Giving health and healthy lifestyle brands the ability to do the best they can

I know an organizational consultant who gets through the day by saying to himself "they're doing the best they can." It is the only way after many years of consulting, he says, that he can survive his customer engagements. He's learned to accept the fact that we're all flawed, and don't always operate (no kidding) in a rational manner.
But through social media, we have the ability to speak through an unfiltered pipeline about and to brand and company owners. So there's no excuse for them not to be doing the best they can. Unless they're not listening, in which case, we'll talk more frequently and virally until they do.
Using Twitter as an example, here are seven ways that social media helps us help brands "do the best they can":

1. Great experience. Nice to meet you on Twitter- I love shopping on zappos.com, great user experience!
2. Lousy experience. I'm really hoping that what I need will be at Target so I can avoid a Walmart shopping experience.
3. Never again unless you fix it experience. ITZShop.com: Worst online shopping experience!
4. Customer service channel. Sorry to hear about that @xxxxxx call 8009612075 and our customer service team will correct this for you.
5. Product feedback. wholefoods: @xxxx We appreciate your feedback though and will look into creating a better system for collecting and reviewing product requests
6. Special events announcement. Special hands-on activities at the Grand Opening of the WOW Science Museum this weekend! Schedule of events: http://tinyurl.com/ce6xjf
7. New product and service ideas:Good morning "twitters"! I need 5 great/NEW innovative suggestions to launch a product to the industry. All ideas are welcome!

The Health 2.0 reform movement

I visited Wikipedia to see if there were any updates for the definition of Health 2.0, as it's still being defined. There's a traditional view offered by The Wall Street Journal, and this ambitious game-changing definition from Scott Shreeve, MD., who states that Health 2.0 goes way beyond just the pervasive social networking technology to include a complete renaissance in the way that Healthcare is actually delivered. He developed this visual representation of the Health 2.0 reform movement, and provides an accompanying explanation of the model.
To date, adaption of Health 2.0 technologies and tools among health care practitioners lags behind healthcare consumers, who use social to research and manage their health, their medical conditions and to gain emotional support. The collaboration between patients, caregivers and medical professionals (the ultimate goal which will benefit the consumer in their daily lives) is still largely a concept - though inevitably this will change. As Matthew Holt points out the issue is, how are these tools and technologies going to be used, what does that mean for health care organizations, and doctors and patients, and how fast will it matter?

Does Your Healthcare Brand Have Fans Like This

When was the last time someone publicly raved about your organization? When they told the world how impressed they were with you. What if you had to gauge your success by the number of fans raving about you, which is a lot more credible relative to us pounding our chests about how great we are. Watch this video from a Ford fan. 

Seven Ways To Generate Health Brand Energy Through Added Value

I created this client presentation following a discussion about how to provide added value to consumers who are worried about their future and who are evaluating their purchases with great discretion (if they're purchasing at all). Implicit to being able to provide added value to consumers is understanding how they feel, how they define "value" and how they're making decisions. 

Not one of the seven examples that follows reflects a better feature-driven mousetrap. Rather, all of them provide a platform for enriching people's lives by understanding where they're headed, and then providing better experiences, new relationships and new ways of interacting. I've included examples from both inside and outside health and healthy lifestyles, as big insights and ideas typically come from outside the client category being studied.

1. Great Brand Experience - which inspires trust, builds loyalty and promotes word-of-mouth (e.g. J&J's Baby.com, Amazon, Zappos) 

2. Tried & True Comfort - the "authentic" foods and household products that we grew up with and that remind us of safety, warmth and joy (e.g. A&H Baking Soda, Kraft Mac N' Cheese, J&J Baby Shampoo)

3. Tying To A Cause - purchasing a product to support a cause people care about (e.g. Yoplait Pink Labels, Green Works and Sierra Club)

4. Reinforcement - through the brand, consumers can track their progress (e.g. myAlliplan, Nike + iPod)

5. Community - where consumers actively participate in co-creating brand value (e.g. digg, patientslikeme, Wikipedia)

6. Ongoing Dividends -  where the initial outlay provides sustainable, meaningful and relevant gains (e.g. Prius, Solar Energy)

7. Personalized Expression - where the brand serves as a blank canvas for personal expression (e.g. My M&M's, Build My Mini)

A little "healthy lifestyles" levity for a Friday

Actually, there's nothing light about this at all. Sharing this post from Consumerist – "The Worst Food Product Ever" May Have Been Found.  Should provide the impetus for us all to strive to have a healthy day. 

