by Nedra Weinreich | Jun 9, 2006 | Blog, Technology
Marketers now have their own version of Digg and Reddit called marktd – marketing news for marketers by marketers. People can add articles and blog posts about marketing issues that are then rated by other readers. The best articles will rise to the top and hopefully this will become a useful resource for the field.
Right now there are two things that need to be improved for this to succeed for me. First, they need to add a category for social marketing, because none of the categories describe the articles that I would likely be adding. I have sent an email to the site’s creator, Piers Fawkes of PSFK, with this suggestion, and I’m hoping they will fix that. The other problem is that the site does not yet have critical mass to ensure both a steady stream of good content and sets of eyes to rate all the articles that are posted. In the early stages, it’s likely that a lot of good material will be missed simply because not enough people are looking at each item that comes in.
via Church of the Customer blog
UPDATE: There is now a category for social marketing articles! I hope you will join me in filling that category with articles and blog posts you think are most useful for social marketers.
by Nedra Weinreich | Jun 6, 2006 | Blog, Technology
File this one under “Jobs we could never have envisioned two years ago”:
An organization called Global Kids, Inc. in New York is looking for a Second Life Special Trainer:
The Second Life Special Trainer will join GK’s Online Leadership Program (OLP) team for the summer of 2006. The OLP works with young people to develop web-based dialogues and socially conscious games that inspire youth world-wide to learn and take action about global and public affairs.
Now in its sixth year, the OLP is expanding its role within the Teen Second Life virtual world. Our summer program will build on our work in this space to develop a foreign policy and activism summer camp, in conjunction with our US in the World Summer Institute. The Special Trainer will adapt existing experiential, interactive workshops for
use in the virtual world, co-facilitate the workshops for online teens, assist the youth to develop an action plan, and document best practices.
Steve Rubel called this “virtual marketing,” which seems a pretty good name for these kinds of efforts in Second Life (which I’ve written about before). I suspect that in the next generation of teens, when the technology improves a little more, teens’ lives (and perhaps ours as well) will move in and out from actual to virtual worlds and back seamlessly. I predict that this will become a huge marketing venue and that instead of websites that people look at in the “real world,” we will each have a chunk of virtual property from which to hawk our products/ideas, interacting within the virtual world as if we were actually there.
Oh, and maybe we’ll have flying cars too.
*Bonus points to whoever gets the reference and knows that I am not just a poor grammatician!
by Nedra Weinreich | May 10, 2006 | Blog, Technology
You still think that cell phones are just for making phone calls? Oh ho ho! What an antiquated notion! While I have to admit that I don’t use my own cell phone for much other than placing calls and checking the time, many other people use their phones for text messaging, taking pictures, downloading music and keeping their rolodex.
Commercial marketers have been using this medium to reach out to their audiences and to make it easy for them to respond to marketing pitches. Social marketers are starting to find ways to use mobile technology for health and social change as well.
USA Today describes a new sex information and advice service offered to youth by the San Francisco Department of Public Health. Using text messaging, the users can request information on everything from what to do if the condom broke to whom to call “if ur feeling down … like u wanna xcape ur life.”
Similarly, in Ireland, young people offered illegal drugs can find out the effects they can have on their life or health within seconds by texting the name of the drug to the 24-hour service.
Sprint is offering a new product called MyFoodPhone, which allows subscribers (for $9.99/month) to upload pictures taken with their phone of the food they eat, along with logging data such as weight, exercise, and calories burned to an online journal. Once a week, subscribers receive a video clip from a nutrition advisor providing feedback on their eating habits, based on the data in their Visual Food Journal.
The Canadian Diabetes Association has partnered with a company that offers a product called MemoText. This product “turns all your telephones into a personal health reminder machine.” After pre-scheduling reminders online, the service will either send a text message or turn your note into a voice call to any phone. This could be used to remind yourself or your loved ones (particularly aging parents) to take medications or test blood glucose at the same time(s) each day.
Rohit Bhargava recently listed some ideas for how companies could be using text messaging to make their services more convenient and time-efficient. His focus was on things like sending a text message to page people when their table is ready at a restaurant or when the cable repairman is on his way, reducing the time spent waiting around for service.
What are some other ways you might be able to take advantage of mobile technology? How about creating additional content that people can access by text messaging a number you include in your advertising? Providing ringtones of songs with health/social messages? Disseminating real-time emergency information in case of a disaster? Mobilizing large numbers of people to rally, meet or call their legislators?
This is only the beginning of what we will be doing with our cellphones in the next few years.
