Date: Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Time: 7:30 AM — 9:00 AM

Ravinia Club
2 Ravinia Club Drive
Suite #100
Atlanta, GA 30346

David Murray (@DaveMurr) is the Social Web Communications Director for re:group (www.regroup.us), a fully integrated marketing and communications firm in Ann Arbor, MI and member of SEFF.

David has created fully integrated digital and social media campaigns in the health care, franchise, nonprofit, and both B2B and B2C sectors. David is a national speaker on digital communications and social media best practices. He is a published author on the subject.

Come, learn, and share your ideas with the group.
Bring your questions, too!

Register online today at
www.SoutheastFranchiseForum.com.

Advanced Reservations Are Required***
Deadline for Reservations is Friday, August 5th at 3 PM. Non-Members of SEFF and Guests Pay $15 per Breakfast Meeting.

Please join us for a Luncheon Event hosted by MSHPM at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital June 24th in Ann Arbor.
Our distinguished panelists will discuss what hospitals, health systems and physicians should be thinking about as they develop an ACO.  Areas of discussion will include physician alignment, network and hospital partnership strategies, ACO structure options, legal implications and use of technology to improve patient care, control costs and meet government regulations. Click here for the details. and to register.

re:group is pleased to sponsor this event. Contact Liz Conlin, V.P. Client Services for the inside scoop 734- 320-6606 or liz.conlin@regroup.us

Here are the top ten areas that your marketing department will need to address as health care reform approaches.

1. Structure. Health care reform will involve change at every level of your organization and those changes need to be integrated throughout. Organization-wide planning and internal communication will be paramount. Marketing will be in an ideal position to think strategically about the implications of these changes on your internal and external audiences. Your CMO/Marketing Director must have a seat at the leadership table.

2. Collaboration. Are you planning on becoming or joining an Accountable Care Organization? Will your hospital or physician group be one of the first to become an ACO or are you considering joining with another hospital or physician group to provide services? Collaboration will be the name of the game in the new health care world. What are you doing to build provider relationships and develop a strong offer to attract them to your organization?

3. Branding. What is your brand’s value proposition and can you continue to deliver and support it in this new environment? To complicate matters, if your organization will become an ACO, what branding strategy will you use? Will you build a separate brand or will it be a companion brand to your primary brand offer? There are many things to consider, not to mention the impact on your marketing budget and staff. It is not too early to begin thinking about brand strategies and planning.

4. Service Strategy. What are your service line strategies? What services will you offer? Which ones are the most and least profitable? Winners in the new health care arena will market to their strengths. You do not need to be all things to all people. Think about how you can drive traffic to the specialties that are the most profitable or those that serve a unique need in the market.

5. Physician Alignment. How strong are your relationships with Primary Care Providers? PCP’s will only be allowed to participate in only one ACO. Have you created an environment where physicians want to practice or refer to your hospital? Do you make it easy for them to practice there? Do you have the EHR’s, online and mobile tools to make it easy to access the information they need? Do you have a marketing plan to help them attract new patients?

6. Internal Communication. Are you preparing your staff for reform? Are you helping them to understand and prepare for the changes ahead? Your physicians and staff are the ambassadors for your hospital. Information can be absorbed and change can be accepted a lot better if it is phased in over time. Are you developing a communications plan to teach them over the next two years what they will need to know?

7. Measurement. Are your marketing measurement tools in place? Do you know what the ROI is on your most prevalent procedures? Did your online campaign drive the traffic you anticipated? Do you have the information in place to justify your marketing budgets? Metrics are the new cost of entry. You are already behind if you haven’t started a formal tracking process, but you can catch up if you start now!

8. Relationship Management. Do you have a patient database and is it tied into your overall IT system? Are you tracking your patient’s visits? Do you know how often they utilize your services? Do you communicate with them regularly? What do you know about them that will help you market to them more efficiently? In the not too distant future, your hospital’s compensation will be directly tied to your quality and satisfaction scores. Your CRM system needs to be in tip-top shape for what’s ahead.