After seeing this, it compelled me to go to Armour's site. I was interested in seeing how they spoke about the company and the Armour brand.  Armour is actually part of Pinnacle Foods Group LLC. Their mission is to "make our brands an increasingly important part of consumers' everyday lives so we build sustainable value." Hmm...wonder how this fits with this mission? 

Armour is one of their brands. As they say in their Product Description, "Armour offers a wide range of easy-to-make solutions for all your meal and snacking occasions…given today's busy lifestyles, you're sure to find a quick, convenient and great tasting Armour Star product to satisfy your craving, whatever the occasion." Yes, this is quick and convenient. But don't even want to think about what the craving could be. 

Interestingly, when you click through to the Armour site, there's no Pork Brains to be found. 

Why technology is no longer an option in public health

Another call to arms for the healthcare industry and healthcare marketers to be open to change and to embrace the opportunities that technology and social media provide to make things better.  View post by Andre Blackman Why Technology Is No Longer Optional in Public Health.

Boomers, social media and healthcare marketing

More than 60% of boomers consume and contribute to social technologies like blogs, social networks, microblogging, podcasts and online videos, according to a recent report from Forrester. This is up from roughly 40% a year ago. The implications for healthcare marketers are clear – either integrate social into your marketing efforts or risk becoming irrelevant. 

Here are some tips on getting started:

• understand the different segments of boomers in terms of how they use social technologies, e.g. their interests, goals, benefits and rituals (here's an introduction from the book Groundswell)

• confirm and prioritize your business and social media objectives

• identify your priority stakeholder groups based on your objectives

• develop your social media platform, e.g. is it education, empowerment or both

• determine the social media strategies that make sense to reach your stakeholders, e.g. content and conversations, types of channels and promotion activities

• determine the roles and responsibilities of those who will be driving and influencing your efforts, e.g. researching and developing content, providing videos, ongoing execution, conducting analysis, implementing refinements, etc. 

• clarify and develop your corporate social media policies

Importantly, it takes time to ramp up with social media. It takes time to engage people, to draw them into conversations, to build credibility and relationships. But the wonderful thing about social media is that you can take baby steps. Steps that are extremely efficient and that allow you to learn and quickly adjust as you go. 

  

Growing brand energy in the downturn

To flourish in this downturn, challenge convention.  "Recessions provide fertile ground for launching new businesses, developing disruptive new products and strengthening customer loyalty." These are the words of marketing expert Andrew Razeghi from Northwestern University. Here are a few tips he offers based on the many examples of successful companies that prospered during recessionary times:

• While managing cash is important, don't put the brakes on. Continue to invest in R&D and marketing. "Listen to the market, invest in products for the long term, and keep in front of the customer."

• In a recession, the worst thing you can do is to go dark. In a recession "fear creates focus." "Customers wonder how you're doing. Now is the time to increase communication and restore confidence not only in the products you're selling, but also in the company behind those products."

• Marketers need to play to their strengths, and rethink how to turn those strengths into new opportunities. As marketers continue to clamor for attention, sensory branding will grow increasingly relevant to help cut through the clutter.

As he points out, many high-profile name brands were born in the midst of the Great Depression. 

 

Maximizing the insight from your health and healthy lifestyle online community

Some online communities are specifically built and managed as insight tools, states FreshNetworks in a recent post Maximising the insight you get from your online community.

However, all communities can be useful sources of insight, as companies are able to observe and learn from the unfiltered, real conversations taking place among community members.

Here are eight ways that FreshNetworks describes how companies can learn from online communities:

• Profiling data: to help you understand the demographic and lifestyle make-up of the people who comprise your community

• Focused discussions: that can be built around priority areas of interest, which can then provide rich insights for research and development

• Learn their language: by observing how members talk about your market and products, you can gain rich insight into their lives and priorities and your messaging and outreach 

• Rating and voting: asking members to rate or to vote on ideas or content provides input for you in turn to be more relevant and meaningful to them 

• Photo uploads: can reveal what people are thinking and feeling beyond words alone; and are often an easier vehicle for people to express their ideas

• Photo activities: by asking members to upload photos that they believe reflect a specific topic or a response to a question, you begin to learn how they see the world 

• Discussion events: can be focused on specific issues important to the company; at times that reflect the usage patterns of your community

• Quick polls: are easy to put together, and provide a tool to gather quick, directional insight about specific topics of interest

 

 

One simple Social path to health and healthy lifestyles brand energy

As Peter Drucker stated, the purpose of business is not to make a sale, but to make and keep a customer. 

