by Nedra Weinreich | Aug 31, 2009 | Blog, Policy, Social Marketing
When the new director of the CDC, Dr. Thomas Frieden, took his position in early June, it was inevitable that he would make some changes — perhaps even some big changes. I believe I speak for many social marketers in saying we were very hopeful that health marketing (the CDC’s name for social marketing) would fare well in the new administration.
Unfortunately, I have just found out that the National Center for Health Marketing (NCHM) is slated to be eliminated. What this means exactly for the practice of health marketing within the CDC is unclear, but it bodes poorly for the field of social marketing overall.
On the heels of the NCHM’s highly successful Third National Conference on Health Communication, Marketing and Media (NCHCMM), which just brought together one thousand professionals who are using these tools to address disparate health issues from across the spectrum of the CDC’s purview, this news raises a big question: What will be the future of the conference, which serves a different role in the US social marketing community from other professional events? This most recent conference, in mid-August, raised the profile of the CDC as an innovator and enabler of organizations and agencies across the country (and beyond) on the cutting edge of social marketing initiatives.
After the NCHM has made so much progress in advancing the field of social marketing and integrating these methods into public health practice, it would be a giant step backwards to lose this bastion of expertise and have its staff dispersed. We need only look at the UK’s National Social Marketing Centre to see the approach getting the prominence within government that it deserves as a tool that works for prevention. The US needs to be a leader in social marketing, and this will knock us from that position.
While the fledgling social marketing association is not quite in position to address this issue as a unified voice for our field, those of us who care about social marketing should individually make our opinions known to Dr. Frieden to ensure that social marketing will continue to play a prominent role in the work of the CDC. I believe this is best achieved through a focal point of expertise like the NCHM that can implement best practices throughout the agency and host events like the NCHCMM conference. Barring that, I hope that Dr. Frieden somehow comes up with an even better alternative.
What are your ideas for how we can best address this issue as a field?
by Nedra Weinreich | Jul 16, 2009 | Behavior Change, Blog, Professional Development, Social Marketing, Storytelling
When’s the last time someone wrote a superhero comic about people in your profession? Sure, if you’re a reporter, nuclear scientist or even a reclusive millionaire, you’re used to this type of thing. But we health marketing types are usually the ones on the development side of the media, not the target audience. So I’m sure you’ll be as excited as I was to discover that my longtime blog friend Fard Johnmar of Envision Solutions and the HealthCareVox blog has created both a fun set of different types of media to draw people like us in, and a more serious project that underlies it.
His mission is to bring together people who work in health marketing communications across disciplines so we can learn from each other. He calls this the Path of the Blue Eye — a rather zen-sounding name with accompanying mantras that help us do our jobs more effectively.
Fard graciously agreed to share more information about the origins of the project and its different components with my readers via an email interview:
What spurred you to create the Path of the Blue Eye?
I was motivated to develop the Path of the Blue Eye project in response to two statements, both of which begin with the words “I wish.” They are:
- I wish I knew that.
- I wish we had a place to collect this information.
Over the years, I’ve learned about beneficial data, case studies and other info that would be useful to people across the health marketing communications industry. I often share my knowledge in conversations with pharma marketers, public health experts, social marketers and others. Many times, I find that people are not aware of interesting and successful campaigns taking place in industry segments they do not work in. For example, people in pharmaceutical marketing are sometimes not knowledgeable about campaigns launched by government agencies that leverage social technologies. After our conversations about sms services for small business, people will sometimes nod their heads and say: “I wish I knew that.”
In addition, I have had many conversations about how we need a place where people can quickly and easily share information with their peers – especially with those working in other parts of the health marketing communications industry. They say: “I wish I we had a place to collect this information.”
The Path of the Blue Eye project is designed to grant each of these wishes by:
- Fostering knowledge sharing across health marketing communications industry segments and silos.
- Providing people with tools they can use to quickly share interesting information with others working in the industry from around the world.
The key word here is interdisciplinary. We are trying to reach across silos and centers of practice rather than working within them.
How does this project fit in with the work you have been doing with Envision Solutions?
The mission of Envision Solutions is to help health marketing communications pros become more efficient and successful. I think the Path of the Blue Eye project helps us to achieve this objective.
Can you tell us about the different components of this project and how they fit together? How will you phase them in?
The core of the project will be an online collaboration hub we are currently building. It will enable people in health marketing communications to:
- Quickly access and share data, case studies, news articles, blog posts and other content relevant to the field.
- Ask and answer questions from their peers.
Currently we are the pre-launch phase of the project. We are leveraging the comic, Facebook, Twitter, e-mail and other communications channels to spread the word about the project and attract a diverse group of people who believe in what we are trying to accomplish. I am happy to say that (as of this writing), nearly 80 people have “joined” the project via e-mail, Facebook and Twitter. We launched Path of the Blue Eye about a week ago, so I’m very pleased with the progress thus far.