9. Information. Patient education, wellness programs and disease management will be more important than ever before. It goes without saying that one measure of quality will be the patient’s ability to follow doctor’s orders. Organizations that fine tune their patient education and look for new ways to reward compliance will have an advantage. Where does your organization stand in this area?

10. Social Connection. Despite fear and trepidation concerning HIPPA regulations, more health care organizations are biting the bullet and at least putting their big toe into the Social Media waters. Social media is your opportunity to engage with your patients, convey your brand personality and to provide meaningful, helpful content. As health care reform rolls out, the consumer is going to have a lot of questions. Don’t let them go to another resource, because you are afraid to engage. Remember, you are in charge of your social media strategy so you can decide what strategies will work best for your organization.

You will need sound thinking and smart communications to stand out in the new world of healthcare. re:group is uniquely qualified to help you with strategies, planning and execution to make transitions easier and the future of your business healthier, too.

May 24 – 26, 2011 – re:group will be heading to New York for Blog World and the Social Media Business Summit the world’s largest and most comprehensive new media and social media conference. re:group’s social media director, David Murray, will be speaking to business owners on building their content bubble. We have just been notified that our session is ranked in the top 50 sessions of this 250 session conference. This three day event is one of the biggest and best social media conferences happening to date. Follow #BWENY on Twitter. re:group will also be covering the event and posting updates to our website.

As expected, #unGeeked was a great experience, and the new friends and knowledge we took from that conference was well worth the trip. There’s already a great recap of what made #unGeeked so special, but we thought we’d share some of our takeaways. We didn’t catch everything, so I apologize if I missed someone or a particular topic.

Sam Fiorella: Enterprise Internal and External Communities
Sam started #unGeeked by saying, “Too many businesses focus too much on the “online” and not enough on the “offline” components.” True words. Sam’s discussion went on to point out that both marketing and communication now lie within all the individuals who make up your business.

This is something we at re:group have had to recognize, that there are multiple touch points of communication. We now live, as Sam Fiorella puts it, in a “many to many” marketing age.

Amanda Hite: Make Meaning With Social Media

“Finding the meaning in what you do and why you do it is what will drive the success of your business, i.e. make money.”

Amanda had a great message in that social media, though good for businesses, doesn’t necessarily have to be all about business. That there is something bigger that a company’s social media effort can be a part of. Social media can be about enhancing lives while building projects with meaning. It shouldn’t just be about followers.

Lou Hoffman: Storytelling and Brand Authenticity

Lou shared some interesting statistics:

• 66% believe that when dealing with people, you can’t be too careful.
• 37% Believe that most people would tray to take advantage of you if the got a chance.
• 85% Believed that people they know personally “try to be fair”.

Lou shared that this is where the power of story telling can bridge that gap between your brand being just a product and being personable.

Troy Janish: Leveraging Employees in Social Media

Troy talked about building and transferring the culture of a traditional company into the world of social. Few industries are as conservative as insurances, but Troy positioned the internal brand evangelists into the driving force of change. And in the field of Insurance, you have to make up the play if you are playing in a field where nothing exists.

Every employee has a role when it comes to social media – and if they are not provided a role, they will find a role. Regulations are important, but they can work within social. The key is internal communications.

Curt Hanke: From Blanding to Branding
Thanks to Curt’s presentation I discovered that there is no such thing as a rational purchase, or rational marketing. We live in an emotional world that dictates our buying and marketing decisions.

This plays big in the agency side. Successful firms teach people about their business, not application. They start with business objectives and sell their clients on the squishy or scary points – things that are not 100% solid, but that the agency believes will work for the client, because they understand their business.

Diane Matigian: When is a Tweet, Comment or Update Slander or Libel? The Legal Implications of Transparency and Digital Tools

Defamation is a big issue thanks to social. Slander and libel still plays – traditional laws exist through the content and publishing of the social web. So, the original laws still apply.  For those who argue freedom of speech, just know this is limited. You can say whatever you want, but you better be prepared to back it up.

When it comes to social media, there is a very fuzzy line between an opinion and slander. The most frustrating thing about social media and the law is there are no 100% correct answers. This space is still being sorted out.

