I really like the view from my office window on the edge of downtown Cincinnati. It reminds me to get away from my computer, join the human race, and connect in person with my many online friends and associates. 

The world of blogs, social networks, message boards and the like has linked me to a vast network of amazing people. We share information and ideas literally every day. We ask and answer questions, post photos of cool places and people, and generally get to know each other better. We already have some knowledge of our backgrounds, perhaps even a close bond, when we finally meet in person or reunite.

Since creating a Twitter account four years ago, my “networking” has gone on steroids. Instead of just connecting at PRSA meetings and conferences, I now trade handshakes, smiles and hugs with all sorts of folks at organized meetups of groups such as Cincinnati Social Media, New Media Cincinnati and the Social Media Health Network. I enjoy conversations over coffee or lunch with lots more people than ever. There’s just not enough time in the day to attend all of the great conferences, bootcamps, workshops and the like where I finally get to see that person I’ve only viewed in photos or, perhaps, videos.

So, I encourage you to do the same, if you haven’t already. Get out there. It’s not just about fostering online relationships. It’s about meeting great people in the flesh.

At the Pink Power Mom awards in Atlanta in October 2011. Social media has had a profound impact in our cancer journey.

As many of you know, my wife — author/blogger Tami Boehmer — touches the lives of many as she lives with Stage IV metastatic breast cancer. And I’ve detailed in this blog and our family and friends blog how Tami used social media to write From Incurable to Incredible: Cancer Survivors Who Beat the Odds. 

You also may have learned through our connections about my move into health care social media in January 2011.

But I just wanted to give a quick update before I take my daughter to a photo session with her dance team members about how social media has helped me as a “caregiver.” I don’t really like that word, to tell the truth. I simply look at myself as a husband, a friend to the woman I married on May 17, 1997.

Our last appointment with Dr. George Sledge at the IU Simon Cancer Center in Indianapolis drove home to me just how helpful social media has been for me — the husband of a woman who has thrived with breast cancer for more than a decade. I checked in on Foursqure — and shared the check in via Facebook and Twitter. Almost immediately, friends tweeted and commented much-needed messages of support. I can’t tell you how much the prayers and positive thoughts help as you wait to meet with the doc.

Meantime, Tami was getting lots of helpful information on her iPhone from other cancer survivors she had met through her blog, Facebook, Inspire.com, and countless other online sources. Several women who had had their breast cancer spread to the pelvic area like Tami told how they endured a rough patch and are enjoying each day now. One shared a story of how she hiked in Utah. Another told how the treatment options we were considering had played out in her cancer journey.

When Dr. Sledge consulted with us, we were armed with better-informed questions. And we didn’t feel alone, either. All thanks to social media.

I’d like to share more, but it’s time to head out and do my fatherly duties. Perhaps I’ll share more at a later date.  If Tami’s an e-patient, I’m an e-caregiver. Thank God for social media.

If you lead social media strategy for a large organization, here’s a must-read: The Social Media Strategist: Build a Successful Program from the Inside Out by Christopher Barger. Lots of great best practices and lessons learned from a seasoned pro who has guided successful programs at IBM and GM.

Barger does an excellent job of spelling out the internal structures and processes needed to transform an organization into a social business. For example, he talks in detail about two key players and their roles — the executive champion and the social media evangelist.  He explains the advantages and disadvantages of various departments owning social media. He talks about forging relationships with functions such as Legal to move an organization ahead. Areas such as social media policy, ROI and measurement and training are covered.

As Barger points out, these may not be the glamorous parts of the job — nearly as much fun as interacting with a blogger, giving a “rock star” presentation at a conference, or executing an exciting campaign — but they are critical.

As the social media evangelist at Catholic Health Partners, I find myself often doing the behind-the-scenes stuff that Barger describes. It was excellent to have him affirm some of what I’ve learned — and to pick up ideas based on the experiences he shares in the books.

Here are a few nuggets that I highlighted:

* “The true goal when building a brand’s social media program is to embed social media expertise and practice deep into the organizational DNA, as much a part of the brand as traditional marketing, advertising, or PR.”

* “…while you can’t control online conversations, you can influence them… they’ll give you the benefit of the doubt… Plus, your responses end up showing up in searches on the topic; if you’re not out there to counter unfair or inaccurate statements about your brand, the only thing Google or Bing will turn up is your critics.”