But to keep a customer, you need to understand them. Which requires you to actively listen to what they're talking about and what's important to them, so you can make decisions based on how they really think and feel. So you can ensure your place in their lives. 

Yet we find that listening to customers is often overlooked. It's taken for granted that customer translates into customary. But at a time when everyone is re-evaluating their brand choices, you really should listen. And through the social media tools we all have at our disposal, there's no longer any excuse. The cost is insignificant. The time commitment is not, but if practiced routinely, becomes routine. And the payoff is huge – growing happy customers that you keep. 

Think crowdsourcing to produce health and healthy lifestyles brand energy

Crowdsourcing taps into the creativity, insights and wisdom of everyday people to help brands create more value. It's an open source (outsourced) method for customers to help improve and create new products and services through their comments, suggestions and ideas. 

Here are a few examples:

• istockphoto (which created a marketplace for amateur photographers)

• Wikipedia (an encyclopedia created for thousands of users)

• Dell Ideastorm (launched by Dell to gauge which ideas are most important and relevant to the public)

• digg (where users submit links to sites, articles, news stories, photos and videos and others vote whether they're worth checking out).

Every brand should at least be "consumer-sourcing." By engaging consumers in ways that they value and want through social media, you'll receive tremendous feedback that will help you strengthen your offerings and enhance your connections. In fact, any company that doesn't recognize the power of the consumer to their marketing efforts will eventually be pushed aside. 

"Social" brands that support a healthy lifestyle

True to Kashi's mission of helping people make healthy choices to live their best lives, the company is doing a nice job of delivering on this promise through Social Media.  If you go to their site, you can click on a section "Now accepting accomplishments. Major, minor and everything in between - shout out what you achieved today!"

It's a community posting filled with real stories of people and their accomplishments. There's also a Community Round-Up survey. And mosaic view allows for quick and easy scan of comments. 

Visitors can also "Join The Kashi Community", with the option to receive exclusive coupons, connect with friends and join the taste tester panel. "Today's Challenge" (updated daily) encourages people to keep coming back. 

Great to see a company delivering on its promise. 

  

A brands promise to its social media participants

This morning, I'm standing in for the voice of a brand. A brand astute enough to know, and mature enough to accept, that its future is being shaped by anyone engaging in social media and online communities. A brand that openly embraces this future, and will actively participate in it. 

So what would it proclaim:

• if you have an opinion, I want to hear it, and will let others hear it as well

• if you have a complaint, I want to hear it, and will publicly deal with it

• if you have a question, I will answer it

• and if I ask you a question, I will respond to it

• I will not talk at you, but to you

• I will not sell you, but engage you 

• if I let you down, I will apologize

• it's not about me, it's about you, me and all of us

• together, we can make a difference

 

Renewable energy sources for health and healthy lifestyle brands

Wanted to share this presentation of 40 renewable energy sources for brands, grouped within these dimensions. Common denominator across all the examples is that these brands clearly understand their place in people's lives. 

Marketing To Moms Through Digital Technology and Social Media

Digital Mom is an excellent report from Razorfish and CafeMom. It examines how moms are adopting digital technology and social media to help her "do it all".  Key implications for health + healthy lifestyle brand marketers (synthesized from the report) include:

• beyond email (of which 95% of moms use), more than 50% engage through search, social networking sites, text messaging and instant messaging…which means that you need to consider how to rebalance your efforts to leverage these viable channels 

• younger digital moms tend to be more comfortable with new tools like social networks and SMS, whereas older moms are more comfortable with information channels online…so a one-size-fits-all is not going to work 

• by tapping into moms dual motivations - staying connected for their own needs, as well as the needs of their children - marketers have an opportunity to empower moms with content, experiences and community

• categories of Medication/Medical Condition (20%) and Health/Fitness (18%) fell roughly in the middle of those in which moms researched, sought advice, or purchased (in the last 3 months; all survey participants,not segmented by age).  

• there were five distinct segments of socially connected moms, dimensioned in terms of who she is, her Social Level, Activity Level and Content Creation Level…providing insight into how to reach and engage each segment, and leverage their interactions on social networks.