I love the connection that Anne Driscoll (contributor to Mashable.com) makes in her article “5 Tips for Sparking a Grassroots Movement Online.” She says that social action is easy for those who understand the value of service and helping others. They already devote themselves to making the world a better place and overcoming the odds. What Driscoll says the real trick is “turning that personal motivation into a widespread and impactful movement.” This is where in 2012, social media comes into play big time. Grassroots communities are a way to get actionable success even with limited budgets and resources. If you can make these communities go viral, on a global level, you can increase the power of the movement exponentially.
If we take a look at the recent Occupy Movement, it is apparent that the powerful tool of social media is no secret to grassroots movements. The Occupy group did a fabulous job utilizing social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and Google to rally Americans across the nation to congregate in large cities (and smaller ones) and to fight Wall Street, the wealthy “top 1%” – in other words, “The Man.” There is no question that the effort made an impact from a numbers standpoint. Thousands of people gathered in public parks or other locations in major metropolitan areas like San Francisco, New York, Boston, Miami, and Los Angeles to make their voices heard. Social media played many roles here: gathering people to one location in their region, encouraging a rigorous dialogue, and grabbing the attention of members of the media – both traditional and new.
According to Twitter, “over 100K different hashtags have been used to discuss the Occupy Wall Street movement and similar ‘occupy’ tactics.” Twitter reported the following (sample stats for Occupy Movement):
• Top occupy-related hashtags: #occupywallstreet #ows #occupywallst #occupy #occupyboston
• Up to 330K total hashtags /day, 17K different hashtags daily
• Top cities tweeting occupy hashtags, in order: NYC, LA, DC, SF, Boston,
• Top cities outside US: London, Cairo, Toronto
In my opinion, these high numbers are so absurd, but at the same time very exciting. This shows the power of social media to give momentum to a movement. The following question arises…if the movement was this popular and powerful, why was there so much controversy over media coverage? People argue that the movement got too much, too little, and not the right kind of coverage. They make every argument under the sun. I happen to agree with Capital New York’s Joe Pompeo in his article stating that the movement has received its fair share of publicity. Despite the back and forth quarrel about whether the Occupy movement deserves “top story” status, the fact remains that Google News indexed over 2,000 articles and news stories in the first 10 days of the movement. The A.P. published 30 photos, a half-dozen stories and at least one video in that same time period. Finally, CNN broadcast the story on Newsroom, The Situation Room, Piers Morgan Tonight, and CNN International. If that’s not coverage, I don’t know what is.
The real question here is why the controversy in the first place? What makes the media uncertain about the Occupy story? This boils down to the fundamental elements to a grassroots movement and leveraging the social media tool properly. Like any media story, the Occupy movement needed to have substance, meaning: authenticity, a clear message, and it needed to tell a story – not simply raise an issue (according to Driscoll). Perhaps this final item is what was lacking. Although the Occupy movement did tell a story (it told many, actually) it did not always do so in a clear manner. Facts were not always accurate and the stories did not present one, united message. Much of the time, the movement appeared disorganized and lacking leadership. Without a clear communications team working the front lines, reporters in the media got caught up in many of the smaller side stories and the message was mixed. Of course the average story was important; the entire movement was centered around every day people. However, these people needed to understand why they were doing what they were doing—they needed some guidance. The lack of organization also put the movement at a disadvantage when countering negative PR. I don’t believe that there was manipulation of the media coming from the movement itself, but I do think that there was a bit of anarchy and chaos within the movement that resulted in a lack of control or strategy from a PR perspective. I believe that the media can only be “manipulated” as much as it allows itself to be.
There are many success stories and examples of grassroots movements embracing social media in the world of healthcare. One very interesting example is the interactive healthcare movement led by physicians, themselves. “Interactive Health is transitioning clinical care from real-world, costly encounters to virtual, inexpensive, cloud-based care.” This means that the patient/doctor conversation happens virtually, in a safe online space like HealthTap, instead of in-person as health care delivery has traditionally be done. Ron Gutman points out that when looking at this movement, interactive healthcare is supported by three pillars: quality, access, and care. If these can be sustained at a low cost to provider and patient through an online social movement, all the more reason to move forward. There is great potential for social media to support health movements such as these, especially in areas like global health where access to care can be a great obstacle. I would predict that the challenges here would be the human inclination to resist change, as we move away from traditional care, as well as the legal risks affiliated with Patient Health Information (PIH) and HIPAA laws.