* “(Dell) ascribes (very few turf wars) to the culture of the company adopting social media as a business tool applicable across the entire organization rather than as a marketing tool, communications tool, or customer service tool.”

* “First and foremost, you should start not with an action but with a mind-set: by seeing social media as tools for the entire business, not just a marketing, PR or customer service tool.”

* “Before beginning a social media program and trying to measure its success, there are four fundamental questions to ask:

“1. What data will we be collecting? (Which metrics do we believe are the most important?)

“2. How will we be collecting it? (Which tools do we believe or find to be most effective in acquiring the data we’ve chosen?)

“3. What kind of analysis will we apply to it? (Will we report just raw numbers? What kind of insights are we hoping to get from the data once it’s collected, and how will we derive them from this data?)

“4. How will we report it? (Through what mechanisms will we distribute what we learn to the rest of the organization?)

I highlighted lots of other helpful info, too. If you’re in the same line of work as me, pick up the book and see what ends up in yellow on your pages.

This week, Cincinnati Social Media heard from  preeminent LinkedIn expert  Jennifer McClure of Unbridled Talent. Jennifer gave an appreciative mix of professionals and students at Northern Kentucky University an extremely informative update about the social network and a refresher about some of its basics.

Here are some highlights:

* Your LinkedIn profile is your professional online home base. Strive for 100 percent completeness. Be sure to tweak. Freshness matters. Make at least 50 connections. Your profile picture must represent you as a professional.

* Your headline, summary and photo draw the most attention, according to “heat maps.” Be sure that your headline and summary are keyword rich — very important for search engine optimization, and because recruiters and HR folks search for particular words.

* Put five or more skills on your profile. (You can find the Skills section under More on the top right.) This allows recruiters to find your skills and talents.

* LinkedIn members who grow their networks are 30 percent more likely to find jobs. So actively seek connections. Have a connection strategy, such as accepting all or certain invitations to connect.

* Use applications such as the Amazon reading list, Slideshare presentation sharing, blog plug-in under More on the top right. Helps connections and recruiters learn a lot more about you than what’s in your basic profile info.

* Be sure to join and participate in relevant LinkedIn Groups. You may view the group’s demographics before deciding if you want to join. Once you join a group, share helpful content. Be helpful. This builds awareness about your personal brand.

* Don’t overlook the possibility of using paid LinkedIn ads. There are a number of options, and you can super-target.

Jennifer also shared some insightful info about LinkedIn Companies pages. She told us about neat places such as http://developer.linkedin.com, http://engineering.linkedin.com and http://linkedinlabs.com to find cool, free options. You may find out what companies are trending on LinkedIn Search here: http://swarm.linkedinlabs.com. If you get a chance to attend one of her presentations, don’t miss it. As I said, these are just a few quick notes. She covered a lot more!

Clear back in November 2011 — just over three months ago, seems like eons in this era of rapid adoption of new technologies — I read an article in Bloomberg BusinessWeek about this hot new social network called Pinterest. So I did a status update on Facebook asking for an invitation. Early adopter Jackie Danicki promptly e-mailed one.

Right away, it seemed that this social network was different from others to burst on my screens  – much more visual. Images of shoes, women’s clothing, vacation spots, insightful quotes, funny sayings, infographics…

“There might be some possibilities for use in the health care world,” I thought, especially as I read about this network’s overwhelming popularity with women and its power of driving traffic to websites.

Then, I heard about Dayton Children’s Medical Center’s Pinterest page. It was super interesting to hear how Dayton Children’s was using Pinterest to connect with parents and patients by offering content they value. Soon, Joanne Maly and Jodie Heflin shared at New Media Cincinnati in February about tapping the power of Pinterest to advance goals of non-profits and connect with patents of children with diabetes.

“Enough, already,” I thought. Time to set up this page for Catholic Health Partners, my employer. It looked like a good network to integrate into CHP’s social media strategy, especially to reach employees (82 percent women) and potential new hires as well as billing coders, also mostly female. We could capture the attention of med students to support physician recruitment. We could repurpose videos we’d put on our YouTube channels and get more value for the production costs. We could share information that helps further our mission — improving the health of our communities, with an emphasis on the poor and under-served. We could build awareness about CHP among important audiences that may not have heard about us.