In phase II, we will invite a select group of people to help us conduct a series of road tests on the collaboration hub to help us iron out any final kinks in the system. After this, we’ll launch the hub and begin our work in earnest.
I’m also very excited that we’ve been able to develop some strong partnerships with prominent organizations and businesses over the last few months. They have agreed to help strengthen the hub by providing information to the Path of the Blue Eye community when it launches.
How would you define the “Path of the Blue Eye?”
The Path of the Blue Eye is represented in the comic by a series of six mantras. These represent habits and activities we believe will help people forging careers in the health marketing communications industry achieve success.
Who are the main groups you’d like to reach and what are some of the ways people can become involved with this project?
We are trying to reach a diverse range of people working in all areas of the global health marketing communications industry. Everyone is welcome, including social marketers, public relations professionals, advertisers, pharmaceutical/biotech marketers, public health communicators, academics and others.
Given the current intense interest in social media it is important to note that the site wlll not be focused solely on social communications channels and techniques. Rather, we want people practicing in all areas of the field to feel comfortable participating in and contributing to the hub.
Currently, people can participate in the project by:
- Showing their support for the project by joining our Facebook group, Twitter community or signing up for our e-mail list.
- Spreading the word about the project to their friends and colleagues.
- Considering becoming contributing or guest authors on the project’s blog Walking the Path. We are looking to build a blog that features a diverse range of perspectives from people around the world. A few people have accepted our invitation to participate, but we are always looking for more authors. Currently, guest authors are helping to produce a series of blog posts focusing on what collaboration means to them.
Once the hub launches, people will have other ways they can contribute to the project.
I love the comic book! I’m sure it’s the first time that health marketers have been featured as superheroes. What was your thinking behind using this medium? Can we expect to see this as an ongoing series?
I’m really glad you like the comic! I decided to commission the comic because I wanted to:
o Create a mythology focusing on the work of health marketing communications pros. We are often behind the scenes, creating campaigns for others, so I wanted to celebrate what we do.
o Attract a broad range of people to the project.
o Encourage us to have fun and enjoy the work we do each day
I also want to use the comic to expose more people in our industry to transmedia storytelling techniques. There’s a lot more going on with the comic than meets the eye, so I encourage people to dive deeper by participating in the SMS component of the project. Not many people have accepted our invitation yet, but I hope this changes in the coming weeks. I also hope people enjoy the comic’s soundtrack.
I hope we’ll be able to produce future issues of the comic. If people want more we’ll continue the story.
How would you like to see the Path of the Blue Eye evolve over time? What would it ideally look like five years from now?
Ultimately, I’d like to see the project evolve into a strong, self-sustaining, diverse, interconnected global community of health marketing communications pros.
Five years from now, I hope that the community will have become a go-to resource for people trying to improve their skills and develop better health marketing communications campaigns. We want to help people become better at what they do. If we achieve this, I think the project will be successful.
***
I wish Fard great success with this project, and I am excited about being part of it as well. I hope you will also consider participating in some way, as the whole profession will benefit as more people get involved. We can all walk the path together, which makes getting over the hills much easier.
by Nedra Weinreich | Jul 8, 2009 | Blog, Resources
- John Haydon invited me to share with his readers how I “rock the web” on his excellent blog on social media. In my guest post, I talk about some of the tools I use to take control of my time online. Take a look at the other posts on his blog for insights on how nonprofits can use social media effectively – John is a great resource (and an awesome musician).
- My other favorite nonprofit social media blogger, Beth Kanter, also put up a guest post from me while she’s getting settled from her cross-country move. This one is an oldie but goodie from me on how to select your target audience: should you pick the low-hanging fruit or the hard-to-reach but bigger fruit at the top of the tree?
- People are signing up for the Social Marketing University fundamentals webinars from all over the world. It’s a great way to learn about social marketing from wherever you are, especially if you are not able to travel to an SMU training like the Advanced Course coming up in Berkeley in September. But you can also do both! Don’t forget to use the discount code ‘BLOG’ to get 10% off the registration fee for the Advanced Course.
Photo Credit: Jeremy Brooks
by Nedra Weinreich | Jun 29, 2009 | Behavior Change, Blog, Gaming
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation invited me to write a guest post on its Pioneering Ideas blog, along with several other people who are investigating how games can be used to promote health. This guest blogger series is tied into the 2009 Games for Health Conference, which happened a couple of weeks ago, as well as a recent report from the Sesame Workshop’s Joan Ganz Cooney Center, which looks at how video games can be a positive force for children’s health.
The question they posed for us to answer was:
“There is a growing consensus that digital games can be deployed to support learning and behavior change for positive health outcomes among children. What do you think needs to be done to increase the use of digital games for this purpose?”