Spike Jones: 93% of word of mouth happens OFFLINE

Did you know that 93% of word of mouth happens OFFLINE? Did you also know that 76% of people still feel companies lie in their ads? This number drops from 58% to 38% when people are asked if companies will do the right thing.

The biggest challenge for marketers right now is marrying word of mouth and credibility. Mr. Jones even had the nerve to state that social media creates weak ties. We agree. Social media is great for networks, not networking. Building and participating in communities that exist solely on online social networks doesn’t work. Businesses need to combine the online with the offline interaction to succeed.

Spike recommended Malcolm Gladwell’s article on social media. I’ve read it, and you should give it a look, too.

Jason Falls: Channeling Mayberry: What Small Towns Can Teach Us About Social Media

Not many would call Ann Arbor small, but there is definitely a small town feel here. Jason’s presentation on how small towns and social media work hand in hand really hit home. Some of his takeaways included:

• Communities are Networks of trust.
• Facebook is built on an intentional openness. Small towns are built on unintentional openness.
• Loyalty is huge in small towns.
• Being loyal to the community – no one person is more important than the other.
• Communities celebrate and mourn together.
• Hospitality and honesty – big in small towns.
• Local search is the big thing right now in social media, because it has to do with relevancy.

All of what makes small towns what they are can easily be translated to social media best practices.

Sima Dahl: Personal vs. Corporate Branding

Can one separate their personal Working on the personal brand? That was the question asked by Sima. Employees need to ask themselves: Who you are, why you do what you do, what makes you special, and how can you take the special and make it work for a company.

To be successful at anything we have to own what you want to do. The brand, personal or corporate, helps with the buy in – access.

Barry Moltz: Now Build Yourself a Business

Barry gave is five things to build success business

1. Hire the right people
2. You’ve got to meet the right people
3. Get rid of the “s” word. Successful businesses don’t sell, they solve. People buy when they are in pain and when they have money to solve that pain
4. We can’t sell – we just have to be ready when people are ready to buy
5. Customer service is the new marketing – it is the only way to be competitive in today’s market.

Sorry we didn’t get everyone on this list. Check out the #unGeeked hashtag as reviews are starting to pop up from attendees and speakers.

Congratulations to the organizers of #unGeeked Chicago, and thank you for having us. Hard to believe it has been a year already! See you in Toronto.

We just finished sponsoring the social media communications for FutureMidwest, and we are now looking forward to the next event.

Before we give away too many details, (though we gave a big hint in the title of this blog post) we should consider what really makes a digital conference stand out these days.

We attend a fair amount of events including some of the big ones like IFA and BlogWorld, to some of the smaller regional events like SOBcon and #unGeeked. All are excellent, but it can be tricky gauging where to drop your dollars. Make sure you ask organizers, speakers, and past attendees the following questions before making your conference decisions.

• What’s the value? What is the goal and mission of the conference? If you can’t find an answer beyond, “teaching the latest trends in social media”, I’d look for another event.
• What will you teach me? Conferences can be fun, but education should be your main objective for attending. What will you learn that you can’t find online or on someone’s blog?
• What’s the take away? You can listen to all the great presentations you want, but that doesn’t mean you will know how or be able to integrate what is said into your current business strategy. The best events have their presenters provide takeaways so attendees have a better idea what to expect.
• Will I make connections? Networking is great, but networking without a purpose is just standing around talking. Is there a speaker or attendee that can help you with your business? Can you offer an attendee something that will help theirs. Having business objectives while attending conferences isn’t a crime. It’s smart business.

All of this leads us to the above Twitter hashtag used in this post’s title: #unGeeked.

Last year we attended and covered #unGeeked Milwaukee. This was an event limited to about 200 people with a series of presenters who actually spoke with, not just to, the audience. This lead to a cultivation of ideas and brainstorming around a series of topics that included ROI, social media, marketing, content, publishing, branding, job search, and more. There was  opportunity to connect with both speakers and attendees. The education and take away we received more than made up for the price of registration. And yes, the connections lead to both personal and business opportunities.

