Does Your mHealth Brand Understand the Power of Social Multi-Media?

For a long time, social media has been a buzz word that’s been tossed around without much real thought and strategic planning, even within the technologically advanced mHealth field. Companies struggled to jump on the bandwagon with various levels of success and involvement. There’s a vast graveyard of company blogs, Twitter accounts and Facebook pages that haven’t seen a new post in months or years. And they wonder why they aren’t seeing any ROI from their timid social media efforts.

To really make an impact, mHealth companies have got to step up their social media game, and today that means adding multi media to your social platforms. Gone are the days of 1,000-word blogs and boring text-based Facebook posts. Here are some great tips on how to better engage your audiences by using the latest in social sharing including photos, video and graphics from an article by technology forecaster David Burrus:

Power Up Your mHealth Brand with Social Multi-Media

The pace of technological change is accelerating rapidly
In the case of social media, it is rapidly becoming social multi-media, meaning we have the addition of photos, graphics, animation, music, video, and more. Social media really isn’t about the word “media”; it’s about the word “social.” It’s about sharing.

Participate in social photo sharing
What we’re seeing today is that all the social media sites are making it easier for users to add any and all types of media to their posts, thus creating a new multi-media form of social sharing. Facebook has allowed us to do that for some time and it’s now making that easier and easier.

Videos, photography, graphics, animation, and 3-dimensional simulations are a part of social media
Reading words is one thing; actually seeing those words come to life is another. It’s human nature to humanize technology and adding different types of media to what we are sharing makes the sharing more meaningful, connected and fun.

Social media creates social trust
This is important for business to understand, because when you say your product or service is the best, people may or may not believe you. But when people see their friends and others “just like them” saying something is the best, now you’ve developed social trust for your claims. People are then inclined to think: “My friends and colleagues are saying this product is the best, it must be.”

Humanize social media ads and marketing campaigns
Companies can humanize their brand with photographs and videos of employees; happy customers using their products, and illustrations of how customers have saved time and money using their services. It’s time for business to go beyond simply writing blogs and posting tweets, they need to embrace the quickly evolving world of social multi-media.

Social media is here to stay and is ever-changing; it’s your job to make sure your company doesn’t fall behind. You may need help, so don’t be afraid to ask a social media marketing or consulting firm that knows mHealth and its nuances for assistance. But either way, it’s imperative that you have a strategy and a plan in place.