Jason Falls of Social Media Explorer gives some relevant tips that are useful for any health insurance company beginning involvement in social media.

1. Develop a plan, then get commitment from the top levels of you company. You need a CEO and board behind the idea and your proposed implementation of the idea before you dabble. If not, you may have the rug pulled out before you even get started. The top level involvement will also help assure compliance with regulation requirements.

2. Be proactive about compliance. Don’t try to skirt regulation requirements simply because you’re using social media. Work closely with your compliance officers to explain social media interaction, then work out solutions that integrate best practices for compliance as well as interacting in social media. This may mean you have a pool of approved Tweets from which you can pull, or that there is a delay of hours or days in responding to some questions, but that’s part of the equation.

3. Know your Media. It’s important to know your media tools and how they are used, and then educate your team, including top executives, on how those tools work. Let
them know that corporate blogs don’t need to be on the front page of the website, for example. Also, that there can be a review and approval process for any customer-
generated content, as long as that review process is clearly stated on the blog.

Some executives won’t understand a moderated environment or how moderation works – make sure you’re prepared to explain it.

4. Have a team approach. Making a single person in charge of all social media, moderating input and making comments can be exhausting for that individual, and may cause problems for you down the road, if they go in a direction that you didn’t like. The team approach is by far the best.

5. Shorten timelines for review. Social media does, by nature, demand a kind of immediacy. This will likely involve a streamlined process for communication review. Aim for 24 to 48 hours on most comments, but allow for a quicker interface if there is a situation that demands it.

If you take the appropriate precautions and plan ahead, there is every indication that the health insurance industry could benefit from utilizing social media opportunities with their customers.

For example, there are a plethora of privacy regulations governing what can and can’t be exposed about a specific patient. When you’re on social media, you’re about as public as you can be.

In a related challenge, there is also a government regulated, complex approval system for any communication from the insurance industry to the public. Each piece of communication, including social media messages, has to complete the approval process, which can take weeks. Not the typical turnaround time for a status update!

Also, if you are attempting to answer specific questions with a medical professional, you’re taking a qualified nurse or doctor away from their traditional duties, and with many medical facilities understaffed, it may just not seem important enough.

However, there are some good arguments to be made for including social media in a health insurance marketing and information plan.

• Access — many people who are daunted by forms, lines and technical language are completely comfortable logging into Twitter or Facebook. South Carolina is looking at using social media to reach Medicaid and Medicare customers.
• Also, many people will know exactly how to find a company on Facebook, but have trouble remembering your web address. They can get questions answered more quickly through social media.
• Some Companies are Already There – with the popularity of social media, even an industry with obstacles like the health insurance industry’s will find some early adopters. They are out there, with blogs, Q & A columns, and customer service.
• The Customers are using Social Media – Customers comparison shop, seek information, and communicate with others via social media. Health insurance companies seeking to be relevant may need to join in.
• A “Friendlier” Feel. Health insurance companies have the image of being distant and inaccessible, not to mention unresponsive, in many cases. A presence in social media could soften that image.

Recently, Facebook and Twitter added location options. Twitter announced in April that they will allow users to attach metadata to tweets. This data could include location information.

Facebook is teaming up with McDonald’s in what some see as the future of location based social networking. When users check in at any nearby McDonalds, they’ll receive reward coupons for the restaurant.
With 100 million Facebook users who check or update their status from mobile phones every day, Facebook and McDonalds are both hoping the project takes off .

The first, smaller location based companies may be concerned about Facebook’s entrance into the market, given the size of the behemoth. Facebook is also planning to allow members to add their location to any status updates.

The early companies offer games, finding friends, and recommendations of places to visit. With the entrance of Facebook, there may be a quicker move toward targeted advertising and coupons from the businesses a person checks in, such as McDonalds.

For users, the value becomes not only the fun of a game, but an opportunity to get personalized deals. For advertisers, the opportunity to reach a specific niche helps them target their advertising dollars.

Should you jump on board location based networking? Many people predict that this feature will grow, particularly as more and more people begin using smart phones. Privacy and safety will be a primary concern for Facebook, as it has been for the smaller players in the business. However, more people being involved means the more concern about privacy and the more attention companies will pay to the issue.

So as a business, its worth watching location based social networking and its worth considering having a presence in the trend.

