Search Words + Online Buzz = Patient Insights

I was just thinking through the online trail of a patient, looking for disease information. He might be in his mid 50s. He's probably content with the browser his computer pops open for him. He plugs in some key words and off he goes to a list of information sources. NIH.org, Mayoclinic.com, webMD are his first stops, because they come up above branded sites supported by pharma companies.

He peeks into some forums as he digs deeper, but does he trust the information from other caregivers and patients? Spam messages about Canadian drugs and links to cheaper pills make him want to click out of there as fast as he can. He goes back to emailing his friends for a referral, turning to people in his immediate circle. 

The sheer volume of disease-related posts in forums makes us think that majority of healthcare conversations take place in these areas. I feel like we also need to look at behavioral data on how a journey that typically begins with search leads to engagement, if at all. Do the key words patients/caregivers use match up to what's being discussed online? Do they match up to what brands provide on their sites? Is there a way to be as authoritative as the Mayo Clinic site on a given topic as a healthcare brand? 

Reviewing most commonly used search terms and online buzz about a given health topic can provide significant color to our insights. Online posts may reflect the opinions of those who dare to post public questions about their health. But search is (relatively) anonymous and can show what people are truly interested in finding. 

My two favorite tools to understand how Internet users search for content are: Google Adwords Keyword Tool and Trellian Keyword Discovery

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Key Performance Indicators in Social Media

Today’s social media landscape is significantly more cluttered and complex than its early days. The abundance of content that is easy to access and consume makes launching and sustaining noteworthy online projects challenging. As social media matures, the need to measure online word of mouth and demonstrate success becomes indisputable.

A comprehensive measurement plan should consist of three parts—gauging the audiences’ reactions to the brand before, during, and after the campaign. The first step in measuring online word of mouth is to listen and monitor audience chatter across blogs, forums, and social networks. This effort helps uncover existing issues, attitudes, and behaviors. It marks the starting point for a campaign. The second step requires tracking the campaign’s progress and studying the interaction between message senders and receivers. During this phase, marketers can take note of attitudinal and behavioral changes among their target audience. The third step involves comparing final campaign results with benchmark scores to demonstrate the momentum and change the campaign generated.

When setting benchmarks and tracking online word of mouth throughout the course of a program, marketers can use the following measures to show how their initiatives generated buzz, changed brand perceptions, and lead consumers to take action.

Volume of discussion: Using blog search engines such as Technorati, Google Blog or research firms’ proprietary software tools, count the number of posts that mention key words or messages related to your program. The numbers of unique mentions indicate online word of mouth reach.

Influencer mentions:  When writers quote and reference a source, they deem that information outlet reliable and useful. Similarly, every link that points to a social media address boosts that source’s authority. Desktop monitoring tools such as Radian6 and BuzzLogicÔ measure the number of in-bound links to blogs from brand sites, news sites, forums, and other blogs. The higher the score, the more influential and authoritative the source will be.

Stickiness: To show the full impact of word of mouth programs, we must account for those who received and shared a message. Impressions and unique visitors are metrics that speak to the broad universe of people who may have been exposed to a message. However, not everyone passes along every bit of information they receive. A survey measure developed by research firm S. Radoff Associates called Stickiness addresses this issue. Stickiness is based on the percentage of people who pass along a message among those who are exposed to the message.

The Echo Factor and Tone: When reviewing the overall volume of mentions, analysts often distinguish between positive and negative tone. Marketers can take this assessment a step further and measure how their messages echo through consumer conversations. Through surveys targeting representative samples of their audience, they can probe how many people received and passed along a positive or negative message. Next, they can look at the ratio of positive to negative mentions. S. Radoff Associates’ Tonality Index, which is based on this ratio, indicates the dominant tone of word of mouth and gives brands a pulse check.

Engagement: Online media engagement can be a qualitative measure that gives directional information about consumers’ online experience. To understand the nature of users’ interaction with the blog content, marketers can study comments’ tone and length. They may find a detailed, positive review more meaningful than a neutral or negative monosyllabic comment. Furthermore, they can classify the topics commentators discuss and analyze the quality of information these social media agents share.

Advocacy: Differentiate between those conversations that are descriptive and those that contain recommendations or warnings. To identify those networking agents who are advocating for a brand, product, or a company, look for those who are making solid recommendations, telling others what to do, and potentially influencing others’ opinions and decisions. For instance, MotiveQuest, a strategic consultancy that analyzes online consumer buzz, has coined the term online promoter score™, distinguishing between those mavens who are generating much of the volume on an issue and those advocates who make recommendations

Action: Online word of mouth campaigns yield recommendations, votes, and purchases. When organizations engage word of mouth agents and infuse networks with their messages, they hope to see an increase in sales and public support. To connect such outcomes with their marketing initiatives, communication professionals need to document their audiences’ online behaviors and show online buzz can lead to posts, clicks, downloads, or offline actions such as votes, coupon redemptions, and in-store purchases. Marketers can review sales trends during and after the campaign and note any increases that correspond with online buzz volume. Political strategists can explore how visits to online information hubs affect votes, signatures, and donations.

To read the complete version of this article, please visit PRNews Online.

 

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Online Connections Do Not Replace True Friendships

It has been a long while since I read sociologist Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone. At the time, I was an international student facing her first year in college and quite frankly, I did feel alone. Coming from a more communal culture, I felt that I had no hope in a country where the norm was isolation in suburbs and moving away from families for work or school. Over the years I built some wonderful friendships, but I still wonder what my life then would have been like if I had Facebook and continuous access to updates from 400+ connections I have on this site.