In my guest post, I look at the question from a marketing perspective to think about how to increase the acceptability of health games and to encourage their development and use. My post will be up on Monday at the Pioneering Ideas Blog. (I’m on my way out of the country for a week, but will update with the specific link to my post as soon as I can.) I hope you’ll take a look at it and leave a comment with your feedback and perspective.
by Nedra Weinreich | Jun 16, 2009 | Blog, Professional Development, Social Marketing
It’s that time again – time to announce the next session of Social Marketing University! Many of you know that I have been offering SMU trainings since 2006 as a 2-1/2 day introduction to using social marketing to promote health and social issues.
This year, taking into account many people’s requests for the next level of social marketing training beyond the basics, I will be offering the Social Marketing University Advanced Course. This 2-day training is for people who are already familiar with the fundamentals of social marketing who are looking for new ideas and insights, including those who have taken previous SMU trainings in what I am now calling the Foundations Course.
The Advanced Course will be offered on September 14-15, 2009 in Berkeley, CA. We’ll focus on topics like audience segmentation techniques, real-world research and evaluation, effective approaches to behavior change and will spend a full day on using online social media strategically. For more information, pricing and registration, see the SMU information page.
Don’t be disappointed if you can’t make it to Berkeley this time, or if you would like social marketing training but are not quite ready for the Advanced Course. I will also be offering a series of four webinars on social marketing fundamentals through Social Marketing University Online during the summer. You can attend this series to prepare for the Advanced Course, or just to bone up on individual social marketing topics of interest to you.
These 60-minute webinars will happen every other Wednesday at 12 noon PDT in the months leading up to the Advanced Course. The schedule is as follows:
- July 22, 2009 – Change for Good: Using Social Marketing to Make a Difference
- August 5, 2009 – Building An Effective Social Marketing Strategy
- August 19, 2009 – Creating Social Marketing Messages That Work
- September 2, 2009 – Social Media for Social Marketers
Take a look at the SMU Online information page for detailed descriptions of the webinars and pricing (4 for the price of 3!).
I’m also happy to offer a 10% special discount off the Advanced Course for my blog readers (enter discount code “BLOG”), and I hope you will join me at one or more of these events!
Keep up with the latest on SMU by joining the Facebook Fan Page or following the @SocialMktgU Twitter account.
by Nedra Weinreich | May 24, 2009 | Blog, Research, Social Media
This post will be somewhat of a Twitter inside baseball topic – not what I usually write about – so if you are not interested in Twitter arcana, you might want to skip this one.
Those of us on Twitter could not have missed the uproar that happened a couple of weeks ago when Twitter management decided to make a “small settings update” to its service by eliminating an option they said was “undesirable and confusing.” This change removed the option to see the one side of the conversations people you follow are having with people you don’t. Now you can only see these “half conversations” (called @replies) if you follow both people. Sounds like a small thing, but those of us who had chosen to see all @replies are now missing out on interesting conversations, resources and the opportunity to discover new people.
Fairly quickly, word spread across Twitter about the change and a revolt took place as people started tagging their protests with “#fixreplies,” which became the top trending topic on Twitter for a few days. After first seeming just clueless about how people use their service, Twitter offered a non-solution posing as a fix and then flat-out said they will not be bringing the option back for technical reasons. The reason from their post:
Even though only 3% of all Twitter accounts ever changed this setting away from the default, it was causing a strain and impacting other parts of the system.
Okay, given the millions of new users that have come on board in the past month or two in the wake of Oprah and Ashton Kutcher’s Twitter publicity stunts, it makes sense that the system is strained. But, having been on Twitter since around the end of 2007, I found it hard to believe that only 3% of the other users had touched their @reply settings. And given the extent of the outcry, either this was a very vocal 3% or a lot of people were jumping on the protest bandwagon even though the change did not affect them at all.
More likely, this was a disingenuous statistic chosen by Twitter to make their point, but that does not give the whole story. I suspect that they are counting 3% of anyone who has ever created an account on Twitter – including those who try it out for a day and never come back. A recent Nielsen study found that 60% of those who sign up do not return the following month (though this statistic does not take into account the many who sign up at Twitter.com but actively use TweetDeck or another client application). What if they looked at the percentage of active Twitter users (the people who should actually matter) — particularly those who have been on the service for a while? Would the percentage change?
This question nagged at me for a while until I decided to do a quick survey to see if my suspicions were right. I created a four-question survey, which asked the following questions:
- How long have you been actively using Twitter?
- How many people do you follow on Twitter?
- Before Twitter took away the option, how was your @Replies option set?
- How has the loss of the @Replies option affected your Twitter experience?
I sent out a tweet asking people to complete the survey and to retweet it (repost in Twitter parlance) to their followers as well. My objective was to send it far and wide on Twitter so that it was not just my own Twitter followers responding, but a wide swath of users across the service. The result was that people who were following my account retweeted the post 28 times, with a subsequent total of 118 retweets dispersed around different social circles. I ended up with 402 total responses to the survey.
