ROI
Silverado Senior Living and the ROI of 24/7 Chat
I’ve been watching what Silverado Senior Living has been doing with social media for a while now, and I’ve always been a big fan of the company and the services they provide. So when I moderated a round table discussion on Social Media for Senior Living at LTC LINK in Chicago last week, I was excited that Nancy Convertito, Regional Director for Sales & Marketing for Silverado Senior Living, Hospice, and At-Home, was at the table. Nancy shared some interesting stats about Silverado’s innovative 24/7 Chat Line featured on their website. First, let me explain how it works:
When you land on Silverado’s website, a window pops up that asks if you would like to chat with live professional to get answers to your questions right now. Here’s an image of the pop-up…
If you click “yes,” you are immediately connected to a person who can answer your questions, even at 2AM when you can’t sleep because you’re trying to figure out what to do with your mother who is unsafely living at home with moderate-stage dementia. If you click “no,” the pop-up disappears and you are free to navigate the company’s website. You can also call call a toll-free number to chat with a Silverado representative about your issues 24/7.
Now, I’m not a big fan of pop-ups on any website, but this one is pretty benign, not obnoxious, and gives site visitors the ability to quickly get rid of it if they don’t want to use it. Plus, the value proposition to a site visitor is pretty compelling: find exactly what I need right now with the help of a real human being vs. spend 20 minutes looking around a website with no guarantee I’ll find what I’m looking for.
But here’s the most compelling part: Nancy shared that the Chat Line paid for itself in 7 months. Since January 2011, 350 inquiries have come through the Chat Line and 10% of those inquiries converted.
So why are so many people who visit Silverado’s website using the Chat Line? It’s because many family caregivers who are looking for the type of services Silverado offers don’t have time to futz around on a big company website. They need answers, and they need them now. They need solutions to their problems, and they want them yesterday. The Chat Line gives site visitors this option. And it’s clearly paying off for Silverado.
But this story illuminates another very important issue for the vast majority of senior living, long-term care, homecare and hospice providers (detailed in this 2009 post): your websites are obsolete, outdated, and totally ineffective. The Silverado Chat Line story shows that if you provide your site visitors with a more human experience, easy access to the information they need, and resources designed to help them make informed decisions, you will gain customers.
Your website should be strategically designed to do 4 things:
- Attract new visitors
- Inform site visitors
- Engage site visitors
- Create business value by converting site visitors to customers
The 24/7 Chat Line is helping Silverado do all of the above. Kudos to Nancy and the Silverado crew for innovating “next practices” and sharing their results with us.
To learn more about how CareNetworks call help your organization create an amazing online presence, contact us. We design and build websites and provide social media strategy and solutions to senior living, LTC, homecare, and hospice providers.
The Cost Of Social Media in Health Care [INFOGRAPHIC]
Last year, I wrote a post called, “7 Things Every Senior Living, Home Care, and LTC Provider Wants to Know About Social Media.” One of things covered in that post is cost. Every health care provider executive is concerned about cost and ROI. If you want a basic overview of what a social media program might cost your organization, Mack Collier has a great post on this called, “How Much Does Social Media Cost Companies in 2011?”
I also stumbled upon this infographic which gives a nice overview of costs and benefits of social media for business, and while the numbers below seem to be based on large corporations, you get a sense of the elements that make up a social media program and their associated costs. To get a better idea what an enhanced web presence or social media program will cost your organization, contact us. We’re happy to give you the skinny without a sales pitch;-)
Healthcare Social Networks: What is the ROI of Love? [VIDEO]
Just wanted to share this. At e-Patient Connections 2010, Susannah Fox of the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project presented data on the online activity of those with chronic disease. Called “healthcare out loud”, she discusses the huge amount of support people can obtain from these online interactions and asks the question: “What’s the ROI of love?” Great topic. Excellent talk.
How Emeritus Senior Living Tames the Social Media Beast: Part 2 [INTERVIEW]
This post is part of our Social Media Success Series, which features interviews with innovative and fearless socially networked senior living, home care, and LTC companies that are achieving positive business results using media and other social technologies. To have your organization included in this series, contact us.