“I’ll add you on Facebook!”

“Hey, we are Orkut friends!”

“I’ll subscribe to your RSS feed right away!”

You will agree, these are some of the most touted phrases that we use when we “network”. However, this is not the way the journey had begun. The transformation from toys to tools was a revolution that brought out a whole new “Social Economy” in “Social Networks”.

Emotions have been replaced by emoticons, expressions have given way to smileys and the English Language has seen drastic reforms in the present era. Yes, we are using a super condensed and more “expressive” way of communication, thanks to social networking.

Facebook, Orkut, Twitter and many others took birth in the World Wide Web and primarily made their presence felt as networking toys. Little did we realize then, about the enormous networking capabilities they had. Soon, along with inviting our near ones to hang out at a party, we were “inviting” them to our online profiles on these websites. There were friends, friends of friends; can I say an online “big bang”?

Yes, the concept might be surreal, but the sheer fascination and excitement to be a part of this revolution paved way for the dynamics of theses toys to mutate into tools. It would be quite difficult to point out the exact period when this transformation took place, but you knew it was there when you were networking more online rather than calling up or e-mailing the same people. Your business cards and identities changed during this era and now included information of your online profiles or networks.

“Human networks” is the word of the hour. We have been consistent in synthesizing our conversations through these digitally woven, close environments, with a wide array of inbound and outbound hyperlinks dominating our online presence. We are scheduling meetings, hanging out, having conversations, sharing interests, making a social statement in a world of our own. All these worlds come together in the digital universe. The good news is, we are getting addicted to it every day and striving to reach its epitome.

“To err is human…” What is human? Is it an online Avatar or the one who sits behind it and controls its actions? Are our online counterparts facing an identity crisis?

The principles associated with this new social economy have brought about the tools in toys and I am now a part of it. The trick of the trade is to propel your identity towards the proper direction and your intended audience.

Welcome to the world of social networking once again…have you noticed the change?

Images used in a site should have separate “alt” attribute: After going through this sub-head, those who are not that sound technically might have a question that what is this “alt” attribute? Well, to be precise and simple, the “alt” attribute is the alternative text for the images that are used in a site.  Suppose, a user is watching your site on a browser, that does not support images, and as a result, the user will be unable to see the images you have used in your site. In this case, the description used in the “alt” attribute will help to give information about the image, to the user. Apart from this, you can even use the image as a link, and in this case, the content of the “alt” text will function similarly, as the anchor text does. If you have planned to do something like this, you should always fill the “alt” text with a brief and simple description of the image. This helps Google to understand better about the page, to which the image link is directing to. However, it is advised not to use too many images as links unnecessarily, especially, when the same purpose can be fulfilled with simple anchor text or text links.

Proper use of robots.txt: Using robots.txt properly can help the search engines to know whether they can access a particular part of a site or not. The file for robots.txt is normally placed in the root directory of a site. You may not want some parts of your site to be crept by the search engines, may be because they might not help the users if shown in the search results. In that case, you will have to create the robots.txt file for that. There are certain other ways to prevent some parts of your site from showing in the search results. You can add “Noindex” to the robots meta tag, or can even use some of the Google Webmaster Tools to eliminate the parts that have already been crept.

Use of rel=”nofollow” for links: You might have a site with a blog, which is open to public commenting. In addition, these blog commenting pages are highly at risk to spamming. Therefore, in order to avoid this, nofollowing the links that are added by the commenting users, can guarantee that the reputation of your site is not hampered. In case, you want to assure for the user added links, you can avoid using “nofollow” for the links. However, while doing this, you will have to be extra careful. Because, you might link to sites, which Google believes as being spam, and as a result, the reputation of your site might be at stake.

These are the factors that I find as most important about SEO from Google’s perspective. I hope, by now you have a clear idea about how to go about optimizing your website in the highest order of ranking in the Google search results. So, do not waste any more time and get going with your SEO plans!

The other day I had a conversation with some nice people from the market research company Coleman Parkes Research. They wanted to tell me about a study they have recently concluded about social networking. I have to say it was pretty interesting stuff.

