New Media To Enhance Your Marketing 111010
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Senior living communities can benefit by adding social media to their marketing mix. Melanie Jongsma and Randy Eilts explained how at the 2011 LeadingAge Conference in Washington DC.
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New Media To Enhance Your Marketing 111010
- 1. New Media to Enhance Your Marketing Melanie Jongsma Director of Communications Randy Eilts Director of Public Relations
- 2. What We’ve Done, and What We’ve Learned
- 3. 1. There is nothing new under the sun Things we’ve learned using social media
- 4. 2. Not all social media are the same Things we’ve learned using social media
- 5. 3. You don’t have to do them all Things we’ve learned using social media
- 24. Measuring return on Your Social Media Investment
- 25. The Growing Impact of Social Media
- 27. 51% of those age 50-64 who are online use social media
- 28. Source: Pew Internet August 2011
- 29. Measuring return on your social media investment
- 30. There ARE Results From Using Social Media
- 32. Engagement
- 33. Track Your Views
- 34. Track Your Views
- 36. Where Are The Viewers Coming From?
- 41. Identify Your Metrics How many people like you today? How many would you like to gain over X period of time?
- 44. Results?
- 45. Results? Facebook Ad $1,500 Donation $ 500 Staff Time $2,000 Total $4,000 $4,000/150 = $26.67
- 46. Who are Our “Likers” 45-54 38 % 55+ 35.8 %
- 47. Landis Homes Rocks Social Media
- 49. A Look at the Analytics
- 50. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION Enhance Web Visibility
- 51. Social Media = Web Visits
- 52. Referrals to Web Site
- 53. Referrals to Web Site 9 .
- 54. BE INNOVATIVE AND ON THE LEADING EDGE Create Brand Awareness and Recognition Engage with Online Community Listen to What People are Saying Broader Reach of Leads and Prospects
- 55. Blending Traditional Media with Social Media
- 56. Blending traditional media with social media
- 57. Blending traditional media with social media
- 58. Blending traditional media with social media
- 59. Senior Living and Social Media Keep the Discussion Going
Editor's Notes
- My name is Melanie Jongsma, and I’m the Director of Communications for Providence Life Services. I’ve been a professional communicator for more than 20 years, 6 of those with Providence. Providence added social media to our marketing mix about 4 years ago, and we have learned a lot in that time. I remember how confusing and overwhelming everything seemed when we started, and I’m here to tell you, You can do this! Randy is going to give you a few reasons why you should , and I’m going to share some ideas on how you can . I’m going to focus on three key learnings that you might find helpful —
- First, there is nothing new under the sun. Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube — these are all just today’s tools for connecting and sharing and building relationships. At one time, the telephone was a new tool. Before that, the postal service was a new idea. Newspapers, radio, TV — these were all new at one time, but they all serve the same purpose. They are simply ways to bring people together. Whether someone uses a telegraph machine or an iPhone, the underlying motivation is the same: People like to connect, they like to know what’s going on, they like to see pictures, they like to share their opinions. That hasn’t changed.
- Second, not all social media are the same. They might all have the same underlying purpose, but they reach different people. Just as direct mail will connect with different people than radio ads will, Facebook will connect with different people than LinkedIn or Twitter or blogs. We call them all “social media,” but they serve different purposes and reach different people. Each has a different “culture,” and part of successfully connecting with people is understanding and respecting the culture they come from.
- Third, you don’t have to do them all. As active as we are in the world of social media, we are by no means using every possible platform. Instead, we focus on three or four different media, and I’ll share some examples of each to give you some ideas about which tools to use and how to use them.
- Let’s start with Facebook — How many are on Facebook personally? How many of you work for an organization that is on Facebook? Is there a difference in the types of messages you post on your personal wall and on your work wall? Here’s what I mean: If you are on Facebook personally, most likely you are reading personal interactions. Some people make fun of that and say that they don’t do Facebook because they don’t care what all their friends had for breakfast this morning. But the truth is, those mundane, daily, trivial posts are very human, very personal, very social. Those are the basis of ordinary conversation. That same level of human-ness should be on your business Facebook page as well. If you are only posting “marketing” messages, and if you are only talking and never listening, then people won’t want to interact with you. Facebook, whether business or personal, should be a conversation.
- Holland Home is a Providence Life Services community in South Holland, Illinois. They use their Facebook page to post photos of community life and daily activities.
