Using Social Media For Good Healthcare

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Yes social media is an excellent way for clothing, entertainment and food brands to stay connected to their fans, but that only scratches the surface of social media's capabilities. With the power to connect with millions of users online in an instant, there are infinitely better  uses for the medium than tweeting out humorous photos. Revolutionaries use twitter to organize movements in unison. New breaks faster now and comes directly to each individual in their pocket. Why not translate that system to people's health? Without breaching HIPPA regulations and revealing too much personal information, social media can help individuals with medication and reminders, lowering costs and creating a more personal touch between physicians and their patients. 

"Hospitals can take advantage of social media, just like any other company can. It’s an excellent way to market to their geographical audience and keep the hospital name in front of a wide range of people on a regular basis.  It can also benefit those in the community who are connected to the hospital. For many reasons, social media is the perfect way for a person to feel connected to their caregiver in between visits. How can such a big, regulated organization get in on all the sharing and liking? Here are just a few ideas."

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Stop Trying To Game Social Media

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If you hired a business to do anything for you, let's say to come in and clean your office; if they told you that they were just going to make your office appear as though it were clean to everyone else outside of your company, while not actually doing the job, you would laugh in their face. Who can honestly justify trying to take shortcuts for mere appearances? Well unfortunately a large portion of social campaigns and, "social media experts," are selling just that, a product which doesn't actually connect with users online and simply maintains the appearance of engagement. Social media marketing has been getting a bad rap lately because of the way it is being utilized, not the medium itself. If done correctly, people can engage with companies and traffic can again become relevant without spamming or buying fake followers.

"For those who sell things online, social media seems like any other game of Monopoly; a vast community of users with property for sale that you want to occupy with your product. Unfortunately though, the easiest way with social media marketing is the wrong approach and effectively gaming the system is equivalent to rolling doubles three times in a row. It’s no secret that the old cowboy days of optimization meant a lot of lawless tactics. Subverting the system was the best way to maximize search results, and who was keeping score anyway? Those hoping to translate their mastery of algorithms to a new type of site quickly learn though that things don't work the same way. Instead of a blind algorithm that can easily be fooled, you’re now dealing with real people who have more intelligent reactions to your efforts. Don’t buy utilities, understand railroads are risky, and know that shortcuts in the game of Social Media will get you sent to jail. The only way to succeed is to play the master of the house’s rules, and these days, the master is the average user. "

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How To Analyze Campaign Success Rates Through Landing Pages

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When looking at a digital campaign for any website, unique visits, time spent on page and the bounce rate can be incredibly revealing statistics. With a low bounce rate and the others being high, that means you're doing incredibly well, but in my professional experience this rarely happens right off the bat. Due to poorly written meta descriptions, keywords and content on page a visitor might think they're coming to your site for the wrong kind of information, hence the bounce. So how do you remedy the situation? 

"It's no secret that for companies with an online presence, bigger is better when it comes to digital campaigns. Sometimes, however, the results are not necessarily what the company expects or wants. What do you do at this point? Cry a little? Pull your hair out? No, you do some homegrown research to find what the problems may be and you learn how to fix them.

The best options for determining a campaign's success is by tracking your analytics and conversion rates through your final landing page. By interacting with users online, through social media, blogs, or any other community, you are establishing a relationship that needs to benefit their needs and concerns. Managing a successful campaign is all about understanding your targeted audience and finding the best ways to appeal to them. Get active in finding the best approaches to maintaining customer retention by understanding what pages and information yield the most positive results." --> continued 

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Utilizing Localized Internet Targeting For Your Small Business

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The big business push has come and gone, and now small businesses are returning to glory. Major corporations may have cheaper prices, but with that comes lower quality products that apply to a general populace of consumers. Small businesses have the advantage of remaining local and highly specialized, but a major set back is having to operate with higher costs compared to larger competitors. In the digital age knowledge is power, and connecting with your customers online can be simple for big businesses on a national scale, or a small local shop looking for customers in a focused area. It's all about knowing how to reach the right people. 

"Over the past few decades, American consumers have become very comfortable with big box stores. These are the Wal-Marts of the world, the one-stop shops that promise low prices, consistently stocked shelves and a sense of familiarity from one store to the next. This mentality has somehow managed to find its way into every aspect of American life -- we have chain restaurants, big breweries and even massive websites that dominate retail. Recently, however, there has been a big push for supporting local businesses. Somewhere along the way, consumers began to value the offerings of smaller, more focused retailers and the local economy has begun to recover from the invasion of the retail giant. What happened? Why the sudden shift? It would seem there's a major problem when it comes to the big box model and local businesses are finally finding solutions to help them compete again."

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The Growth And Prominence Of The Social Media Generation

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When I was growing up, if you tried to explain to me what an 8 track player was, or a laser disk even, I would have probably laughed. The mere thought of it to me was hilarious; "A ridiculously large CD? Why would anyone buy that?" as I shoved my floppy disk into a desktop computer running Windows 95 (top of the line). These days the same mentality holds true. Dial up? AIM? Do you mean IM? Children born from today forward will no nothing of the pre-smartphone era, where social updates didn't occur every second and getting online meant kicking your sister off the home phone. It's astonishing how time flies, and yet what does that mean about this group of youngsters? Their mentality will be entirely different from the older generation, so how can we influence and connect with Millenials who see social media as common and even passe?

"The Internet continues to revolutionize modern life in a host of ways. Those who adapted to it as it grew and developed remember different times and ways of communication than many of today’s youth ever will. The most recent generation will grow up never knowing a time without smartphones, Netflix and Wi-Fi. While these digital natives are intimidating and hard to pin down, they will become the key to marketing for years to come. After all, without the Millennials, we wouldn’t have the all-encompassing term “social media” or the need to conduct social media marketing campaigns."

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