On May 12th re:group returns to #unGeeked. This time we will be in the heart of Chicago along with a fantastic lineup of speakers and thought leaders including Olivier Blanchard, Spike Jones, Barry Moltz, and more.

You can check out all the discussion leader bios here.

I’ll be leading a brainstorm session on a topic we are very passionate about here at re:group, content – Identifying Your Content Bubble. (Scroll down midway to read to full description). To get a better idea of what this means, check out the video at the top of this post. We’ll also be covering all the #unGeeked action on our Twitter channel and Facebook page.

There is still time to register, and your #unGeeked pass will include:

• Three days of 24 Discussion Sessions
• Copy of Olivier Blanchard’s latest book Social ROI (3-day Registrations only)
• Opportunity to register for one of four 20-on-One Private Consultation Sessions
• You’re automatically invited to  “unGeeked Elite Attendee Only” After Parties with free appetizers and cash bar.
• Light Lunch

Also, kicking off events on May 11th is a charity roast for co-author of Trust Agents, Chris Brogan. All proceeds go to support local Chicago charity: Sit Stay Read.

Register for #unGeeked now!

See you in Chicago!

We are very proud to be a Sponsor for this year’s FutureMidwest 2011 conference.

If you are not familiar, FutureMidwest is a two day digital and technological education conference now in it’s 3rd year of existence. The first event took place in 2009 and helped kick start a movement that continues to draw attention throughout Michigan and the Midwest.

Not focused on just social media, the FutureMidwest program is built on helping educate business professionals, business owners, students, entrepreneurs, and companies on new business practices that compliment the current digital and technological changes.

But what does it really mean to be Midwest?

Is being Midwest limited to geographic location? Is it a state of mind? Is it a code of ethics? Maybe it’s determined by the sports team you root for?

I’ve been fortunate to travel across most of the county, and I have spent a lot of time in the Midwest States like Wisconsin, Minnesota, Indiana, North and South Dakota, Iowa, Illinois, Ohio, and more. Throughout all of these states I have noticed a common theme:

That regardless of the city, town, state, or geographic location, the people who make up the Midwest have an insatiable appetite to want to reinvent themselves.

They are not ones to rest on their laurels, or be tied down by the status quo or perceived limitations set by economic restrictions. This is in conflict to the general perception many have of the people who live in this region. However, I’ve seen how communities in this so called rust belt are gathering together, and redefining not only themselves, but the communities they serve.

More and more the states that make up the Midwest recognize the need to connect and share ideas.

Being Midwest isn’t about location. It is a state of mind. It’s the will and determination handed down by generations to roll up the sleeves and get to work. It is a work ethic and mentality that is not limited to just physical or industrial labor. One can work with their hands in many ways. Innovation is only limited by the imagination, and if history has taught us anything, it is that the Midwest always looking beyond the horizon.

Get an idea of this innovation in action at FutureMidwest 2011. We’ll be there along with many other great minds.

There is still time to register, so reserve your spot here: FutureMidwest 2011 Registration

Still, not convinced? Then we suggest you read these testimonials: Why Michiganders Should Attend FutureMidwest and Why Attending Conferences Like FutureMidwest Helps Your Company

See you Thursday!

According to a new study by Social Media Examiner, prepared by Michael A. Stelzner, social media has gone mainstream. And for businesses it represents an unprecedented marketing opportunity that transcends traditional middlemen and connects companies directly with customers. Two years ago, businesses were uncertain about social media. Now it’s here to stay and companies are rapidly responding to new social media opportunities.

Major findings from this report contain insight into how marketers are currently using social media and their future plans:

90% of marketers indicate that social media is important for their business. One third of all social media marketers want to know how to monitor and measure the return on investment (ROI) of social media and integrate their social media activities. 58% of marketers are using social media for 6 hours or more each week, and more than a third invest 11 or more hours weekly.

77% of marketers plan on increasing their use of YouTube and video marketing, making it the top area marketers will invest in for 2011.
70% of marketers want to learn more about Facebook and 69% want to learn more about blogging.