- And they want people to interact with these photos. Family members of residents often look for photos of Mom and Dad or Grandma and Grandpa, and they post comments like, “Hi Grandpa Sam, you look like you’re having fun!” Holland Home is very diligent about replying to these comments because they understand that Facebook is about conversation .
- Emerald Meadows is another Providence community, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. This fall they thought of an interesting way to use Facebook to increase interactions. They hosted an art contest and invited entries from residents, family, and staff.
- They took photos of all the entries and posted an album for each art category on their Facebook page. They encouraged people to vote for their favorite artwork by “liking” it in Facebook.
- It was a great way to get some interaction with their Facebook page. And it gave people a reason to visit the page themselves as well as share it with everyone else and get them to vote too. The art contest ran for about 10 days, and we used eblasts and Facebook posts to get the word out. By the end of the contest, Emerald Meadows’ friends or “likes” had increased by nearly 20%.
- For Providence Life Services, Facebook is an extension of our communities. Most of the people who like our pages are not prospects; they’re family members of current residents. They visit our pages to see if Mom or Dad are in any of the photos, or to learn about upcoming activities, or to view videos of some of the entertainment. Facebook allows them to connect with their families — even if they’re out-of-state — and they love it. And as they have good experiences interacting with us on Facebook, they become involved in helping us spread the word. Just last month, for the first time, we had a woman who was going to be getting rehab at our South Holland location post a link to us on HER Facebook page. So now all her friends and family can click on our page and learn about Providence. And we anticipate more of that. One of the things the Communications Team at Providence does is to provide Facebook training for our communities, for the staff who have been appointed to serve as Facebook page administrators. We help them not only with the how-tos — how to upload a photo, how to create an album, etc. — but also with the whys and whats. We give them ideas about what kind of information to post and why it’s important to respond to people who leave a comment, and why some posts generate more interaction than others. We also spent quite a bit of time developing a system that will help ensure that we are not violating any HIPAA regulations.
- Providence also uses LinkedIn, but we use LinkedIn differently than we use Facebook because the culture of LinkedIn is different. Some businesses don’t want their employees on LinkedIn because they think the only reason people use LinkedIn is to look for a job. But there’s much more to LinkedIn than that! Providence uses LinkedIn as another place to interact with fellow professionals. For example, our marketing staff use it to find the referrals they want to connect with and to research the adult children of leads and prospects, and to ask questions and find answers. LinkedIn is an online chamber of commerce, and people go there to find professionals with specific types of expertise. So whether you NEED an expert or you ARE an expert, LinkedIn is a good place to be.
- For example, one feature of LinkedIn that people tend to forget about is Answers. You can post questions about anything you need to know, and experts in your field will post their answers. These are just a few questions that are being asked and answered now.
- The nice thing is, all those questions and answers are available to LinkedIn users. I did a quick search of Answers using the word “seniors,” and all these results came up. LinkedIn is a great place to do research and to get new ideas from fellow professionals.
- And, the more you participate in the community, the more you become known as an expert within your field. LinkedIn keeps track of how many answers you provide, and people can “vote” for your answer if they think it’s a good one. The more answers you give, and the more votes you receive, the more like you are to appear as a “Top Expert” in any given week. So there’s a lot more to LinkedIn than a lot of people realize. One of the things the Communications Team at Providence does is to provide LinkedIn training, particularly for our Marketing staff. We walk them through the basics of setting up an account — uploading a professional-looking photo, and making sure their job title and description use the right keywords. Then we also show them how to find LinkedIn Groups that might be helpful, and how to search for professionals in a specific field, such as physicians, or real estate agents, or social workers. We brainstorm ways they can use LinkedIn to reach the people they want to reach. And we talk about the differences between LinkedIn and Facebook.
- Providence has been blogging for a couple of years, and we’ve tried a couple different approaches.
- Our first blog was called Glimpses of Providence, and it was mainly human interest stories about the people in our communities. For example, we introduced people to Rudy, who received rehab at one of our locations and was able to return home and resume his hobby of flying model airplanes. We posted a video of some of our top employees at a Hallmark of Caring luncheon, which is an event we have every year to honor staff who have been nominated by their co-workers, the residents they serve, and even families of those residents. We highlighted a volunteer who helps with our Hospice program. We were sort of using our blog in the same way we use Facebook — as an extension of our communities. We wanted to highlight life at our communities, so people would comment and share and interact and just feel good about Providence.