This article is the part of a series of posts that I will make throughout my graduate studies in Marketing and Communications. With a focus on both healthcare and interactive marketing, I hope to gain a better understanding for effective health messaging--which I think plays a key role in a happy, healthy society. Please leave your comments or write to me: camorous@gmail.com.
Sources:
http://mashable.com/2011/08/26/grassroots-online-tips/
http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/is_occupy_wall_street_getting.php?page=all
http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/09/29/occupy-wall-street-12-days-and-little-sign-of-slowing-down/#ixzz1ZLnzPK5c
http://thenextweb.com/twitter/2011/10/21/over-100k-different-hashtags-have-been-used-to-discuss-occupy-wall-street/
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/media/2011/09/3533389/occupy-wall-street-media-blackout-myth-plenty-stories-none-them-big http://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2012/02/21/a-new-grassroots-movement-by-doctors/
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
10.09.2012
7.13.2012
www.what the heck am I doing.com
When working in PR/Marketing, it's only a matter of time before you will be asked to help redesign a website. If you are one of the lucky few who never has this task (not to say it's not enjoyable, it's just tedious) then "Lucky you!" You still need to understand the ins and outs of a good site, in order to strategically place ad campaigns.
Tell the Brand Story
A website serves as the "home base" for your brand. The strategy behind a website should be to create an accessible and easy-to-use website that embodies your organization's brand and legitimizes your message. When a marketer is speaking on the phone to the media, referencing his or her company to clients, or providing feedback to a board of directors, it is important to have a website that represents the entire company and highlights the significance of the work being done. In some sense, a website should tell a story on its own -- as a website visit can be a one time chance to capture the attention of the user.
Aesthetics
Web layout and visual appeal are key. It is important to keep the branding consistent across the board for an organization or company, so the color palette for the website should align with the logo and other existing branding. A website should also use color combinations that make the text readable and easy to recognize (sometimes dark colors on dark backgrounds can make text undetectable). Consistent branding is also important as often users visit the site after tying a keyword into a search engine, such as Google. It is important that they recognize where they are and that the site branding confirms that they have come to the correct place. Otherwise, they will immediately exit the site and, thus, contribute to the "bounce rate" in your site analytics (something you'd rather keep low - trust me!)
Navigation & User Experience
Visual appearance is only part of the equation for the perfect website. The navigation and layout of the site are also critical to creating a comfortable, easy environment for users. The "user experience" is what determines popularity of a site, the number of page visits, and the length of time that one user will spend browsing content. If a site is easy to navigate - meaning the navigation is intuitive, well marked, and fast- then the user will be happy. From that point on, good content will speak for itself. Interesting reading, helpful material such as downloadable PDFs, and interactive video will capture the user's attention. Content should be written in plain English- no clinical jargon or academic prose.
Know Your Audience
Keep in mind the unique needs that your users may have, as well as their expectations. You want their experience at your website to be a memorable, pleasant experience. Whether that means going out of you way to make online accommodations for vision or hearing impaired users; streaming news feeds or stock market updates to maintain user attention; or providing a "one stop shop" portal for users to access a list of resources, in addition to your site, that might meet their needs if they did not find what they needed at your site. Much of the reasoning behind choosing a site layout should be to make the user experience easy for all audiences: community members, educators, physicians, students, and patients who may be accessing the site as a resource. When considering a patient, it is important to remember that some times symptoms of an illness can make everyday tasks challenging. Just another reason to tailor your user's web experience as best you can. Enabling access for people of all abilities is key to building a sustainable website.
Personalize it!
Website personalization is an area where health communicators have to proceed with great caution. Any app or login feature would need to be highly secure in order to protect patient health information and confidentiality. A login feature gives users who frequent a site the ability to participate in multiple event registrations, surveys, or webinars without re-entering registration info each time. Instead, the form would pre-populate with their info, made possible using cookies. Personalization does greatly enhance user experience. The information that users volunteer when they login, becomes an important piece of intel for marketing strategy. We will discuss this in a future post.