According to CafeMom's Mom Index (TM), things may not have been much different, despite the Internet. This study states that moms have an average of two true friends. Forget all the social networking, conversing online and participating in online chats. Moms are pretty isolated in their daily grind of work and family time. This finding is echoed by work published in the American Sociological Review, which states that the average American has only two close friends and a quarter do not have any. 

In other words, boasting hundreds of online connections may not mean that we are in touch with them or engaged in what they have to say. Technology helps spread word faster but does not replace the human factor. 

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WWW Now Stands for World Women Web

10 years ago, I was perplexed by the discrepancy between women's purchasing power and their hesitation to buy online. I ran a fancy regression analysis and discovered that privacy concerns were the leading barriers to women coming on board full force. As confirmed by a recent report from comScore, Women on the Web, this issue is far behind. According to comScore, U.S. online women are the key drivers of Web purchases. They make more transactions online and they spend more than men. In fact, they are responsible for 58 percent of e-commerce dollars. 

Globally, women are slightly less likely than men to be online (46 percent vs. 54 percent). However once women go online, they are more connected than men. Across Latin America, Europe, North America and Asia Pacific, women spend more time than men on social networking, emailing and sending IM messages. Health, apparel and family/parenting sites have the widest reach among women worldwide.

The study also offers insights on smartphone usage in the US and in Europe. As of April 2010, men are more likely than women to use smartphones in the US (60 percent vs. 40 percent) and in Europe (63 percent vs 37 percent). Yet it's important to note that women are taking to social networking apps on their smartphones. If their PC networking habits are any indication, as smartphone usage becomes mainstream, women will shape this medium as well. 

To download the full comScore study, please click here. 

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Moms to Corporations: "You Just Don't Understand!"

The online community CafeMom recently launched a new measurement tool called the MomIndex, tracking moms’ quality of life. A quick review of highlights suggests that brands need to convince moms of their authenticity and truly offer great value to grab these women’s attention. According to the CafeMom study, only 7 percent of moms agree that corporations understand their needs and work to make their lives better. Only 6 percent trust brand advertising messages.

Moms are also concerned with the state of world and national affairs. Only one-fifth (22 percent) believe that America is headed in the right direction and 14 percent trust the government to help improve their lives. As low as these percentages may seem, it is worthwhile to note that moms are more likely to trust the government than corporations and brands. They have more hope in an institution that is criticized daily by multiple sources through numerous channels, than companies that try to communicate positive aspects of their products and services.

The gaps between these numbers show the long way ahead of brands that want to earn moms’ trust and generate positive word of mouth. They will need to fight moms’ cynicism and be ready to withstand these savvy consumers’ scrutiny. Above everything else, their messages will need to be believable.  

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Legal Expertise Needed!

Increasing brand presence in social media calls for help from legal departments. As brands step into open commentary space, they need to protect their name as well as the rights of those consumers creating content on their company sponsored pages. The latest updates to FTC guidelines--which insist on disclosure of all material connections and hold marketers liable for false information that may transpire as a result of their social media programs--are all the more reason to get professional legal advice before launching an online campaign.

As social media is still an evolving marketing area, many marketers and their counselors are challenged by the absence of precedents. New tools and functionalities pop up almost every day. Existing platforms, such as Facebook, may change their rules as they go along, responding to public criticism. Moreover, content ownership in social media remains a gray area, where one company provides the frame (e.g., Facebook), another sponsors the area (e.g., your brand) and audience creates the content.

Here are some suggestions that can increase collaboration between marketing teams and their legal advisors, while helping brands navigate social media waters as safely as possible:

1-                   Disclosure should be top priority. Include the necessary statements in your social media communications and Web areas to abide by the FTC guidelines. Refer to disclosure statements suggested by WOMMA. Consider adopting a system such as cmp.ly, which provides an FTC-compliant software platform to organize all communications between a brand, bloggers and other social media participants.

2-                   If you are signing contracts with bloggers, spell out the terms of disclosure as part of the deal.

3-                   If employees are likely to chime into social media discussions about your brand, provide them with the necessary training and information so they know how to disclose their relationship with the brand.

4-                   Work with legal teams at Facebook, Twitter and other popular communities. It is best to go to the very source and ask. Often times, their rules of communication and participation will be laid out under ‘about us’ or ‘corporate’ sections of their Web sites.

5-                   Encourage all of your team members (i.e., brand marketers and legal) to familiarize themselves with the tools you are deploying. You can have more fruitful discussions, if everyone understands the social media tools’ basic functionality.

6-                   Speedy response is critical in social media communications. Before launching a project, arrange a core set of team members including a legal counselor who can be on-call to evaluate questionable comments.

7-                   You do have (some) control of content in branded areas. When planting your brand’s flag in social media and creating areas dedicated to your topics, communicate your rules of communication to your audience. You may reserve the right to remove inappropriate postings. If you are planning to use consumer-generated media in corporate promotions (e.g., ads, releases, etc.) be sure to indicate this as well. 

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Global Web Index Lite Is Here:

The smart folks behind the Global Web Index just launched a smart widget that provides top-level data on social media habits from 16 countries, ranging from the US and Brazil to Japan and South Korea. The cool thing is that you can slice the data by age and by behavioral segments, such as Informers, Internationalists, Premium Lovers and Risk Takers. What a great way to package rich information! 

 

 

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