- This past year we switched our blog focus. Our blog now is called just “the Providence Blog,” and it’s more like an extension of our website. We are using it to post very practical information, specifically for caregivers. So, for example —
- So, for example, these are some of the blogs we’ve posted this year: 5 Facebook Safety Tips for People Over 55 • Seniors: Beat the Heat! • How to Get the Most out of Your Rehab Program • Understanding In-Home Care: a caregiver’s introduction We still make it possible for people to share the content they read on our blog, using Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks, but we aren’t as concerned with inviting interaction. Our goal is to add keyword-rich pages to our website that people will want to refer to as they are researching caregiving options for their parents. In effect, we’re creating a library of resources that we think prospects are interested in.
- When my Communications Team provides social media training to Providence staff, we let them know about the Providence blog and give them ideas about how to use it. Marketing staff, for example, might email a link to one of their leads and say, “I thought you might be interested in this information we just posted on our blog.”
- Providence does have a Twitter account, but to be honest, we are using it more as broadcast media than social media. Social media are supposed to be about conversation and interaction, while broadcast media are simply about broadcasting your message.
- Our HR department uses Twitter to broadcast job openings. A lot of workers we want to hire at our communities would be in a younger demographic, so it makes sense to Tweet job openings to them. Other than that, we are not investing a lot of time or energy into using Twitter. We have our Twitter account linked to our Facebook accounts, so when we post job openings on our Facebook pages, they automatically broadcast to our Twitter feed. There is a lot you can do with Twitter, but it’s not a tool that we are choosing to invest a lot of time in right now. So those are some ways we are using social media at Providence. And now Randy will share some reasons that you might want to consider adding social media to your own marketing mix….
- There is no question that the impact of social media is growing by leaps and bounds. This video is one that you’ve probably seen before--- this version has some of the latest numbers and worth getting a quick overview.
- We hear all the time that there is no reason to use social media because that is not where our target market is. In some cases that is true. But the fact is the older adults ARE using social media and those we are all trying to get as new residents, customers, and leads are out there and they are online.
- Last year Pew Internet did research that showed 1 in 4 older adults age 65+ who are online used social media. This August the latest survey results were release from Pew and it revealed that same group of older adults has increase usage and now is at 33%. And, we all know that ever important group of adult children (who are sometimes very influential when it comes to helping mom and dad decide about moving to a senior living community) are online in big numbers. Pew research shows that 51% of those age 50 to 64 are using social media. That’s a lot of people who could learn so much more about your communities and organizations.
- This is the whole breakdown of the age demographics for social media usage. As you can see, more women than men use social media--- and the two largest groups of users are in the 18 to 49 year old range.
- In order to measure the impact or return on what you get out of social media, it is important to first establish some goals. Be realistic… You will discover over time that your efforts are returning value for little expense to enhance your marketing outreach.
- Identify which metrics you would like to measure--- It could be the number of followers, the amount and quality of comments Ratings on blog posts; number of those who like it Click through rate to your website Are they converting to leave behind information? Of those who follow you, are they just gawkers or actually contributing How much time are they spending on the sight? Are you getting positive/negative feedback? I’m often asked the question--- bottom line: Am I going to see a significant number of leads that ultimately result in move-ins? I’d say, the answer to that is no--- the world of senior living and social media is not there yet. BUT, in reality, senior living is in the beginning stages of utilizing this medium. Let’s go through some examples of how to can at least see that your efforts are beginning to pay off in terms of awareness, etc.
- Engaging your followers is key--- are you getting positive comments? Are people giving you the “thumbs up” from your posts? This is all considered measurable and able to be tracked on the Facebook Insights. Have a goal in mind--- when I post something, is it relevant to those following me? Are they likely to respond? Does it make people want to comment?
- In addition to actually seeing the number of people watching, you can also track the number of people who subscribe to your channel. They’re sent emails when a new video is added.
- The number of views is aggregated over a period of time. When you do post a video, do you know how people got there? Who is watching? Where are they?
- The behind the scenes analytics for YouTube is called Insight---- this is where you can obtain information to understand more about the results of posting videos; who is looking, where are they, and the demographics. Are your videos being watched by the right audience?
- Finding out where the viewers are coming from is a good idea too. In this case, an e-newsletter was emailed to a list of leads/prospects…. The timeframe indicates an immediate viewing of the video following the blast and a smaller viewership when the e-newsletter was redistributed about a week later following the 4 th of July holiday.