I will leave it to you to search for them and to download their full report. What was interesting to me is the evidence they turn up about adoption and how the adoption of social media to date by companies follows an early adopter pattern. As you know, in an early market, there is a lot of misinformation and skepticism about the new technology — rather like a political campaign. Eventually everyone understands the importance of whatever the new thing is, and those who need it adopt it.

Before that time, a lot of education and explanation needs to happen, and that function is carried out by sales and marketing  (or candidates). So where is the social media market in the adoption curve? From the data, it looks like we are at the beginning of adoption. There are some notable successes, but a lot of skepticism driven by simply not knowing about the category. Some top line findings paint the picture.

The Coming Wave

According to Coleman Parkes’ research,

• More than 75 percent of companies admit that social media will come into the business by stealth if not proactively managed.
• Nine out of 10 companies understand that the next crop of employees will usher social media into the workplace.
• Companies are not prepared to handle this stealth wave of activity. Approximately 60 percent of respondents say integrating social media technologies is not on the agenda at all at the moment.
• Only 18 percent of respondents have any kind of strategy in place to integrate these technologies within the company for employees.
• Fifty-two percent of respondents agree that companies who fail to embrace social media technologies for business purposes will be left behind. More than 60 percent also agree that social media is the next major step in collaborative activities and technology for a business.

If that doesn’t scream “early market” at you, I don’t know what does. It looks like there’s plenty of awareness of the technology, but it also looks like there has not been an “aha!” moment when a lot of people look at a success story and say, “That could have been me!”

The good news to me seems to be that there is plenty of awareness about the category, but the bad news is that few people see the direct correlation between business pain and the potential solution yet. That can change in an instant, but it also highlights the biggest challenge for social networking proponents. Without a clear example of a solution and a benefit, social networking could end up taking as long as it took regular networking to make it to the big time. You might recall that the year of the network ended up taking a decade to roll out.

The Role of CRM 2.0

All this is inextricably tied up with CRM 2.0. There’s no doubt in my mind that, for a whole host of reasons, marketing and sales need to adopt social networking concepts, and there has been good progress, especially with emerging companies beginning to offer point solutions.

Nevertheless, my analysis says that social networking is different from precious innovations. By its nature and almost by definition, social networking solutions need to work in concert with other applications to derive optimum benefit. The day is gone when a solution vendor can say to the market, “Here, take this, it does this one thing really well.” Instead, I think we are coming to a realization that whole interconnected processes are needed to drive business, and that means connected applications.

One of the things I like to tell my clients is that in this market, it is not enough to own a solution, you need to own a business problem. To own a solution for a part of a process is to have a piece of an answer; owning a business problem says to your customer, “We get it, and because we get it, we team with other applications that affect the whole process.”

Platform technology has made it easier for companies to team up to collectively own a business problem and to demonstrate real leadership in delivering a comprehensive solution. In my experience, though, progress has been slow in part because few vendors want to tie their fates to the fortunes of another. Nonetheless, I think we’ve entered a phase when customers will have less tolerance for point solutions or the notion that it’s their responsibility to figure out how it all goes together.

If that’s the case, it will take longer than it should for ground-breaking solutions leveraging social networking to hit the mainstream.

Start Small

Many times when people think about getting publicity for their business, their wishlist goes something like this:

• I want to be featured in Forbes
• I want an interview in Inc Magazine
• I want to sit down with Donny Deutsch on the “Big Idea”

Having lofty goals is great, but it’s not always possible. Many times, it’s much more realistic (and effective) to start smaller. Think about all of the blogs that are out there. Find out which ones your potential customers read on a daily basis? Determine the ones that reporters for those bigger publications use (Who are they quoting? Who are they linking to online?). Start there. Most times, it will be easier to get featured on a smaller blog than a major publication. You can then use this coverage later on when you pitch bigger publications.

Hang Out In All The Right Places

Social media has made it so much easier to build relationships with people and get noticed. A great place to start for this is right on Twitter. Use one of the Twitter search engines or directories (I really like Twellow) to find reporters who are in your space. Simple searches — like this one for “reporter” — can be really helpful. Connect with them. See what types of things they are looking for. Become an invaluable resource to them.

When you have somewhat of a relationship built up, connect further through places like Facebook and LinkedIn. It’s all about building those relationships. Once you have a relationship with someone, they are much more likely to want to write about you or your company. But don’t forget, just like everyone always preaches good content, the same is true here. If your products or services aren’t really that good, you’re not going to get too far.