_________________________________________________________________
Emeritus Senior Living (ESL) is currently the nation’s largest assisted living (AL) provider with over 460 AL communities in 43 states. Their services range from Alzheimer’s and memory care, to skilled nursing, retirement living, independent living, and rehabilitation services. I recently caught up with Chris Kim, ESL’s eMarketing Specialist, and asked him how Emeritus leverages social media. Due to the length of the interview, I broke it up into two parts. To view part one, click here.
Q: What is your total “reach” on all your social sites (i.e. how many individuals do you have direct conctact with via FB, Twitter, Blog, RSS, email, etc.)?
We currently have a total of 2220 fans on Facebook that we interact with pretty regularly. We actually found that our number of fans go up regularly by about 5-10 fans per day. During contests and various other promotional seasons, this doubles or even triples each day. Likewise, our Twitter account consists of roughly 470 followers who many times reposts and shares our posts. I don’t have the exact numbers for Blog RSS and Email subscription but it’s a large number!
Q: Have you been able to capture leads using social media?
Capturing leads through Social Media was never really our goal so unfortunately, I do not have any data on this. Some of the metrics we look for however are how many visitors are coming from Twitter and Facebook to our website? How many visitors are going from Emeritus.com to our social media outlets? The numbers vary quite a bit but our social media do drive quite a traffic. This is because almost everything we post on our social media are directly from our corporate blog and resource center. Since one of our goals is brand reputation management, we’ve had potential customers inquiring about our services on Facebook. This is usually followed by many employees in the field, other residents, as well as our marketing team to direct them to the right page on Emeritus.com to get them the best information they seek. In cases like these, I think they certainly have aided in converting the lead into a move-in.
Q: Have you been able to attribute any move-ins directly to social media? Do you have any data or comments on ROI?
We unfortunately do not have any solid data on ROI. However, as stated in the question above, we work to direct our fans and viewers on our SM to the right places for whatever information they may be seeking. Once in awhile, we’ll get potential customers asking for information from a specific community. We make sure to message them and direct them to the right contacts to find the information. Likewise, we work closely with each community to make sure they reach out to these customers as soon as possible.
It is also truly great to see that when a resident moves in to a community, we’ve had many family members as well as residents themselves who post up a quick testimonial and great feedback on the experience they’ve had so far. It has been a blessing through social media to see that!
Q: Can you share some data on how social media has impacted your overall web presence?
Each month, I check our analytics tool to see what kind of traffic our Social Media outlets are driving to our website. We found that our Facebook page drives anywhere between 500 to 1,500 visits to our website each month. During seasonal promotion and contest months, the number of visits can spike up quite a bit.
It’s great that you mentioned SEO enhancements. As an online marketing specialist at Emeritus, SEO is definitely one of the biggest initiatives we have at Emeritus. One thing many social media marketers tend to forget is how great of a link building opportunity Facebook and Twitter is. It’s a great opportunity to directly show a fan base exactly what they are looking for. We’ve found that by sharing our resources, there are a lot of third party vendors as well as customers who are more than willing to share the resources on their blogs and websites. It seems to work great because we regularly see industry blogs linking to our website for our contests as well as resources and guides we provide!
Q: Do you think social media enhances your other marketing/PR initiatives/campaigns?
Our social media definitely does enhance other marketing campaigns. I won’t say it dictates our initiatives but its just one more outlet we can utilize to promote our marketing campaigns. If we are sending out a press release on various events or newsworthy updates, we post them directly onto our social media. What better ways to keep our customers directly updated with our happenings than through social media? This way, they’re able to give us direct feedback on what their thoughts are. We get quite an excited response when we post news articles!
We also work very closely with our marketing team and PR team. A lot of times, we post news articles that are picked up from our press releases so what better way to enhance our presence than to use social media!
Q: What are the downsides to using social media? Do you have any horror stories or crisis incidents to share?
One of the downsides, which also happens to be a great upside, is that it is completely open to the public. Our Facebook profile is 100% open to the public. Fans can post whatever they’d like and we try our best not to delete them, but to address them appropriately. We’ve seen viewers post negative comments that are borderline slandering, but unless they are completely out of line, we still address them accordingly.
One incident we had awhile ago was that a former employee, who was a bit disgruntled by their experience with Emeritus, created a fake account to post many negative comments. We unfortunately were not able to find out who the specific employee was, but again, by addressing each negative comment accordingly, they stopped posting fairly quickly.
