Resources to help build health communication or social marketing campaigns and programs from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

In their own words:

Welcome to CDC’s Gateway to communication practice! Here you can access many resources to help build your health communication or social marketing campaigns and programs. Whether you are looking for tips for analyzing and segmenting an audience, choosing appropriate channels and tools, or evaluating the success of your messages or campaigns, it’s all here in one place! More about this site

Go to: CDC – Gateway to Health Communication & Social Marketing Practice.

Social Media. It seems this is all we hear and read about nowadays in marketing-related media. This comment post from Jimmy Warren of Marketingyourhospital.com brings out a good point: what about the big ideas?…

Today’s emphasis on social media, analytics and ROI has taken the place of the “Big Idea.”  And brands are weaker because of it.

When you scan the topics of marketing conventions, examined the titles of webinars that are available everyday and study what marketing subjects are most tweeted, you will find the marketing landscape is covered and dominated by new processes and platforms.   All the talk is about social media, digital platforms, analytics, market segmentation and targeting, lead generation and tracking and ROI.   Where is the discussion about  “big ideas”?  About creativity?  About speaking uniquely to the consumers’ hearts and minds?

Read it here: Have We Lost Our Marketing Way?

Insightful story and some good advice from John Mack on the risks of using metadata thinking nobody will notice.

My Twitter pals are all atwitter over FDA’s recent letter to Novartis citing violative content in a Facebook “Share Widget” that Novartis created (see “Implications of FDA’s Warning Letter to Novartis Regarding Facebook Share Widget” for the back story).

At the center of the controversy is “metadata.” If you are a pharmaceutical marketer asking yourself, “What the hell IS metadata?”, then you need to read this because some junior web developer on your team (internal or agency side) may be playing fast and loose with your metadata unbeknown to you and your legal/regulatory people. The Novartis letter is a warning that FDA, however, is looking at metadata.

The full story here: Pharma Marketing Blog: Who’s in Charge of Your “Invisible” Metadata?.

Show & Tell is a YouTube channel that showcases great marketing efforts on YouTube. Really Cool!

A great guide from Jonathan Richman on the Dose of Digital blog.

New communications model
Message pushed and pulled
Multidimensional and blurred
Time and space shifted
A living moving changing fluid communications ecosystem

Agency: CommonHealth

Brand name: CommonHealth
Generic name/category: Advertising Agency
Company: CommonHealth
Country/Market: USA, North America
Indication(s)/use: Self-promotion
Target: Trade
Medium: Print ad
Size/duration: Single-page
Publication/Aired: 2010

To see more of this brand’s ads, click here

To see a larger version of this ad and its details, click on its thumbnail.

Introducing Giant Hydra the “mass collaboration unit”…

In their own words:

In ancient mythology, the Hydra was a fantastical multi-headed beast, whose ferocity and tenacity were so great that not even the mighty Hercules could defeat it without help.

Giant Hydra is also a multi-headed creature of wide ranging skill and tenaciousness, only this time, the Hydra is a champion in your corner, not a fearsome foe.

Conceived in 2008, Giant Hydra occupies a unique niche in the advertising and marketing world. Its system allows advertisers and ad agencies access to a global pool of creative professionals, each with his or her own accolades and areas of expertise. But instead of choosing a single person to contribute to a particular project, or having creatives compete against each other in hopes of being “the one” to save the day and reap the rewards, Giant Hydra believes in “Mass Collaboration”, with each ‘head’ in the Hydra working as a team, building on each others ideas to vanquish a creative problem together.

The result: dozens of interconnected creative solutions for your projects and assignments, created by a team of many ‘heads’ with many disciplines and one goal.

http://gianthydra.com/

Via InfoPresse

Social media is the way that word-of-mouth happens in the 21st century, and it is growing at record rate.  For example, the popular social networking site, Facebook, has over 200 million active users.  Chances are that your employees and patients are already using Facebook, among other social media websites.  Rather than letting your patients and prospects have conversations about your practice, ensure that they can have conversations with your medical practice via social media.  Social media isn’t going away anytime soon, and most likely, it is going to continue to grow exponentially over the next several years.  Rather than waiting until the last minute to incorporate social media into your medical marketing campaign, it’s better to learn how to use social media now and become fluent in social media marketing.

via How to Incorporate Social Media into Your Medical Marketing Campaign | Internet Marketing | Social Media | Affiliate Marketing – My Brand Online.

On FB? Check out our Facebook page and connect with us…

Cool (and quite elaborate) animation from Intouch Solutions describing in a lighthearted manner how social media is “digested” by viewers…