#014- Digital Health Social Media: Time, Team, and Tools

 Today  we’ll explore the three “T’s” of social media marketing: Time, Team, and Tools.

To make your digital health social media marketing efforts pay off for your business, you must devote the right amount of Time, without wasting time. You must have the right Team in place, either in-house, or outsourced to perform the social media functions and activities.

And third, it’s smart to use the right Tools- to save time and give you the information you need about your social media marketing activities to make your efforts as effective as possible.

Ready? Let’s go..

About This Show:

Each Wednesday, Sam Stern, founder and Chief Marketing Technologist at Modallic, an mHealth marketing and brand development firm reveals his winning Mobile, Digital and healthcare IT marketing strategies, shares real life Mobile Health marketing success stories, and offers breakthrough marketing tips and tactics so you can lead the field with your Mobile Health and healthcare IT solutions.

Discover how to craft compelling stories to open doors with key health care system decision makers. Understand how an agile marketing mindset and approach positions you to create a profitable, sustainable business.

Gain insights into Mobile Health and healthcare IT marketing strategy, how to tell your unique mHealth and healthcare IT marketing story, creating your mHealth buyer personas, how to integrate an agile marketing process, mobile health and digital health brand development and market positioning, and learn what really works in attracting and landing mobile health and healthcare IT clients.

Show Notes:

Time for Digital Health Social Media Marketing

Typically, most digital health entrepreneurs either don’t have any time for social media, so they ignore it completely, and miss the marketing benefits social media can deliver…

Or, they spend WAY too much time on social media.

In a recent study of 460 entrepreneurs and CEO’s, 63% said they spent 1-5 hours per week on social media. The rest are spending 21+ hours each week on social media.

If you, the leader of your business, are spending half of your time on social media, you’re wasting time. Others, can probably do it better, more efficiently, and certainly less expensively than you.

The vast amount of time spent on social media is unproductive. Hand over tasks to either in-house or virtual assistants to handle social media.

What is the right amount of time to spend on Social Media?

Your business goals drive your social media marketing decisions. If, for example, your business goal is to attract 5 new enterprise software clients within the next year for your digital health services, you will need a certain amount of visitors to your website. These visitors will turn into leads, and eventually into sales opportunities, and then clients for your services.

Content, such as blog posts, podcasts, free download guides, webinars, emails, will be needed to drive traffic to your site. Social media is one of the tools you use to promote and amplify your content.

As the leader, founder, or CEO of your firm, your time is your most precious asset. You must protect it and use it wisely.  Your social media activities must support your short-term and long-range business goals. At the end of the day, investing time, energy, and resources must produce a ROI. If not, it’s simply not worth your time.

Realize also that not all social networks are worth your time. If you provide enterprise software solutions to hospitals, you’ll probably find Facebook a waste of time. However, connecting with and personally engaging decision makers and industry influencers on Twitter and Linkedin could be worth spending 1-2 hours per week.

Fortunately, with the right Team using the right Tools, Social Media can be handled either with in-house staff or outsourced virtual assistants, usually cost effectively.

Your role is to show the team the map, the path to getting to the end destination. Let the Team drive the car.

Your Social Media Team 

The tasks and activities of Social Media will determine whom you need on your Team. You will need to have in-house staff, or a team of outsourced assistants, with the ability and time to complete the following tasks to keep your Social Media Marketing humming along:

1. Research and Draft Content- Social Media thrives on content. You will need to find interesting and relevant quotes, images, and links to share on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+. This content supports your own content you create on your blog and website.

2. Monitor and Engage Followers- Set up Alerts in Google and Twitter to monitor mentions of your name, business name, competitors, keywords, your products and services, and your brand. Quick, appropriate responses to questions and mentions engages your Followers, build relationships, and your credibility as a valuable resource.

3. Encourage Interaction- Do the following:

• Post questions or polls
• Add a video from YouTube
• Share relevant, newsworthy articles
• Interact on complimentary Pages, Groups, and Communities. 
• Follow Pages, Groups, and Communities in your niche/industry
• Follow and interact with leaders in your industry- digital, mobile technology, and healthcare.
• Share inspirational, motivational, and humorous quotes
• Thank your Followers
• Interact with people who Re-Tweet, Comment, and Share your information

4. Report on Your Metrics Monthly- Have your staff prepare a spreadsheet that shows:

• Number of Followers on each social network
• Number of Likes, Pluses, Shares, Re-Tweet
• Track mentions and link-backs

Don’t get hung up on vanity numbers. Pay attention to how these metrics correlate to the Leads generated and your Sales Results.

5. Create New Pages and Accounts- Create Facebook Pages, Twitter Profiles, LinkedIn and Google+ pages for your business and important projects or product launches.

6. Maintain a Social Media Weekly Planner- Have your support staff prepare a simple spreadsheet to track what type of social media activity will be performed on which network  for each day of the current week.

As you can see, lots of this Social Media activity is administrative in nature. In-house people who are organized and able to follow directions, with time to do the tasks, could be your answer. If not, it’s easy to find freelance, qualified virtual assistants at an affordable cost.

Make the Tasks Easier- Use Tools

Regardless if you have in-house or outsourced staff handling your Social Media activity, you’ll want to arm them with the right tools to do the tasks efficiently and effectively, and also provide you with the metrics and information you’ll need to lead and manage the efforts.

Monitor Mentions and Listening

Google Alerts– to track keywords, name, company name, product and services, mentions on blog posts, Facebook Pages, LinkedIn, and Google+

Twitter Alerts and Twitter Search– To monitor mentions on Twitter and find relevant Followers and topics to engage.

Tweetdeck– Manage, monitor, and schedule Tweets

Hootsuite– Manage, monitor, and schedule posts to multiple social media platforms.

Mention.net– a potential replacement for Google Alerts and Twitter Alerts in one place.

ManageFilter– Manage your Followers on Twitter

While these are the top Social Media Tools, you might want to check out the additional links in the Resources section of this podcast. The approach on the Tools is the same as the overall approach on Social Media: keep it simple and easy to operate. Use the tools that you understand and work in your business.

With the Right Time, the Right Team, and the Right Tools, you’ll be prepared to launch a cost effective Social Media Marketing campaign for your Digital health firm,

Next UP:

We’ll take a closer look at the two top Social Media networks- Twitter and Facebook. You’ll learn how to evaluate if these Social Media platforms are a fit for your business, and if so, the best practices to get the most out of your efforts.

 

Resources:

50 Top Tools for Social Media Monitoring, Analytics, and Management

10 Best Social Media Management Tools

The 39 Social Media Tools I’ll Use Today

 

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