It helps a lot when our customers and family members also help in addressing the issue. A negative comment is usually followed by a reply from a customer or family members with great positive testimonials.
Q: Do you have social media policies in place?
We currently do not have a formal SM policy in place but we are actually working in collaboration with our Human Resource Department to get this in place. Originally, we left it somewhat open with the idea that our main policy is to manage and address everything that happens on our social media venues. When we first opened up our Facebook profile, it was actually not open to the public. We simply posted resources and news articles which didn’t help others interact with us. So we finally opened our page to the public and the only thing we really wanted to maintain was a positive atmosphere and community where we address things in a positive manner, address any issues that come about, and most importantly, provide our fans with fresh, new posts on a daily basis.
Now that our Facebook and Twitter profiles have grown to a much bigger scale than what we had originally started with, we feel that having a solid structure and guideline will help manage our profiles a bit better.
Comment:
Emeritus’ Facebook Page alone is an amazing example of how LTC companies can use free social media tools to expand their reach, engage customers and prospects, and build community around their brand. Emeritus may just have the best Facebook community in the industry right now. Kudos to the Emeritus team, and thanks for the interview!
__________________________________________________
To learn more about how to leverage social media for your senior living company, retirement community, skilled nursing facility, home care agency or hospice organization, contact us.
Have you seen the CareNetworks YouTube video? Check it out and share with your friends…
BrightStar Care Shines Using Social Media Tools and Strategy [INTERVIEW]
This post is part of our Social Media Success Series, which features interviews with innovative and fearless socially networked senior living, home care, and LTC companies that are achieving positive business results using social technologies. If you would like to have your organization included in this series, contact us.
For this interview, Jennifer Hill connected with Erin Schmidt, Marketing and Communications Coordinator for one of our favorite socially savvy companies, BrightStar Care. BrightStar was just featured in our new Social Media Video, which you can view here.
Interview
Q: What is your company’s primary goal of using social media?
A: Our primary goal for social media is two-pronged: we seek to “get found” by and add value for individuals, families and organizations who/that may need us (providing helpful content, serving as a resource), and then earn the trust of qualified leads that will convert into client business for our 150+ locations nationwide.
Q: What types of social media tools do you use and why did you choose them?
A: We maintain an active presence in Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and publish our videos to YouTube.
Twitter: Twitter serves as a great engagement platform as well as a river of information to stay on the pulse of what is being talked about in our industry.
Facebook: For starters, one of our target audiences (women aged 55+) is the fastest growing demographic on Facebook, but beyond that the platform allows for a lot more interactivity, better means of identifying where key audiences may be engaging and the ability to share multiple forms of content.
LinkedIn: LinkedIn has been important to our staffing and recruiting efforts, in both identifying qualified candidates to fill more skilled positions as well as key referral sources. But overall, the ability to serve as a resource in the Q & A forums is a value not to be ignored, as we view this type of activity as spreading seeds throughout the Web to help those in need to find us.
Q: Are you planning to expand your social media reach?
A: Yes, everything we do, both online and offline, is geared toward increasing our overall reach. In fact, we have seen significant incremental growth over the past six months and, with new features and functionality rolling out over the next six months, we predict that this will continue to grow.
Q: How much time do you invest in social media per week?
A: At the Corporate level, we invest no more than five to ten hours each week, but this does not include the time we’ve taken to create a series of “Inbound Marketing” webinars we’ve created to train our franchisees on how to leverage social media, online listening, link building, etc. to ramp up their online presence.
Q: Have you seen a return on your investment?
A: While it’s difficult to monetize the value of “reach,” having a captive audience of qualified leads with which to create multiple touch points has had a significant value in and of itself. In addition, a growing portion of our Website traffic comes from the various social media platforms and we’ve recently added some additional means to track these visits through the sales funnel on the back-end to calculate ROI from a dollar standpoint. Here are some interesting statistics:
Worth noting: we endured a Website re-design in February, so these numbers may be the result of a number of factors and not just social media.
- Reach. Our current reach is over four times what it was six months ago – equating to an average of just over 500 contacts per month.
- Website traffic. Site traffic is up by just over 20% in the past six months (potentially due in part to our other new Website changes), but the number of social media referrals to our site has quadrupled in the past year.