Mobile Ready
Finally, in the current times it is crucial that a website be "skinned" for mobile devices. Everyone accesses the web via iPhones, Androids, iPads, eNotebooks, etc. and a company can miss out on an opportunity to engage a user if the website shows up in very poor quality on a mobile device. Nothing is more frustrating to a user then finding a website and then realizing that it is impossible to access half of the site because it goes off the screen.
Do the work for your user - make the content easy to access. For me, this is the real message when it comes to website best practices for websites.
References:
http://www.homebaseprogram.org/ http://ask.enquiro.com/2010/a-big-list-of-user-experience-best-practices/
http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/11/best-practices-for-6-common-user-interface-elements/
http://mobilewebbestpractices.com/user-experience/
This article is the part of a series of posts that I will make throughout my graduate studies in Marketing and Communications. With a focus on both healthcare and interactive marketing, I hope to gain a better understanding for effective health messaging--which I think plays a key role in a happy, healthy society. Please leave your comments or write to me: camorous@gmail.com.
Tell the Brand Story
A website serves as the "home base" for your brand. The strategy behind a website should be to create an accessible and easy-to-use website that embodies your organization's brand and legitimizes your message. When a marketer is speaking on the phone to the media, referencing his or her company to clients, or providing feedback to a board of directors, it is important to have a website that represents the entire company and highlights the significance of the work being done. In some sense, a website should tell a story on its own -- as a website visit can be a one time chance to capture the attention of the user.
Aesthetics
Web layout and visual appeal are key. It is important to keep the branding consistent across the board for an organization or company, so the color palette for the website should align with the logo and other existing branding. A website should also use color combinations that make the text readable and easy to recognize (sometimes dark colors on dark backgrounds can make text undetectable). Consistent branding is also important as often users visit the site after tying a keyword into a search engine, such as Google. It is important that they recognize where they are and that the site branding confirms that they have come to the correct place. Otherwise, they will immediately exit the site and, thus, contribute to the "bounce rate" in your site analytics (something you'd rather keep low - trust me!)
Navigation & User Experience
Visual appearance is only part of the equation for the perfect website. The navigation and layout of the site are also critical to creating a comfortable, easy environment for users. The "user experience" is what determines popularity of a site, the number of page visits, and the length of time that one user will spend browsing content. If a site is easy to navigate - meaning the navigation is intuitive, well marked, and fast- then the user will be happy. From that point on, good content will speak for itself. Interesting reading, helpful material such as downloadable PDFs, and interactive video will capture the user's attention. Content should be written in plain English- no clinical jargon or academic prose.
Know Your Audience
Keep in mind the unique needs that your users may have, as well as their expectations. You want their experience at your website to be a memorable, pleasant experience. Whether that means going out of you way to make online accommodations for vision or hearing impaired users; streaming news feeds or stock market updates to maintain user attention; or providing a "one stop shop" portal for users to access a list of resources, in addition to your site, that might meet their needs if they did not find what they needed at your site. Much of the reasoning behind choosing a site layout should be to make the user experience easy for all audiences: community members, educators, physicians, students, and patients who may be accessing the site as a resource. When considering a patient, it is important to remember that some times symptoms of an illness can make everyday tasks challenging. Just another reason to tailor your user's web experience as best you can. Enabling access for people of all abilities is key to building a sustainable website.
Personalize it!
Website personalization is an area where health communicators have to proceed with great caution. Any app or login feature would need to be highly secure in order to protect patient health information and confidentiality. A login feature gives users who frequent a site the ability to participate in multiple event registrations, surveys, or webinars without re-entering registration info each time. Instead, the form would pre-populate with their info, made possible using cookies. Personalization does greatly enhance user experience. The information that users volunteer when they login, becomes an important piece of intel for marketing strategy. We will discuss this in a future post.
Mobile Ready
Finally, in the current times it is crucial that a website be "skinned" for mobile devices. Everyone accesses the web via iPhones, Androids, iPads, eNotebooks, etc. and a company can miss out on an opportunity to engage a user if the website shows up in very poor quality on a mobile device. Nothing is more frustrating to a user then finding a website and then realizing that it is impossible to access half of the site because it goes off the screen.
