The document discusses Michigan Medicine's use of brand journalism through blogs to enhance its reputation and develop an engaged audience. It outlines how Michigan Medicine has moved beyond traditional advertising and media by creating valuable, consistent content on owned platforms. The goals are to position Michigan Medicine as an expert in medical innovation and clinical care, while maintaining contact with influential individuals in healthcare. Metrics show the blogs have reached millions of page views and grown Michigan Medicine's social media audience with high engagement rates. This new approach allows Michigan Medicine to directly share its message and expertise with target audiences.

1. COMMUNICATING &
PROMOTING RESEARCH
Kylie Urban
Senior Multimedia Communicator
Michigan Medicine
Department of Communication

2. In a world where more than 3.5 billion Google searches and hundreds of millions of tweets
and Facebook posts occur daily, organizations have to work harder than ever to stand out.
Brands must find ways to make unmistakable content and experiences while building an
owned audience and platform (AKAbrand journalism).
With our blogs, we do just that —create and distribute valuable, relevant and consistent
content on a platform that we own in order to:
• Enhance Michigan Medicine’s reputation
• Develop an engaged audience
We have moved beyond relying on traditional advertising and media clips to support our brand
and continually increase its reputation.
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OVERVIEW AND GOALS

3. 3
Michigan Medicine means
medical innovation and
breakthroughs, as well as
expertise in clinical care and
education.
Supporting this reputation
keeps Michigan’s work and
experts top-of-mind.

4. • Less money for marketing, but
skyrocketing costs for traditional
advertising
• Social media is running the show
• Media are not listening or
interested…or incapable of doing so
4
WHY MOVE THIS WAY?

5. A NEW METHOD FOR BRAND JOURNALISM
& PROMOTION
Michigan Health Lab (Professional)
MichiganHealthLab.org
Michigan Health Blog (Consumer)
MichiganHealthBlog.org
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6. 6
M HEALTH LAB

7. 7
MICHIGAN HEALTH

8. 8
Developing a targeted,
engaged audience helps
Michigan Medicine own its
message — and maintain
consistent contact with
influential physicians,
scientists, journals and others
working in health care.

9. REPUTATION: EXAMPLES
Competing academic medical centers, as well as journals, industry associations and
research advocacy groups all regularly interact with and share Michigan’s work.
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10. ENGAGEMENT: EXAMPLES
Physicians, scientists, medical media brands, reporters, health policy wonks and
economists all follow and engage with Michigan online. U.S. Senator Claire
McCaskill and other notables have also shared our work.
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11. Growing site traffic and highly engaged target audiences indicate that our messages are
reaching the right people at the right time.
841
Unique U-M
experts featured
3.4 million
Page views in 24
months
The previous UMHS blogs
reached 2.1 million page views
in 3 years
61%
Increase in social
audience
Facebook and Twitter
audiences grew from
100,309 at launch (March
2016) to 161,175 today
13%
Higher email open
rates than average
Our email digests have a 38%
average open rate, compared to
a 25% average for the Health
Care and Education sector
RESULTS
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12. AN EYE ON THE COMPETITION
The top academic medical centers in the country are
heavily investing in brand journalism. Our three key
differentiators are:
• High-quality engagement: Our professionally focused
social audience engages with our content at a rate of 8.4%
while competitors have engagement rates of 4% or less. We
also have an engaged email audience.
• A targeted audience approach: Many competitors treat
physicians and patients the same. Our segmented audience
strategy optimizes communication to both groups — and
always asks, “What is the Michigan POV we can share?”
• Modern, optimized design: We use the latest design and
technology to ensure our communications stand out.
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13. 13
SOCIAL
PLAYING
FIELDThe Michigan Health
Lab’s Facebook, just
launched in March
2016, is much newer
(and therefore smaller)
than competitor pages.
But its strong
engagement rate
shows a carefully
curated audience that’s
highly interested in our
content. Meanwhile,
Michigan Medicine’s
larger Facebook page
also shows strong
growth and
engagement rates
compared to competing
academic medical
centers.

14. THANK YOU
www.michiganhealthlab.org
www.michiganhealthblog.org