- Lead base. We’re still evaluating the impact of social media on our lead generation.
- Marketing costs. Aside from our time, social media is free, so the improved Web traffic and significant growth of our reach has cost us very little compared to other marketing initiatives.
Q: How do you measure the success of your social media strategy?
A: Primarily, the number of Website visits (and, soon, the number and quality of leads) and reach (number of blog subscribers, Twitter followers, LinkdeIn connections, Facebook fans, YouTube subscribers).
Q: What are your biggest challenges?
A: One of the biggest challenges has been conveying the benefits of leveraging social media to our franchisees and, again, the issue of “monetizing” reach.
Q: Who manages your social media initiatives?
A: At the Corporate level, our social media strategy is devised and executed upon by the marketing department.
Q: In regards to content, what do you think is a good strategy?
A: We’ve experimented with a few different things, but we love the idea of recruiting guest authors and tapping other industry experts to contribute. We’ve also set up an online listening station to gather content ideas in addition to taking common questions individuals, families and organizations have to inspire our content.
Q: Do you think that companies are apprehensive about using social media because of HIPAA restrictions?
A: Yes, absolutely.
Q: Does HIPAA effect the way that you use social media?
A: The privacy of the individuals, families and organizations we care for is of the utmost importance to us. We are certain never to provide any information that may be remotely sensitive and/or confidential. This methodology is woven into the fabric of all that we do at BrightStar, both online and offline.
Q: What new features do you see your company using to help expand you social media outreach in the coming months?
A: We’ll be rolling out the ability for our franchisees to add up to five pages to their local Websites in addition to the ability to blog, which will undoubtedly ramp up their local social media efforts and, thus, contribute to our national strategy.
Q: do you view social media as a PR tool in addition to a marketing tool?
A: Absolutely! In addition to being able to publish content and interact with our target audiences, social media is a great means of highlighting key happenings via a public facing platform.
Q: Do you have any PR examples?
A: From time to time, our franchisees will get some media coverage and we’ll use our blog to feature these stories and publish them to our social media profiles as a means of giving them some additional “push” (and, of course, kudos).
Q: Finally, Do any of your C-level executives use social media? Why or why not?
A: Many of our executive team members maintain an active presence on LinkedIn and some on Facebook and our CEO is on Twitter. But LinkedIn makes the most sense from a networking and business perspective. In fact, our executive team’s collective presence on LinkedIn has generated just over 1,000 Website visits in the past six months.
Like this post? Read more like it here:
- Social Media Success Series
- Seven Things Every Senior Living, Home Care, and LTC Provider Wants to Know About Social Media
- 7 Best Social Media Tools for Senior Living and Long-Term Care
For more insights into emerging media and social technologies, subcribe to our blog, follow me on Twitter, visit us on Facebook, or contact us here on our site.
Ready to hire the folks behind this blog? Learn more >>
How Social Media Works in Home Care [CASE STUDY]
Back in September 2009, I interviewed Noelle Kurth, Corporate Communications Director (and social media marketing machine) for At Home Personal Care based out of Salt Lake City, Utah. The article, “Home Care Company Uses Twitter to Build Brand Awareness and More,” is one of our most popular posts. At that time, Noelle was helping the company design and build a new website and social media hub to replace their traditional brochure-style website.
Recently I decided to check in with Noelle to see how the new site was serving her and the company. Here’s what she had to say:
Thanks for checking in! Wow, our new site has definitely served us well over the last 4-5 months!
When creating the new site, I knew we had to utilize a “contact form” in order to capture data for our leads. This has been the biggest difference. Users can fill out our specific form to include fields like who is in need of care, care level, location, email, phone, etc. Then I can distribute the leads based on location and our care managers can follow up on them. Most recently, our Utah office turned a web lead into a $5,000 a month client!
I have been working diligently at driving traffic to our site and keeping our content “fresh” with new articles, videos, etc. We have seen definite improvements in our Utah and Texas market as far as SEO. I use Google Analytics to track progress. In 4 ½ months, we have had 16,015 page views with an average of 4:23 seconds time on site. 76.63% are new visitors and we have a nice mix of traffic coming from direct, search engines, and referring sites. I use link building tactics, social media, and our email campaigns to help promote the site. I have also redesigned most of our promotional items and print material to include our web address. Some of our material did not have it included previously.