I will be the first to admit that this sample may not necessarily be statistically representative of all active Twitter users (though if it were, the sample size gives us a 5% margin of error and 95% confidence level). Respondents were not chosen randomly, and the people who decided to participate may be more likely to have a strong opinion on the topic. Nonetheless, I think it may be helpful to take a look at the results because this segment of Twitter user has been strongly impacted by the change. (The results for each question can be seen here. I’m happy to share my full statistical analyses as well if you’d like to see them.)
Most respondents had been actively using Twitter for 3-12 months (40%), with 36% on for more than a year and 24% for less than three months. I figured that the longer someone had been using Twitter, the more likely they are to have played around with the options to see what they prefer rather than leaving the default of only seeing @replies when they follow both people.
A vast majority (63%) follow between 50-500 people on Twitter. Next is 501-5000 follows at 24%, fewer than 50 with 12%, and only 2% follow more than 5000. I hypothesized that those who were following more people would probably not notice much of a change in their cluttered feed.
Now, the kicker here is that before the option was taken away, 63% of the respondents had chosen to show all @replies for the people they followed — much higher than the 3% cited by Twitter. Those who had the default selected – to show only @replies between people they follow – were 19%, plus another 17% who said that they didn’t know what option was selected (and presumably hadn’t changed the default), for a total of 36%. And only 1% had chosen the option not to see any @replies unless directed at them.
Finally, 57% said that the loss of the @replies option had affected their Twitter experience for the worse. These were presumably those who had the option taken away from them, but could also be people who did not want to see all @replies for people who started making their replies visible to everyone, such as by putting a character before the “@” symbol or embedding the @reply name within or at the end of the tweet. Only 5% said their experience was better and 39% reported no change (close to the 36% who were already set at the default option).
I also ran some chi-square stats to see how these variables affected each other and created some nifty charts at Chartle.net. Here’s what I found (only reporting the statistically significant correlations at p< .05 href="http://www.social-marketing.com/blog/uploaded_images/Time-Following-707772.png">
The number of people that respondents were following on Twitter correlated with how long they had been on the service, at the highest and lowest following numbers. But most people – no matter how long they had been on – were comfortably in the 50-500 range.
Users who had been on Twitter for a longer time were more likely to choose the “show all @replies” option, with 72.2% of old-timers who had been on for at least a year and 65.2% of those on 3-12 months. Still, almost half (46.3%) of the newbies on for less than three months also selected that option.
Not surprisingly, given that time on Twitter and number following are correlated, the more people a respondent followed, the more likely they were to select the “show all @replies” option (
The quality of respondents’ experience on Twitter after the policy change, as you would expect, depended on which @reply option they had selected before all defaulted to showing only mutual @replies. For those with the “show all” option, 78.2% said their experience is worse, the direct opposite of the other two options (show only mutual=72.9%, show none=75.0%). The correlation between number following and quality of current experience on Twitter also mirrors the distribution of @replies option selected.
***
So what does this all mean? Even if this sample is not representative of all Twitter users, it does represent a substantial segment of users who are not as happy with their experience on the site since the option was taken away. Twitter would be smart to pay attention to this group, which is not only comprised of crotchety old-timers and “power users.” To avoid losing these disgruntled users, Twitter needs to come up with a way to bring back seeing all @replies in a way that they can live with. At the very least, Twitter needs to be honest about the percentage of its actual active users (not including abandoned accounts) who were using the “show all @replies” option. Whether it’s closer to 3% or 63%, by dismissing those who were upset by the #fixreplies kerfuffle as a tiny group of whiners, Twitter increased user dissatisfaction and the likelihood of defection should a service come along that works harder to meet its users’ needs.
UPDATE (6/1/09):
New research that has just come out from Harvard from a random sample of 300,000 Twitter users in May 2009 shows that the top 10% of Twitter users account for over 90% of tweets. And the median number of lifetime tweets per Twitter users is one. So there is a huge difference between the typical Twitter account and an active Twitter account.
This backs up my survey findings that many more active Twitter users were affected by the recent @replies option change than Twitter was willing to admit. To say that only 3% of users had selected the “see all @replies” option was extremely deceptive when it turns out that 90% or so of the total Twitter accounts are not even being actively used. Those who do use their accounts tend to opt to see all @replies. Twitter should not be able to so easily dismiss this loud, vocal majority.
Image Credit: monettenriquez
Nedra helps nonprofits and public agencies create positive change on health and social issues through social marketing and transmedia storytelling strategies at Weinreich Communications since founding the company in 1995. She helps organizations make a difference for the populations they serve by strategically designing programs that draw on state-of-the-art behavior change techniques, digital media approaches and the power of stories. 