Do the work for your user - make the content easy to access. For me, this is the real message when it comes to website best practices for websites.
References:
http://www.homebaseprogram.org/ http://ask.enquiro.com/2010/a-big-list-of-user-experience-best-practices/
http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/11/best-practices-for-6-common-user-interface-elements/
http://mobilewebbestpractices.com/user-experience/
This article is the part of a series of posts that I will make throughout my graduate studies in Marketing and Communications. With a focus on both healthcare and interactive marketing, I hope to gain a better understanding for effective health messaging--which I think plays a key role in a happy, healthy society. Please leave your comments or write to me: camorous@gmail.com.
7.12.2012
Understanding Cookies
What are cookies?
Let's be frank. You hear people talk about cookies all the time --no, not the chocolate chip kind, the internet kind. Everyone pretends to know what they are, cause who wants to look like an idiot? But let's face it - do you really understand them? Honestly, I'm not sure I'm there myself. But, I just wrote a short piece on them for class and I thought I'd share this batch : )
Cookies are small data stores that live on a computer's web browser. The browser will use cookies to store data about that
user's web activity. According to the BBC's Webwise Blog:
This means that cookies can store info about the number of
times you have visited a page, the length of time that you spent there, what
links you clicked, and what types of browsers you prefer to use. This
information can help make your user experience easy and more enjoyable by
removing duplicate information, remembering favorite info, or giving you the
content that you requested in a search.
Benefits
Cookies have enabled online shopping to expand through the
use of a shopping cart feature that "remembers" desired items and
"holds" those items for you, even if you exit the site. With a login
feature that references info in your computer's cookies, you can return to that
site and keep browsing with the same contents in your shopping cart.
The information captured through cookies can also provide
key intelligence to inform brand-marketing strategy. By understanding what
sites a user frequents, how often they visit, and where user's general
interests lie, a company can effectively place ads. Ideally, the brand can
target the user with ads for a product or item of interest and there is a
higher probability that the user will actually click on the ad and generate
revenue for the site host and the brand (if the user purchases the product).
This method of targeted advertising can be very
cost-effective, as it matches marketing efforts with the targeted audience: an
engaged population that is actually seeking the product and looking to fill a
need. Cookies also give the brand a great advantage and insight into
understanding user behavior. Cookies allow the brand to capture real time
research data on the users interest, which can influence their entire strategy,
constantly keeping an approach fresh and relevant.
Controversy
There is a downside to cookies, however, which is that users
are often skeptical of the idea that information is being stored about them.
Many feel that their privacy is infringed upon and this unease can affect a
user's trust in a brand. Despite the fact noted by Larisa Thomason from
NetMechanic that "Cookies cannot store any personal information about the
user that the user doesn't voluntarily supply to the Web site,"[2] people are still uneasy about the
presence of cookies.
Some users dislike the idea of being targeted by marketing
campaigns or having their web browser ads tailored to their interests. There
has been some controversy over the legality of cookie use. In the Guardian, Joanna Geary makes the
"sneaky" function of a cookie clear:
The consensus seems to be that cookies are harmless. For
users that dislike the idea, there is always the option of blocking cookies--
which may make the web experience less fluid, as many sites do not operate well
without cookies. Most sites have a cause within their "Terms and
Conditions" that states that by using the site, you are agreeing to
download the site cookies. A good site will also take the time to explain how
the brand uses cookies and why they do so.
[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/webwise/guides/about-cookies
[2] http://www.netmechanic.com/news/vol3/beginner_no5.htm
[3] http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/23/cookies-and-web-tracking-intro
This article is the part of a series of posts that I will make throughout my graduate studies in Marketing and Communications. With a focus on both healthcare and interactive marketing, I hope to gain a better understanding for effective health messaging--which I think plays a key role in a happy, healthy society. Please leave your comments or write to me: camorous@gmail.com.
This article is the part of a series of posts that I will make throughout my graduate studies in Marketing and Communications. With a focus on both healthcare and interactive marketing, I hope to gain a better understanding for effective health messaging--which I think plays a key role in a happy, healthy society. Please leave your comments or write to me: camorous@gmail.com.
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