I also implemented some online web “contests.” We partnered with a National Gift Basket Company and hold different contests depending on the holiday or time of year. During our Mothers Day Contest, we saw a 700% spike in traffic during the course of the contest, which was about a month. Each market promotes the contest with press releases, social media, and general networking. The Gift Company also promotes the contest on their site and social media outlets, so it’s a win-win. We do other fun things like “Caregiver of the month” etc. and promote with social media.
Not only have our patients and families commented on how well designed the site is, but also our referring partners and community alliances. I have even had competitors comment on our site. Its all very exciting and we are happy with the results thus far.
- Noelle
Now for a look at the new site compared to the old one…
OLD SITE
NEW SITE
The new AHPC website incorporates a search engine, contact forms, social bookmarking and sharing capability, a blog, and ample opportunity to engage visitors on various social outposts like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.
Hats off to Noelle and the AHPC team for designing a great site that serves as both a resource destination and a social media hub for visitors and a lead generator and relationship builder for the company. As you can see from Noelle’s note, positive results do not come easy. She spends a ton of time nurturing the hub and it’s various outposts, creating content, building partnerships, monitoring for comments and inquiries, and designing engaging campaigns that – like gravity – pull people into the site’s orbit. So, if you think you’re simply going to launch a Facebook page and have a volunteer or intern manage it for one hour per week and suddenly get results, think again. Noelle is a skilled social media practitioner with all of the qualities necessary to help her company succeed in this socially networked world.
If you don’t have a social media rock star like Noelle Kurth at your senior living, home care, or LTC company, but you want to leverage social media for your business, contact us, we may be able to help. And yes, that is a call to action;-)
Kudos to Colby Wright of CW Design for his work on AHPC site.
Related Posts:
New Study Shows Elder Care Marketers Benefit from Social Media [SLIDESHARE]
Elder Care Marketing Industry Report
Ryan Malone of Elder Care Marketer recently published results of a study in a white paper called the Elder Care Marketing Industry Report. The study surveyed 160 elder care marketers to glean insights into their marketing habits, what tools they use, and what impact social media has on their business. I’ve embedded the entire report below. It’s definitely worth checking out. Nice job Ryan! You can find Ryan on Twitter , LinkedIn ,Facebook or YouTube.
Here are the social media highlights from the Report:
- Small companies (1-50 employees) are twice as likely than big companies (50-500+ employees) to use social media in their marketing
- Overall, LinkedIn and Facebook are the most popular for marketing purposes
- Marketers spend an average of 6.6 hours per week on social media and would like to learn most about Twitter and blogs
- Interest is high in learning more about social media tools, which reflects the overall recognition of social media as a marketing vehicle
- Small businesses used a much broader base of social media tools than large businesses for marketing purposes
- Both B2B and B2C businesses benefited most from social media through increased mailing lists, traffic and subscribers, generating leads and creating partnerships.
- B2C reported a high increase in search rankings and B2B
businesses reported a higher benefit for identifying new products more often
For Immanuel Senior Living, Social Media is a No-Brainer [Part 2]
This is the latest post in our Social Media Success Series, which features interviews
with innovative senior living, eldercare, home care, and long-term care providers who are using social media as a business/marketing tool. If you would like to have your organization considered for inclusion, contact us.
 Clear copy.gif)
For this post, we pick up where we left off with Roxann Rogers Meyer, Director of Sales/Marketing for Immanuel Senior Living, the leading provider of senior living in Nebraska. For Part 1 of this interview, click here.
12. What is your primary goal for using social media?
To get people to understand senior housing options and to be a trusted resource in the community for retirement living. Our goal is to transform lives through innovative programs and services for seniors and their families.
Immanuel Senior Living On Facebook
13. Are you planning to expand your social media reach?
We continue to look at more ways we can reach people with new social media tools and we’re looking at industry experts to see what they’re doing
14. Are people responding to your social media efforts?
Yes, people are responding. Lora recently shot video with the Flip Cam of one of our community’s Christmas parties and put it on our website and social media sites including Facebook, Youtube and Twitter and we received a response from a fan on Youtube who commented, “Original human interest adds to your videos. Great job.” Another time Lora put pictures up on Facebook about a recent fund raising event that took place at our community and also tweeted about it and received a response from someone who had attended, telling us what a fabulous event it was.