- Providence Life Services in the Chicago area has Facebook pages for all of their communities. They wanted to increase traffic on their sites by adding the activities calendar. So they incorporated the calendar on the page and then took a look at the analytics the month before the calendar was added.
- The organization added a view and download our monthly activities function to the Facebook page---- in doing so, you’re able to get a calendar for either IL or AL.
- As a result of posting the activity calendar, they increased the number of people who liked them in one month by 63 %; in this case, they wanted to increase activity on their page and the number of viewers. The tactic worked and helps in continuing to solidify relationships with the residents and also the others who are gaining insight into activity and the lifestyle at the community.
- One easy measuring tool when first getting started is building the number of followers or those who “like” your community. Simply establish a goal---- I want to have 150 followers within a one month. How will you get there?
- Here is an example. To help build the number of followers, we ran a promotion that stated Redstone would donate $5 for each of the next 100 new friends who liked our page. We established a $1,500 budget to run a Facebook ad in the San Gabriel Valley. We indicated we wouldn’t spend more than $50 per day---
- The campaign to increase the number of followers has been very successful…. In one month the amount of activity was increased pretty dramatically for a senior living community.
- We started out with 43 people who liked the page. As of two weeks ago, Redstone now has 196 people who like them. SO--- who are those people? Again, its part of looking at who Redstone is communicating to via social media.
- We started out with 43 people who liked the page. In one month of the promotion, Redstone now has 196 people who like them. SO--- who are those people? Again, its part of looking at who Redstone is communicating to via social media.
- 73.8 percent of those following the Facebook page are 45 years and older---- that means we are talking to adult influencers and also potential prospects. Unfortunately, Facebook doesn’t break down the demographics beyond 55+.
- Landis Homes recently ran a promotion to bring their “fan” count up to over 1,000. They utilized the grand prize giveaway as an incentive and also purchased Facebook ads to increase awareness. This organization has had great success with the social media usage and attributes several move-ins to those who followed them on FB.
- Results: They now have over 1,000 people who like their FB page and ultimately are exposed to this community.
- You have the ability to look at how your ad if performing and seeing the increase in activity, the potential reach, and the number of connections your getting as a result.
- Another very measurable tool regarding effectiveness of social media or perhaps growing impact is tracking how many people are being referred from the Facebook page to the community website. This is easily tracked by inbound links through analytics.
- Facebook inbound traffic included nine visits--- but, interesting to note that the average time spent on the web site was nearly 6-minutes and close to double the amount of time from other the average site visit. These are quality visits on the web site.
- In the first 10 months of the Facebook page, it came in the top ten as a referring site to the community website.
- Of course, the easiest way to blend traditional media with social media is to make sure you put your social media information on your printed materials. This is an ad that Providence has run in several of the Michigan papers.
- Another way to blend traditional media with social media is to make your traditional media available VIA social media. At all our Independent Living and Assisted Living communities, Providence is making community calendars and newsletters downloadable from Facebook. We included instructions about how to find and download the calendars in a monthly email we send to families at each of our communities.
- Another way to blend media is to make your printed media more interactive. How many of you still use business cards? A business card is a very common form of traditional media. It’s a printed piece of paper that you physically hand to someone or include when you send them something in the mail. One thing more and more companies are doing now is to add a QR code to their business cards to give people a way to interact with them. The Communications Team at Providence has a special business card with a QR code. If you have a smart phone, and you scan in this code, it will take you to a special website where you can learn how the Communications Team from Providence couldhelp you with your communications needs. There are all kinds of ways you can use QR codes. What’s important to remember is to keep your end goal in mind before you start putting codes everywhere. For example, a few months ago we wanted to ad a QR code to an advertisement that we have on a bus shelter near one of our rehab communities. It seemed like a great idea to encourage people to scan this code while they are waiting for the bus — the code would bring them to our rehab web page where they could watch a short video about our rehab services. Well, the ad went to production, and we got a call from the vendor, who said, “You might not want to put this QR code on your ad. For one thing, not many people actually sit in that bus shelter waiting for the bus, and for another, it’s possible that your ad could be deemed a traffic violation if passing cars decide to whip out their cell phones and try to scan the code while they’re driving by.” That was something we hadn’t thought of! So we changed our plans and decided not to blend traditional media with social media in that case.