UPDATE: Just came across this report (via the MIT Advertising Lab) about a new technology being used with French billboards that call location-enabled cell phones with additional information about their products. People opt into the program and specify on what types of products they would like to receive messages.
by Nedra Weinreich | Apr 24, 2006 | Blog, Technology
Last week, the Pew Internet & American Life Project released a report called “The Internet’s Growing Role in Life’s Major Moments.” According to their 2005 survey, people are more and more using the internet as a primary source of information when either helping someone else with a major illness or health condition, or when looking for information for their own health issues.
Here are some of its key findings:
- For about a quarter of the people interviewed who had to find information about a health condition or major illness either for themselves or others, the internet played an important or crucial role in making decisions about how to deal with the problem.
- Over the three-year period from 2002 to 2005, there was an increase of 54% in the number of adults who said the internet played a major role as they helped another person cope with a major illness. And the number of those who said the internet played a major role as they coped themselves with a major illness increased 40%.
- The internet’s largest impact comes in connecting people to other people for advice or sharing valuable experiences. For about one-third (34%) of those who used the internet in a key way in a decision, the internet’s capacity to let users draw on social networks was part of the decision-making dynamic. The “social network” effect is still larger for the 28% who said the internet connected them to expert services, at least to the extent that they were able to contact specific individuals for help.
And from a previous Pew report, from which this data is drawn:
In a social environment based on networked individualism, the internet’s capacity to help maintain and cultivate social networks has real payoffs. Our work shows that internet use provides online Americans a path to resources, such as access to people who may have the right information to help deal with a health or medical issue or to confront a financial issue. Sometimes this assistance comes from a close friend or family member. Sometimes this assistance comes from a person more socially distant, but made close by email in a time of need. The result is that people not only socialize online, but they also incorporate the internet into seeking information, exchanging advice, and making decisions.
The Joslin Diabetes Center is a good example of an online community providing support to individuals with a given health condition (you can login as a guest to take a peek around). A study of the effectiveness of the Joslin discussion boards, as an example of internet-based discussion groups found that they made a big difference in the lives of many who used them:
Nearly 75 percent of respondents to the study’s 2004 survey rated participation in the discussion board as having a positive effect on coping with diabetes. As one woman commented, “I have found an oasis where I can be encouraged, inspired and educated by people who sincerely understand my struggles.”
What’s more, 71 percent of respondents stated participation helped them to feel more hopeful. One user, a representative of many, found the discussion board to be an online lifeline. “Here in Spain, I have no support,” she commented. “I honestly don’t know what I would do without the support I find here. It really has transformed my life and had a positive influence on the way I cope with diabetes.”
If you have the information people are looking for, or if you can provide the framework on which these online communities and social networks can form around health issues, your organization can play a major role in the decisions people make about their health. But if you don’t have an online presence, you won’t even be part of that conversation.
by Nedra Weinreich | Jan 27, 2006 | Blog, Technology
New technologies have opened up the realm of possibility for health practitioners, as well as social marketers. Steve Rubel posts on a doctor at the Arizona Heart Institute who is using video iPods to educate his patients about their cardiovascular health and various medical procedures. Audio podcasting and vodcasting (video podcasting) offer us as social marketers some new tools we can use to reach out to our target audiences. The advantages are that people can select the topics of interest to them and listen to (or watch) them at their leisure — at home on their computer, while they are commuting to work, while they are exercising and particularly when they are trying to engage in a behavior that might require a particular skill.
Of course, this method will not work with all target audiences–particularly those who are not tech savvy or who do not have a computer or mp3 player–nor all campaigns. But consider some of these possibilities for how you could enhance your program using podcasting:
- Put together a 30-minute podcast featuring music to exercise to, along with prompts and motivational messages, for your physical activity campaign.
- Increase the reach of your radio and television commercials by distributing them via podcasts.
- Demonstrate with step-by-step video instructions how a newly-diagnosed diabetic should inject herself with insulin at home.
- Provide regular tips on maintaining healthy behaviors or review health news of the week relevant to your program.
- Reach busy professionals who commute with interviews or lectures by experts in their field.
- Create a program that features a mix of music, peer testimonials, Q&A with an expert, and your own commercials.
- Produce a entertainment education soap opera that has new episodes each day.
Many health-related organizations such as NIH and the Mayo Clinic are already doing these types of things to get their news and information out. Many others, such as PCI, have been producing programs like these for radio in developing countries for years.
For more on podcasting, here is the wikipedia entry and here is a step-by-step tutorial on how to create your own podcast.
UPDATE:
Speaking of which, I just came across this free download from Apple:
iWorkout – iPod + iTunes
With iWorkout, your iPod is given 42 different workout routines made by an ACE Certified Personal Trainer. The iPod-based workout routines include illustrations viewable on all new iPods. All workouts can also be spoken to you on your iPod.
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. 
