LaughlinOutLoud

Not that we ever want to imagine it, but take a look at a world without Facebook in this infographic from SingleGrain.

Favorite Stats:

• The average user creates 90 pieces of content PER MONTH
• The average user spends 23 minutes ON EACH VISIT to Facebook

One question we ask in assessing a brand (and its relative strength): Would anyone miss it if it closed its doors today?

In the case of Facebook, the answer might be most people. That’s quite a feat in how short a time it’s been around.

Tweet me @ckostrivas

[Via: Single Grain Search & Social Blog]

I love RevolutionaryAct.com. It’s a self-described “Manifesto For Living In A Mixed Up World.” Besides the general content of the site, what I love is its approach.

It doesn’t say being healthy is easy. Even though it kind of is, isn’t it? We all know what to do. Even the U.S. Government was able to boil it down to: Eat less. Move more. If the U.S. Government can say something simply, it’s simple.

Instead, the website takes a different approach. It offers 101 “revolutionary ways” to be healthy. The 101 are simple, actionable and thought-provoking. So is their approach: Being healthy isn’t easy, it’s revolutionary. I can get behind that.

Marketers, take note. It seems more and more that we’re in need of a “Manifesto For Branding In A Mixed Up World.” Building a strong brand isn’t easy. It’s revolutionary.

These days, sticking to the fundamental truths we hold to be self-evident *can* seem downright revolutionary. But we need to more than ever. Because brands are in trouble.

In the aptly titled “The Trouble With Brands,” John Gerzema writes that brands are losing trust at an alarming rate. In 1997, 52% of brands were voted trustworthy. By 2008, that number had dropped to 22%, more than halving the number of trusted brands in just over a decade.

I think more than anything it’s because many brands have lost track of the fundamentals. They’ve forgotten their 101. They treat consumers as stupid. Or selfish. Or lazy. Or, God forbid, all three. Dave Meslin makes a compelling case for an Antidote To Apathy in his TedX talk. His premise? Consumers aren’t stupid or selfish or lazy. We live in a world that actively discourages engagement. Brands shouldn’t think the worst about people. They should set them up to succeed.

So I’m working on a Brand Strategy 101. 101 “revolutionary ways” to build a strong brand. Number one: Tell the truth. Number two: Make it easy. Only 99 more to go…

Interested in more stuff I find interesting? Follow me @casey_flanagan on Twitter.

In order to keep Twitter as useful as possible, it’s necessary to get rid of Twitter spam and clean up your followers. While spring-cleaning is already on our minds, what better time? There are an overwhelming number of Twitter follower clean-up tools to choose from, so I tried out a few and gave a quick recap on each below.

Free Twitter Follower Clean-up Tools

1. TwitCleaner – The report is sent out via direct message a few minutes after connecting TwitCleaner to your Twitter account. The first line of the report I received read “256 of the 658 Tweeps you’re following are potentially garbage.” The report proceeded to break down users by Potentially Dodgy Behavior, No Activity in Over a Month, Not Much Interaction, All Talk All The Time and Little Original Content. Within each category are subcategories that break down users even further.
2. Friend or Follow – Simply type in your Twitter username and click “submit” and you’ll be taken to the report. The dashboard shows following, fans and friends. Within each category, you’re able to sort by username, name, location, followers, following, last tweet, and account age.  It even allows you to export the results in CSV, and is my favorite dashboard from an interface standpoint.
3. Tweepi – After connecting the application to your Twitter account, you’re given the option to flush, reciprocate and clean up. You are then taken to a dashboard where you have the ability to unfollow, safelist, add to list, view additional information or respond to the particular user. You’re shown the number of followers and tweets, the user’s Klout score, and time of their last tweet. I felt as though this was the most comprehensive free Twitter cleaner tool.

Looking for additional free Twitter cleaner tools? Check out TwitBlock, The Grim Tweeper, Tweeter Karma and Just Unfollow.

Paid Twitter Follower Clean-up Tools

1. Refollow – After allowing access, you’ll be taken to a dashboard with countless sorting capabilities such as previously followed, never followed, and with or without picture. You can even run keyword searches. You’re provided with a free trial, and then required to upgrade to a paid account which runs anywhere from $5/month to $100+/month depending on your needs.
2. UnTweeps – This Twitter cleaner provides the ability to generate a list of Tweeps you’re following who have not updated their status in a particular number of days. You can create a white list in order to add the Twitter users you’d like to keep regardless. If you use UnTweeps more than three times per month you’ll need to purchase an account, which is about $5/month.

If you don’t already, I’d also recommend taking advantage of Twitter Lists. It helps organize the tweets from users you’re following. You’re able to create both public and private lists, or just follow lists that others have already set up. Listorious is a great place to start if you want to search existing lists.

Do you know of any Twitter cleaners that weren’t mentioned above? I’d love to hear from you. Tweet me @ckostrivas

To succeed in the long run, planning is essential. Being consistent lays a good foundation for the long run. But so does being flexible.

