As a leading healthcare marketing communications agency, Maricich promotes a number of hospital, medical device and pharmaceutical brands, which includes social media support. However, just as the cobbler’s kids walked to school barefoot, our efforts to maintain our own Lifesaving Brand Blog has sometimes been, well—a little bit bare. Now that we’ve turned a new leaf and are practicing what we preach about social media strategy, we’d like to share some key points for keeping blogs on schedule. Below are a few insights that you as a healthcare marketer can use to ensure your own social media efforts take a giant leap forward:
1. Half of blogging is reading. You must be reading on a daily basis in order to react to news, trends, events or other communications that happen in the marketplace. Prior to opening e-mails in the morning, you should review their RSS feeds—which may inspire original or resource entries. Some suggested feeds include those from Medical Marketing and Media and tweets from MedAdNews.
2. Limit distractions. One of the biggest reasons why people or companies don’t blog is because other things come up that are more important at the moment. One suggestion is to dedicate the very first portion of the day to writing your blog or posting tweets.
3. Remember, it’s a blog, not a manuscript. Blogs should be short, relevant, with content that’s easy to read. Save the big stuff for white papers. A goal is to spend no more than one hour writing the first draft of an original blog post. Anything more is too long.
4. It’s not perfection, it’s a conversation. What’s important about a blog is the IDEA that it communicates. Check for typos, make sure the messaging is accurate and on target, run by others for their quick review―but don’t obsess. During the 2008 Obama presidential campaign, many times the staff had less than 15 minutes to review and approve posts prior to going live.
5. Blog frequently. Some say to blog four to five times per month, and others say four to six times per week (to get traction). Even if you manage just one blog post per month, it’s better than doing nothing at all. Think big, start small.
6. Keep on strategy. Don’t talk about dogs, cats or vacations. Keep your conversation focused on your industry and how your business, and its brand position relates to current events and changes to the marketplace.
7. Keep on schedule. You can use a number of online and software tools such as Basecamp to keep track of projects and social media schedules.
8. Don’t over think your content. Allow communication to flow freely and don’t get sidelined by “paralysis by analysis”. A general editorial calendar is recommended. Embrace a level of spontaneity and flexibility to your blog content while maintaining a connection to your business strategy.
Many of these insights were gained by several discussions and presentations during a recent Transworld Advertising Agency Network (TAAN) affiliate meeting.
Any thoughts? Please join the conversation with any additional comments, insights, inspiration or suggestions.