Within two weeks, I found myself on a lunch and learn panel at Boot Camp Digital, thanks to an invitation by CEO Krista Neher. Krista gave a comprehensive overview about Pinterest to the sold-out session (all women, except one). Then, Debba Haupert offered a super interesting presentation and Q/A about how she uses Pinterest to support Girlfriendology. I explained CHP’s strategy and, thanks to Krista’s questions, how I’m able to fit Pinterest into my daily social media duties. Social media, after all, is just part of my job.

So, with that little story as background, here are a few of the things I’ve learned this far:

* Keep your target audiences and business goals in mind when developing a Pinterest page for your organization. Do you want to drive traffic to your website or other social media platforms — with an ultimate goal of attracting job applicants, selling a product or service, or getting donations? Just what do you want to accomplish?

* Think visual! Debba shared how she has been creating files for pinning that contain an inspirational quote, the Girlfriendology logo and its URL. She’s repurposing the text that she had been just using for status updates on Facebook. If you share a photo, Photoshop a watermark on it with your organization’s name and URL.

* Take advantage of as many of the features of Pinterest as possible. For example, fill out the descriptions in your boards. Use keywords that search engines like. Put in links to your website and/or other social media platforms.

* See who is following the people/organizations who are following you — and find people/organizations to follow there. Also, use the search box to find people/organizations to follow. Note: You don’t have to follow all of their boards, either. Possibly follow the one or two most relevant to your goals. The content they are sharing gives you great resources for repinning on your boards.

There was more, it’s time to go do some pinning. Hope you found this valuable. Feel free to share more in the comments.

Here is a list of reasons for opening social media access to all employees from sources such as the Social Media Health Network and Shel Holtz. Please feel free to add any more, as well as possible risks for doing so. 

(1) Giving a double message — If you tell employees to Like our Facebook page or Twitter account and then block them off.

(2) Confusion/uneven blocking — It’s a big headache to decide who gets access and who doesn’t.

(3) Missing a great opportunity for employees to serve as brand ambassadors. Passionate, caring workers are your greatest advertisements.

(4) Contributes to a culture of mistrust. Blocking gives a message that you don’t trust people to get their work done, that you fear they will put social networking ahead of their work.

(5) Studies show that workers with open access are actually more productive. There are a lot of benefits to being able to connect with your networks to talk about business-related matters.

(6) This is how people communicate now. What’s wrong with doing a quick check of your Facebook or Twitter during a break?

(7) There is more of a risk of viruses and other security problems via e-mail than through social media. We can remind people not to click on suspicious links or do other things that might enable malware to infect
networks.

(8) Most organizations monitor social media for mentions of their brand names, so they can tell if any problems exist. Also, they have crisis communication plans in place to handle any issues that may arise.

Recently, several people  have asked me for ways to get more people to like their Facebook business page. Here are a few thoughts that popped into my head:

(1) Create and implement a content plan that includes daily status updates, including in the evening/possibly use HootSuite to time delay. Analyze your fan base. Provide content of value to followers; not just marketing stuff bragging about yourself.

(2) Do a targeted Facebook ad – target your geographic area, use keywords relevant to your business strategy, use logo and link to FB page. Can do daily per-click budget ($10 or $20 per day) for limited duration.

(3) Partner with other organizations and key influencers (Example: top local fitness blogger.)

(4) Integrate with traditional PR/marketing – newsletter, media coverage, events, etc.

I posted the list on Facebook — of course — and invited others to add. Matthew Dooley of Cincinnati offered these:

(5) Run a contest or give-away (using a third-party app)

(6) Tag other pages in your posts (when relevant). Like and comment on their posts.

(7) Create a landing tab for non-fans.

(8) Use multi-media (photos, videos) to stand out in the news feed.

(9) Ask fans to comment on and like your posts. Like-if, would you rather, and fill in the blanks.

(10) Post stuff people care about, not just you and your product/service.

Please offer your additions in the comments. Maybe you’ll win a prize. :-)

Untangling the social media measurement maze takes lots of thought

If you can’t measure it, why do it. I’m taking that adage to heart as 2012 unfolds. I want to go beyond counting fans and followers — and measure how social media drives attainment of  strategic  business goals and objectives.