The number-one advantage of social media marketing is generating more business exposure, as indicated by 88% of marketers. Increased traffic (72%) and improved search rankings (62%) were also major advantages.

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and blogs were the top four social media tools used by marketers, in that order. Facebook has eclipsed Twitter to take the top spot since the 2010 study.

Only 28% of businesses are outsourcing some portion of their social media marketing.

The overwhelming majority (93%) of respondents indicated they were employing social media for marketing purposes, and a significant 90% of marketers said that social media was important.

The self-employed (67%) and small business owners with 2 or more employees (66%) were more likely to strongly agree.

More B2B companies have been using social media longer than a year (52.6% reported 1 year or more) than their B2C counterparts (46.2% indicated 1 year or longer). In 2010, only 31% of marketers were using social media for 1 or more years. Now that number has grown to 50%.

58% of marketers are using social media for 6 hours or more each week and 34% for 11 or more hours weekly. 15% of marketers spend more than 20 hours each week on social media.

Those with more years of social media experience spend more time each week conducting social media activities. For example, 63% of people with 3 or more years of experience spend more than 10 hours a week doing social media activities. Only 41% of those with 1 to 3 years experience spend that much time.

Time Commitment For Social Media Marketing

There’s a direct relationship between how long marketers have been using social media and their weekly time commitment. For people just beginning with social media, 59% spend 1 to 5 hours per week. However, for those who have been doing this for a few months or longer, most spend 6 hours or more per week on social media activities.

A significant 47% of marketers who have more than 3 years experience spend at least 16 hours per week focused on social media activities.

There’s a direct relationship between age and time spent on social media. The younger the marketer, the more time he or she spends on social media. People aged 20 to 29 years spend more time than other age groups using social media marketing (with 41% spending 11+ hours weekly), followed by 30- to 39-year-olds (37% spending 11+ hours per week). This is an increase over the 2010 study.

The number-one benefit of social media marketing is standing out in an increasingly noisy world. 88% of all marketers indicated that their social media efforts have generated more exposure for their businesses. Improving traffic and subscribers was the second major benefit, with 72% reporting positive results.

Nearly two-thirds of marketers indicated a rise in search engine rankings was a benefit of social media marketing.

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and blogs were the top four social media tools used by marketers, with Facebook leading the pack. In 2010, Twitter was in first place with 88% and Facebook was close behind with 87%. Since 2010, Twitter lost 4%, LinkedIn lost 7% and Facebook gained 5%. In the 2009 study, only 77% of businesses were using Facebook.

The self-employed (80%) and owners of small businesses (78%) were more likely to use LinkedIn. Larger businesses were more likely to use YouTube or other video and less likely to use blogs (68%+).

At least 73% of marketers plan on increasing their use of YouTube/video, blogs, Facebook and Twitter. A significant 86% said they have no plans to utilize MySpace or will reduce their efforts.

Source: Social Media Examiner April 2011

• Physicians influence or control 70% of hospital admissions. Yet few hospital marketing budgets spend adequately to market to them.
• 60% of physicians refer to more than one hospital. They refer to doctors they know, not a system. It is important that hospitals encourage their physicians to get to know one another and their capabilities.

This means that hospitals and systems need to encourage engagement in person or online.

Travel specialty physicians to other hospitals in the system to speak on various topics with a Q& A following.  Host dinners with new doctors and invite some of the more senior doctors so they can meet one another. Put doctor profiles on a physician portal site. Put referral forms online on physician portals. In other words, make it easier –  even more profitable – for physicians to confidently refer within a system.

• Consumers and physicians view a regional hospital health system as offering more advantages. Consumers perceive there are more resources- better physicians, staff and technology.
• Physicians viewed regional health systems/networks as very important for providing patient resources.

Individual hospitals within the system can benefit from the umbrella of their health system.. You just must make sure leadership claims are promoted even if not all hospitals have the same strengths. Lead with strongest offers, and this will have a positive impact on the entire system. Showcase the best and brightest, talk about technical innovation, and give both physicians and consumer to come to you.

Medicine is moving further into the retail sector every day. Make sure your hospital, practice or system is ready for that.