Social Media

May 6, 2011

Bevolo interviewed in Healthcare Marketing Report story

Chris Bevolo was featured in a story about his firm, Interval, and their work with LifeSource, the organ procurement organization in Minnesota, South Dakota and North Dakota. The article, “Organ Donation: Social Media Alone or an Integrated Marketing Effort,” appeared in the in the April 2011 issue of Healthcare Marketing Report and explored two campaigns developed by Interval for LifeSource over the past two years, “HalfTheMen” and “Decision.”

Nov 19, 2010

Rant of the week

My friend and fellow agency owner Dan Dunlap recently asked when he could expect my next blog rant. Well Dan, this one’s for you. Here are five things that are rant-worthy today. Tomorrow’s another day.

1. Mommy bloggers
I’m all for understanding this influential group and the power they may have for swaying consumers, so nothing against women with children who build communities on the Internet. I just hate the name – “mommy bloggers.” Go ahead, say it out loud – “mommy bloggers.” It’s so very cloying and irritating. I put it in the same category as “veggies” (“who wants veggies for lunch? me me me!”) or “tot” (“me and the tot had a great time at the museum of modern art today”). Continue reading…

Jul 28, 2010

Who should be more offended, branders or SM folk?

In a somewhat disparaging “this can’t really be happening, right?” BusinessWeek article called “Twitter, Twitter, Little Stars,” author Felix Gillette manages to slap two disciplines with one fell swoop. In trying to describe the somewhat chaotic rush by businesses to add social media professionals to their staff, Gillette makes this statement:

“The chief social media officer may be supplanting the chief branding officer as the zaniest human resources innovation in memory.”

Wow. Really? I’m not sure who should be more insulted, brand evangelists or social media zealots. Continue reading…

Jul 1, 2010

When I say refreshing drink, you think cancer treatment.

Where do I begin with the recent article in Ad Age titled “Health-Care Reform Stokes Spending by Top Hospitals, Clinics”? The story starts by using an example of a live-tweeted surgery to state: “Welcome to the new front in medical marketing: hospitals jockeying to position themselves for growth amid a perfect storm of aging baby boomers and a health-care-reform bill that will result in millions more insured patients down the road.”

There’s the frustrating: The “new front”? Hospitals have been jockeying to position themselves for about two decades now. It seems that whenever a mainstream media source “discovers” hospital marketing, then it must be a new phenomenon. It’s not. Continue reading…

May 11, 2010

What’s on your mind, healthcare marketer?

I was on the road last week speaking to two healthcare marketing groups. First, we talked marketing measurement at the Cincinnati AMA monthly meeting. Then, I presented “Joe Public Doesn’t Care About Your Hospital” to the Virginia Society for Healthcare Marketing and Public Relations (VSHMPR) in Charlottesville, Virginia. In talking with attendees and fielding questions, a few common points of interest seemed to emerge at both venues. What was top of mind for marketers in these two markets? See if any of these sound familiar: Continue reading…

Dec 9, 2009

Social media snake oil

There’s a standing mantra among healthcare marketing consultants and those who follow social media closely: “If someone refers to themselves as a social media expert, run to the hills.” This is driven by the idea that social media is so new, and so little is actually known about its long-term impact, that very few if any social media marketers could have obtained enough experience to claim the title “expert.” Continue reading…

Oct 13, 2009

Introduce some Paranormal Activity to your marketing

If you haven’t heard of Paranormal Activity, chances are you tripped over your router cable a few months ago and forgot to plug in back it back in. This independent film has made quite a stir through Twitter and other social networking outlets. In fact, this low budget ($11,000) flick has relied almost exclusively on social networking for promotion. And it pulled in over $7 million last weekend.

CNN covered this story today. In it are a number of valuable nuggets for all marketers – healthcare and otherwise.
Continue reading…

Oct 5, 2009

It’s a HealthCampMN party!

To help kick-off HealthCampMN and welcome everyone, Interval is hosting a pre-conference reception on Friday, October 23, from 6 – 9 pm. The event is open to all attendees, speakers and their guests. Come for food, drinks and to meet all the people you’ve tweeted, friended or (gasp!) emailed who are in town for the conference. Should be a blast! Continue reading…