Traffic Is Noticed

Let’s say you’ve now built some relationships and received some initial press coverage. Promote that content just like you would promote something from your own site. Do you have strong accounts in social networks? Get it out in StumbleUpon. Get it on Digg. Share it with everyone. This will have a two-fold effect.

First, it will get more coverage for you. The more people who see it, the better.

Second, newspapers, magazines, TV stations and other media outlets are all thirsty for traffic. Many of them look very carefully at what articles are most viewed for the day (more views = more ad revenues). And many times this trickles down to the reporter. Do you think he or she would probably want to write about you again, if they got a big pat on the back from their boss? Of course they would….

LiveWorld is a publicly traded company that’s been around since 1996 and is best known for its white labeled social networks. These are online communities that LiveWorld helps clients build up around their existing brands, and they often take a good deal more time and effort to set up than communities created on top of self-service platforms like Ning or KickApps.

However, LiveWorld is making a significant foray into “out-of-the-box” communities with the release of LiveBar, a widget-like site addition that brings community features to any website using only one line of JavaScript.

The LiveBar consists of a thin strip that sticks to the bottom of the browser window and displays social content related to the page. It’s reminiscent of Facebook Chat or the upcoming community instant messaging offering from Meebo. But instead of facilitating instant messages, the LiveBar shows three types of user contributions: Conversations, Soapboxes, and Shouts.

Conversations are essentially lightweight forum threads where users can post messages and solicit responses. Soapboxes are akin to blog posts and Shouts are like tweets in that they’re restricted to 140 characters. In the LiveBar’s simplest implementation, these pieces of UGC are associated with individual URLs, so when you move from one page to the next, you see different content.

However, they can also be tied together into so-called bundles so that discussions form across pages that relate to each other. The LiveBar can also be rolled out across multiple sites on different domains, with bundles providing social glue around pages and sites that were formerly fragmented.

The biggest downside to the LiveBar (which could also be seen as its greatest virtue) is its discreetness. Visitors are prone to overlook it entirely because it sits so low and short on the page. To combat this tendency, LiveWorld has developed a suite of widgets that hook the LiveBar into the actual page layout. The widgets can be used, for example, to print the most recent conversations or solicit new ones. I expect that most publishers will deploy these extra widgets to get the most bang for their buck. After all, the LiveBar isn’t free; like other LiveWorld services, it’ll cost you thousands of dollars just to get it up and running.

LiveWorld plans to add more flexibility and functionality to the LiveBar over time, with chat in particular on the way. This will put LiveWorld in direct competition with Meebo, although Meebo’s specialty in online instant messaging should make for a superior product.

Both Tulane University and A&E Biography already plan to use LiveBar on their respective sites.

]]> http://www.webdatasource.com/2008/09/livebar-adds-a-little-strip-of-community-to-any-site/feed/ 0 http://www.webdatasource.com/2008/08/why-i-hate-social-bookmarklets-proof-they-don%e2%80%99t-work/ http://www.webdatasource.com/2008/08/why-i-hate-social-bookmarklets-proof-they-don%e2%80%99t-work/#comments Wed, 27 Aug 2008 13:21:30 +0000 Kelvin http://www.sitevisibility.co.uk/blog/?p=179 The social media bookmarklet has become a de-facto element in most new website designs. And while I love social media and think it can have some huge benefits for websites; I think including social bookmarklets like AddThis to a new web build default is at best lazy-ness and at worse symptomatic of a complete miss-understanding of how social media works.

So after I went off on a bit of rant about them in the office I thought I needed an experiment to prove my point.

I chose the bookmarklet tool from AddThis and using Yahoo Site Explorer I found some websites using the tool.

To get a random selection of websites I chose the website ranked 1, 101, 201 etc on SiteExplorer all the way to 1001. The idea was for the websites to be of mixed quality, as it would have been too easy to choose rubbish websites and try and make my case with those sites.

For each of these sites using the book mark tool I tested there presence on Digg & Delicious to see if to some extent the bookmarklets were working, then finally on stumbleupon (which isn’t included on addthis bookmarklet by default) to ascertain whether the sites in question would have gained their votes without the bookmarklet.

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