This is Dan Dunlop's presentation from the 2012 Spring Conference of the Virginia Society for Healthcare Marketing and Public Relations.

1. Engaging Female Healthcare
Consumers with Blogs
Virginia Society for Healthcare Marketing
and Public Relations
Dan Dunlop, Jennings
April 19, 2012

2. Marketing to Women
• Market “with” rather than market “to”
• Engage and allow for conversation
• Communicate shared values
• Must feel authentic
• Provide value via the relationship
– How do you enrich her life?
– Sense of community - belonging

3. Social Networks & Psychology
• Social Networks: Supreme community building tools
• A gift (and a potential curse) to healthcare marketers
• The psychology of social networking:
– The importance of connecting; sense of
community
– Allows one to create a more vivid personal brand
– Sense of empowerment
• The brain reacts to social networking interaction as if
they were in-person interactions (oxytocin
hormone); Users get the same emotional benefit
• Heightened feeling of trust, empathy and generosity

5. The Mommy Blog Phenomenon
• Deep South Moms Blog
• Organic and Green Mom Blog
• Mile High Moms
• A Mediocre Mom Blog
• Frugal Mom Blog
• American Muslim Mom Blog
• Snarky Mommy
• Crafty Mom Blog
• Single Mom Blog
• Agnostic Mom Blog
• Ninja Mom

6. Understanding the Social Mom
http://tinyurl.com/4pqu2cp

7. Why does your hospital use social media?
Is there strategic intent?

8. Hive Marketing
• Brings together individuals with a shared
interest (moms, for example)
• Allow them to share their passion
• Feed them info that confirms their decision to
support the brand
• Give them a forum to express their support
• Activating them when needed

9. Important Vehicle for
Segmenting Your Audiences
• You are not speaking to a homogenous group
• Engage segments of your customer base by
creating vehicles that speak to them specifically
• “Social media will prove to be the nail in the
coffin of the one-size-fits-all customer
experience model.” Robert Wollan & Nick Smith
• Mommy blog, dad blogs, women’s blog…

10. Twitter/Facebook/Blog Trifecta
• Power of using these in tandem
• Twitter’s ability to reach out
• Facebook’s positive character, storytelling
ability and group-building capacity
• Blog: long-form storytelling; ability to establish
a brand voice/personality

11. Hospital Blogs
Seattle Mama Doc
Wendy Sue Swanson, MD

12. Hospital Blogs

13. Hospital Blogs

14. Hospital Blogs

15. Branded Facebook
Page

16. Hospital Blogs

22. Merrimack Valley Moms

23. Merrimack Valley Moms Blog
• How do we engage busy moms?
• Lowell General Hospital & Tufts Medical
Center decided to start a mommy blog for the
Merrimack Valley Region of Massachusetts.
• Recruiting bloggers via a Facebook contest
• The contest’s impact on Twitter and Facebook
• Building community: Mommy Blogger Brunch

24. Merrimack Valley Moms

25. Facebook Promotion
• Posted contest announcement to Facebook
Wall:
– Looking for 4 local moms to serve as bloggers
– $250 prize and a position as a mommy blogger
– Month-long promotion
– Entries: write on our Facebook Wall and tell us
why you’d be a great mommy blogger
– Extended the contest to heighten interest
– Selected 4 local moms and one employee of LGH

26. Facebook Promotion
• Posted contest announcement to Facebook
Wall:
– Lots of engagement during the contest
– Supporters of each of the blogger candidates
would come to the site and voice their support
– Drove Facebook likes and Twitter Followers
– The announcement of the winners led to terrific
press coverage
– Each blogger brought her own group of followers
to our new community!

