rankings, direct traffic, and an open channel for communication with both leaders and detractors in the industry.
The primary goal of a blog should be to demonstrate thought leadership and to monitor/listen and respond to criticism. From a corporate perspective if you want to reach prospective customers and healthcare bloggers, you have to blog about topics beyond your own products and services. And two, your corporate product managers, customer service, or developers could write a blog that would give regular updates on the software/services of your company and answer customer questions.
The blog would then provide content that would help you actively participate in the healthcare IT blogging community by developing content around the topic of IT, be it EMR, PPM, CPOE or what not. The corporate blog would be equipped to handle questions or queries about your products are posted on the public web. An advantage is you would have complete editorial control over your own blog to present your story.
Schwartz: What about commenting outside of your corporate blog?
Turcotte: Excellent question. Trying to blog without engaging with the outside community is like fighting with one hand tied behind your back. We firmly believe that a corporate blog should be used in conjunction with the monitoring of forums and other blogs and whenever relevant issues or questions arise; the product manager blogger should be prepared to add value to the discussion by transparently commenting without spin. That's the best way to build credibility with the blogosphere. That being said, there is great value in taking it to the next level by highlighting information on the corporate blog.
Schwartz: What do you mean by transparently commenting without spin?
Turcotte: Official sounding 'cover you're rear end' statements will not work with bloggers. In fact, they are likely to backfire. When customers or potential influencers ask questions in a blog or forum about a product, this is your golden opportunity to genuinely answer questions or add to informed responses by unofficial parties. It's okay to acknowledge a weakness with a comment like "Hi Jane, this is Fred from Acme. Sorry about the trouble. We are aware that some of our clients have had some frustrating problems with that component of our product. We expect a fix to the problem very soon, but here's what you can do to work-around that issue..." The benefit here is that you solve a customer's problem, or at least show them and the other lurking consumers stumbling across the post from a Google search that you're listening and taking their concerns seriously. This kind of public customer service can only strengthen the relationship and build goodwill among customers and prospects. Of course the goal here is that this will all ultimately translate into referrals and direct sales leads.
Once involved in the blogosphere, your company will be expected to answer critics. You should be willing and able to deal with both constructive and destructive criticism from these sources.
Stephen Turcotte is the Founder and President of Backbone Media and SCOUT Blogging. Turcotte's own blogs can be found at (http://www.scoutblogging.com/blog.html) and http://www.blogsurvey.backbonemedia.com.
Tags: Healthcare+Blogging, Healthcare+Marketing, Healthcare+PR, Online+PRPosted by Shawn Whalen on August 10, 2006 at 2:27 PM
Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