The long run is not necessarily predictable. Because the long run is organic. It will evolve.

Your shareholders may talk about the short run, but they care about the long run. Because the long run is what the short run adds up to. And the long run is where you find potential for the most significant financial gain.

The long run requires investment – of time, money and brainpower. It’s easy to talk about the long run. But the long run requires action. Sweat equity wins in the long run.

Most failure is measured in the short run. It becomes part of the long run’s story.

The long run comes with more questions than answers.

The long run is not for the meek.

The long run is hard.

But the long run is worth it.

Interested in more stuff I find interesting? Follow me @casey_flanagan on Twitter.

At last week’s Healthcare Marketing Strategy Summit in Orlando, national consultant, Dr. Bridget Duffey, reminded all of us the patient experience is about to be even more important to hospitals. Beginning October 1, 2012, HCAHPS patient experience scores will be 30% of the formula determining reimbursement from Medicaid and Medicare—and other insurers are expected to follow.

The Brand Story in HCAHPS

Not long ago, I was comparing the HCAHPS scores of area medical centers and noticed that a well known, highly respected medical center had some of the lower patient experience scores on the first 8 questions, but the highest scores on the overall rating and likelihood to recommend. For a less visible, less recognized medical center, the opposite was true. High for the hospital experience. Low for overall rating and likelihood to recommend. I looked on the Hospital Compare site for other examples and found the same thing in other markets that had a dominant healthcare brand, Cleveland for example.

What that says to me is that many hospitals and medical centers are focusing on and delivering a highly rated patient experience. But they may not be focusing on the brand experience, which is emotional, cultural, social and definitely extends outside the hospital walls.

According to Bonnie Lowry at HealthStream Research who works with hospitals on aligning HCAHPS measured patient satisfaction with community perceptions, “hospitals know how to make sure every patient gets discharge instructions. It’s a longer and more challenging path to change what people think about a hospital’s overall rating and whether they would recommend it.”

As healthcare marketers, we know the ROI on a healthcare brand investment is positive word of mouth, more efficient marketing dollars, employee morale and recruitment, favorable media relations and increased preference leading to increased market share. It could mean better HCAHPS scores, too.

And as hospitals start getting paid based on those scores we may see more brand champions among clinicians, administrators and CFOs. Something we’d all like to experience.

Last week I wrote about the short-term vs. the long-term. And how marketers need to think more about the long-term in everything they do. But time is a relative measure. Technology allows potentials to be taken to extremes. And in more cases that we care to admit around a conference room table, the short-term becomes the long-term.

I experienced one variation of that phenomenon firsthand this week. A post I wrote almost two years ago started to see renewed traction. People were reading it again. And this was a piece I considered to be from long, long ago and far, far away.

Let’s be clear: I was wrong. It wasn’t from long, long ago. For the people reading the post yesterday, it was from yesterday. It’s just another wrinkle in our increasingly complex communications ecosystem. A brand’s permanent record can turn the short-term into forever.

For marketers nearly everything is right now. It’s our job. Short-term returns dictate long-term budgets. Marketers build linear stories. The future is based on the past.

For consumers nearly everything is on-demand. The short-term more likely affects the near-term than the long-term. Consumers build their own stories. The present is likely based on wherever they’ve just been.

Your right now might be almost two years from now for your consumer. Will what you say today matter? Will it provide the right foundation for your tomorrow?

Interested in more stuff I find interesting? Follow me @casey_flanagan on Twitter.

Too often marketers write off technology because it doesn’t make sense for right now. And it’s understandable. It’s easy to not care about an upcoming album from a band that is delivered in the form of a location-aware iPhone app. But that’s just that kind of thing that could spark the innovation your brand needs to become the next big thing.

Bluebrain is a Washington D.C. band whose new album is an iPhone app that “changes its rhythms and beats as the user walks around the National Mall in Washington D.C.

Most people I’ve told about this think it is somewhere between “cool” and “cute.” But it’s the kind of thing that could spark an idea that could turn a Tourism council into a lifestyle brand. Or could reinvent newspapers into relevant resources on a hyper-local level. In short, it could be a game changer. But only if you go past what it is to what it could be. Right now? No value. Moving forward? Totally different story.

Focusing on the short-term is a necessary part of any account or brand manager’s job. But the day-to-day is designed to fill up your every day. So keep an eye on the horizon. Seth Godin has a great line:

There really isn’t much a of ‘short run’. It quickly becomes yesterday. The long run, on the other hand, sticks around for quite a while.

I’ve written before that marketers should be constantly asking what technology we’re not yet using. Let’s add another question to that list. What technology exists today that is going to be more “right” for tomorrow. Don’t ask “What is it?” Ask “What could it be?”

If you don’t, someone else will.

Interested in more stuff I find interesting? Follow me @casey_flanagan on Twitter.

A good marketing conference sends you home feeling smarter and more energized with some new connections and plenty of new ideas. The 2011 Healthcare Marketing Strategies Summit in Orlando this past week did all that and more. This year’s presenters focused on how the significant changes occurring in healthcare are dictating an increasingly strategic role for hospital marketers.