27. Merrimack Valley Moms
Spreading the
word via area
Facebook groups

28. Merrimack Valley Moms
Examples of engagement
on Facebook

29. Mommy Blog Brunch
• Purpose: create community
• Encourage the moms to support one another
– Comment on each other’s blog posts
– Promote posts via Facebook and Twitter
• Teach mommy bloggers how to use Twitter
• Explain rules of engagement
• Distribute the posting schedule
• Video the moms for intro posts

30. http://tinyurl.com/4pqu2cp

31. http://tinyurl.com/4pqu2cp

32. Rules of Engagement
• Keep it positive
• Write about your life experiences
• Avoid negatives – not here to critique local
businesses
• Generally avoid healthcare as a topic
• Avoid becoming an expert

33. Blog Mechanics
• Wordpress blog – very easy
• Post 4 to 5 times each week
• Moms submit word documents and photos
• Marketing team edits and posts entries
• We supplement with posts about local events
and hospital events
• Guest bloggers from the hospital
• Marketing team approves comments

34. Blog Mechanics
• A link to each new entry is posted to the
hospital’s Facebook wall
• We Tweet a link to each new post (LGH and
Tufts Medical Center)
• We created a hashtag to make it easy to follow
the blog on Twitter (#mvmoms)

35. Engagement & Results
• What we’ve seen so far (launched May ‘10):
– 478 comments!! Comments = Engagement
– 36,000+ visitors
– Average $1,500+ per month
– 50 visitors per day
• 15 hours per month to maintain

37. Results/Outcomes
• Community - made up of our target audience
• Vehicle for marketing service lines
• Vehicle for marketing our affiliation
• Press coverage – regional and industry-wide
• A model for engagement that can be sustained
• Opportunity for year-round engagement
• Deepened relationship with target audience
• Enhanced social media presence across platforms

38. Results/Outcomes
• MV Moms had 18,153 visits in 2011; 1,500 per month
• 412 comments to date; 97 posts in 2011
• To date, 231 click throughs for more info about Floating
Hospital for Children
• To date, 365 click throughs for more info about Lowell
General Hospital
• Blog’s top referrers have been Facebook, LGH website
and Twitter
• LGH – now 1,220 Facebook followers
• 1,197 Twitter followers
• Both grew significantly during the contest

39. Results
• FY2011: 14% increase in patient volume at the
pediatric specialty clinic
• 2,787 new patients across 11 specialties

40. Merrimack Valley Moms

41. Merrimack Valley Moms

42. Merrimack Valley Moms

43. Merrimack Valley Moms

44. Feature from Lowell General’s newsletter

47. Cross Promotion

54. What We Learned
• Bloggers vary in productivity
• Need additional bloggers to sustain
momentum and keep interest
• Developed a second contest to recruit more
bloggers
• Consumers want and expect health content
• Challenge securing guest bloggers from
hospital – adding health content

55. SignatureMoms.com

56. Signature Healthcare
• In affiliation with Tufts Medical Center
• Brockton, Massachusetts
• Lost connection with the community
• Financial challenges
• Leadership transition
• Suburban competitors
• No social media presence
• Blog launched January 2011

57. Overall Ad Campaign

58. http://signaturemoms.com/

59. Supporting
Print Ad

60. Supporting Bus Ad

61. Facebook Promotion & Engagement

62. Facebook Promotion & Engagement

63. Facebook Promotion & Engagement

64. http://tinyurl.com/4pqu2cp

65. http://tinyurl.com/4pqu2cp

66. Results
• 41,000+ visitors to date
• 633 comments
• 191 posts
• 200+ subscribers
• Top referrers include Google, Facebook,
Wordpress, Pinterest and Twitter

67. Blog Traffic – First Six Weeks
• 1,154 visitors during first 6 weeks (contest period)

68. Blog Traffic
• 2,999 visitors during first 11 weeks

69. Early Facebook Demographics
• 204 Facebook fans during first 6 weeks (contest period)
• 25,160 post views, 252 post comments/likes

70. Rapid Twitter Growth
• 328 Twitter followers by end of contest
• 604 updates

71. Measure of Online Influence

72. • Daily News ReTweeted 201 times; 281 online views
•http://paper.li/SignatureHlth

77. Questions:
• Should the mommy blog have its own Twitter
feed?
• Facebook page?
• What are the opportunities to further build
community in real life – in conjunction with
the mommy blog? Events? Seminars?
• Should you allow advertising on the site?

78. Other Types of Blogs to Engage
Different Constituents

80. Blue-Eyed Bride

81. Contact Information
• Dan Dunlop, Jennings
– ddunlop@jenningsco.com
– Twitter: @dandunlop & @JenningsHealth
– Blog: http://thehealthcaremarketer.wordpress.com