My research has led to numerous great books, professional meetings and informal discussions, like the one with Taylor Wiegert and Claire Guappone of Empower MediaMarketing before work a couple of weeks ago at Tazza Mia in the Carew Tower in downtown Cincinnati. Taylor and Claire shared their knowledge about social media measurement tools after the topic was raised on the Cincinnati Social Media LinkedIn group.

Taylor pointed out that there’s a new measurement tool coming on the scene virtually every week. They’re a dime a dozen. You can get so far in the weeds with them that you don’t get actionable insights. It’s very important to start with objectives — the what and why you are trying to accomplish. to strive to measure campaigns and the way online conversations drive referrals.

It’s an imperfect science. Taylor pointed out that sentiment measures are 70 percent accurate because they don’t detect  factors such as sarcasm. You still need to roll up your sleeves and do some intensive analysis.

However, there are a lot of pluses to the various measurement tools — such as having the ability to customize a dashboard where you measure and engage through Facebook, Twitter, blogs and the like. For instance, I could do an analysis of health conversations by platform — and get a better idea where to focus. But, once again, Taylor reiterated the importance of getting actionable insights. For example, tracking terms such as “diabetes Ohio,” “health,” “workout program” or “going on a diet” could provide vital research helpful in developing a focused campaign.

I came away from our coffee session with a goal of getting a better picture of the social media landscape in which my employer operates. By understanding the mindset/motivation of key audiences, I’ll be better equipped to craft messages and deliver content at optimal times.  I’ll find those passionate advocates who can help drive word-of-mounth.

And I’ll set some more-precise objectives and implement more-effective strategies and tactics for achieving them.

If you can’t measure it, why do it?

My wife gives tips in YouTube videos on Breast Cancer Answers, an awesome website launched this year.

It’s World Cancer Day — and the fourth anniversary of the diagnosis of my wife’s breast cancer recurrence. As readers of this blog know, Tami has tapped the power of the Internet to empower herself and others as they live with advanced-stage cancer and life’s other challenges. Her book, From Incurable to Incredible: Cancer Survivors Who Beat the Odds, continues to gain momentum and her blog, www.miraclesurvivors.com, draws readers from across the globe. 

Today, I want to give a shout-out to a new website called Breast Cancer Answers. Tami was invited to share tips on the site — in part due to her ranking as one of Cision’s Top 10 Most Influential Breast Cancer Bloggers. Todd Hartley of WireBuzz recorded the YouTube video of Tami using Skype. He was great at prepping her for the interviews, taped on a day when Tami was encountering a major scare with her cancer. (That’s another story.)

I am in awe of the way this site pulls together so many elements to empower patients. It includes expert advice from the likes of Dr. Jay K. Harness, a past president of the American Society of Breast Surgeons and Breast Surgery International. E-patients such as my wife offer tips based on their real-life experiences. There are lots of interactive elements. Social media are sprinkled throughout the site, such as links to the LinkedIn profiles of Dr. Harness, Todd Hartley and project manager Amanda Wible, and other relevant resources.

Here’s the writeup about Hartley in the About Us section: ”After Todd’s step-mom developed breast cancer, he called his friend Dr. Jay Harness and together they developed the first social media show. Their goal, provide a free service where women around the world, regardless of economic status, could ask a breast cancer question and the get the answer. Todd Hartley, the president of WireBuzz is a digital marketing innovator, creator of the first video medical encyclopedia on the Internet, who once led Internet marketing projects for seven of the largest national talk shows. We are happy to report that Todd’s amazing step-mom is now in recovery and back to living life on her terms.”

And here’s a summary about the site: “Discover, what every newly diagnosed breast cancer patient should do to improve their chances for survival of breast cancer, how breast cancer diagnosis has advanced, where the cutting edge for the treatment for breast cancer is today and what breast cancer medical terms really mean. Breast Cancer Answers covers a wide variety of information. For example, if you have symptoms for breast cancer, like a lump in breast, pain in breast, or you simply want to know what breast cancer is, please send us your question. It’s our mission to help patients understand breast cancer carcinoma, the most effective breast cancer treatment strategies, the latest breast cancer technological advances and help improve the lives of women living with breast cancer. If you would like to increase breast cancer awareness, please click on the Save Lives link.”

I encourage you to check out Breast Cancer Answers — an example for all of us in healthcare PR, a best practice from which we can learn… and, even more importantly, a website that can help many!