Healthcare Marketing Strategies for 2011:

1. Healthcare reform has been set in motion–political roadblocks or not. 25 of its 92 provisions were implemented last year. Consumer opinion is pretty evenly divided (as our Healthcare Quality Pulse showed last September) and ultimately will depend on their healthcare experience.
2. Chances are, the physicians you’re marketing, marketing to or going to are not happy campers right now. But, according to Health Futures pundit Jeff Goldsmith, we better pay a lot of attention to the primary care physician: keeper of the patient relationship now and through whatever happens.
3. Focusing on the customer experience is a proven marketing strategy. Keynote speaker, Bridget Duffy is an expert. But very soon hospitals are going to get reimbursed (or not) based on how patients rate their experience. And some of our research suggests pre-admission brand perceptions may play a big role in how patients score their experience.
4. As if they don’t have enough new mandates, hospital marketers see mobile health applications as a way to differentiate, be more relevant and provide better patient care. Guess which viewpoint might lead to a successful mobile strategy?
5. Most of us see CRM and think direct mail–OK maybe email. But with more sophisticated systems to segment market health needs up front and then track patients on a lifetime basis, CRM may soon be the basis of any fully integrated strategy.

Lots of changes for hospitals, physicians and patients–a well as insurers and employers. But, of course, with change comes opportunity. Check in over the next few weeks for some thoughts on those opportunities for healthcare marketers and let me know what you think, too.

Leave it to Google. The media killer just launched what could possibly be the world’s finest business magazine – Think Quarterly. It’s well-written. It’s well-designed. And it’s well-timed.

The first issue was released to the public this month. It’s dedicated to data. And, seeing as Google is addicted to data, I thought the perspective was refreshing. From the people who brought us Google Insights and Google Analytics comes a Google Pause in the form of a quote from Guy Laurence, the CEO of Vodafone UK. This should become a daily affirmation for marketers:

We were brought up to believe more data was good, and that’s no longer true.

In other words, let’s stop asking “What do we know?” And let’s start asking “What do I care?” “What do we know?” is the path to efficiency. “What do I care?” is the path to effectiveness.

It’s an essential question because it’s easy for the data we have to become the dictator of what we need to do. Tangible, easy-to-measure metrics – like click-through rates – become more important because… we have them. Now, click-through rates can be an important measure of banner success. I won’t argue that. But they are one measure. And because they are ubiquitous, they can easily become shorthand for success – the only measure consistently asked about.

Because we are asking “What do we know?,” we know the click-through rate is .X%. But what do I care? That depends on the objective. And that’s a harder question to ask and a harder question to answer.

I’ve written before about how click-through rates only tell part of the story. A piece this week from the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard confirms that, while easy to measure, click-through rate is only one part of engagement. Time-and-time again, we’ve seen that CTR ≠ ROI. So don’t give up on increasing awareness or changing perceptions or meeting whatever objective it is you care about.

A well-defined objective will make you more objective. It will focus you on the right behaviors. And that can make answering “What do I care?” much easier.

Interested in more stuff I find interesting? Follow me @casey_flanagan on Twitter.

[Editor’s Note: Not for nothing, but click-through rates may have seemed like they were picked on in this piece. It’s because they are easy to know. The question “What do I care?” can – and should – reach much farther. From reach and frequency to ad equivalency. Easy-to-measure metrics to not equate to importance.]

Sure, advertising, websites and public relations build brands. But as a marketer, if you want to truly build your brand, don’t forget to champion the cause of product development. The product is the core of the brand. It is the living, breathing manifestation. So why do we so often skip past it when we talk about brand building?

How would your work change if you started each major initiative by considering: Could our product / service change? Should our product / service change? Could we present it differently? Could we package it differently? Should we change the packaging?

What if you had well thought out answers to each of those questions before beginning to think about any paid media solutions? Would your work change? For the better? My guess is you’d see improvements in both integration and effectiveness. So how does a non-R & D person get into the R & D game?

One way is to make it an academic exercise. This can be quite successful. And can be borne from a simple starting point. Look at (a) what your brand stands for and (b) what your target wants and / or needs. Can you offer a smarter product? Can you repackage what you already have in a more appealing way? If your brand stands for an unmet or unfulfilled target need, you are on your way.

But there is another way. To borrow a line from T.S. Elliot: “Good writers borrow. Great writers steal.”

It’s not a bad practice as long as you’re adept at stealing the fundamental thinking and not the execution. Look at what brands in other categories are doing. But don’t stop with what are they doing. Ask why. Explore how. Figure out the strategic basis. Force collisions. Redesign it. And then apply the fundamentals to your situation. Tactics, executions and creative expressions will follow.

The idea of marketers focusing on the product is not a new one (see: Baked In). But it is one that is surprisingly overlooked. We all have the opportunity to research some success stories in other industries to develop our own bottom lines.

Interested in more stuff I find interesting? Follow me @casey_flanagan on Twitter.