15. Have you seen a return on your investment so far?
It’s hard to put a hard dollar amount on the value of social media, but I think educating the public and helping them understand what active aging is all about is priceless.
16. What are your biggest challenges so far?
The number one goal of our marketing department is maintaining our occupancy goals. We exist to support the senior living consultants at each of our communities in reaching prospective residents and adult children. So we’re adding social media to our traditional marketing and communication strategies. It doesn’t replace what we’re currently doing. Time management is another important factor to consider and also doing things that make sense. Other challenges include staying on top of the current trends in social media.
17. Did you have to try to convince someone at your organization to try social media?
I had to create a presentation for the executive leadership team on the value of being involved in the conversation. Especially when you see the numbers and the amount of actual dollars attached to it, it’s not hard to convince your CEO and CFO that it’s money/time well spent.
18. Are employees on board with your efforts?
Yes, employees are excited by what we’re doing, They’re following us, watching the videos and commenting on what’s going on. They also forward our stories and videos on to their family and friends.
Immanuel Senior Living On Twitter
19.How are you measuring success?
By the number of followers and fans, how often our communities are featured in Google, and how often the media is picking up on the stories that we’re doing.
20. It sounds like your success measures, while important, don’t necessarily translate into sales or a higher, more stable census (your stated number one goal). How can your executives justify the expense of engaging in social media if you’re not able to prove that it’s having a direct effect on the bottom line?
Our executives justify the importance of being involved in social media because, above all, it’s vital to be part of the conversation. And while it may not necessarily translate into a reservation right now, it begins the conversation and may turn into something in the future. In addition, Immanuel Senior Living also measures success by the number of people we educate about who we are, what senior living is all about, and the benefits of staying active in a retirement community. I think that if you can show someone—be it a prospective resident, an adult child or even a grandchild— what their loved one is up to and the amount of fun they’re having/activities they’re taking part in—that’s worth it.
Recently I also put up a couple of winter pictures of one of our communities, with the caption, “Baby it’s cold outside. Glad we’re staying warm and cozy at the Village, where the fire is so delightful so let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!” There was a response from a person on Facebook—who’s not even a fan, but is a prospective resident, who said, “I want to live here….someday.” To me, that begins the conversation and gets people to think about senior living in an entirely new way.
21. Can you offer another interesting short story about your social media efforts thus far?
We shot a short 2 ½ minute video of an 89 year old resident who directs the resident chime choir at one of our communities and tweeted it and put it up on our Facebook Page and Youtube Channel. I then pitched it to the media who were able to view exactly what I was pitching. They in turn decided to come out and film the video for themselves and turned out to be a great story.
Also, we sponsored an Aging Conference and I shot a video of the dancing grannies – ladies who range in age from 62-82 years old. I put the video
up on our social media outlets and, currently, it’s been viewed 179 times and has a five star rating. Also, Immanuel Senior Living has been featured in a blog on how senior living communities should brand their Youtube channel. Here’s an example of one of Immanuel’s YouTube videos:
22. What’s the one piece of advice you would give other senior living, home care, eldercare, or dementia care companies about getting into social media?
Don’t just post something about your community. Look around and find interesting articles, blogs, tweets, etc. that you can share with your fans or followers of active seniors in general, what other communities are doing, or just a quote. It encourages collaboration and not silos. it also shows that you’re keeping in step with what’s going on in the world. Also, with social media, it’s constant—you can’t just post something and a month later, post again. You constantly have to monitor, check and react to it.
Contact Information
Roxann Rogers Meyer, Director of Sales/Marketing
rrogers@ihsi.org 6757 Newport Ave. Suite 200 Omaha, NE 68152
__________________________________________________________________________
For more on how your company can benefit from social media and online community, contact us. You can also join our free Online Marketing Community for marketing professionals in senior living, homecare, LTC, and hospice. Just click the image blow:
For Immanuel Senior Living, Social Media is a No-Brainer [Part 1]
This is the latest post in our Social Media Success Series, which features interviews with innovative senior living, eldercare, home care, and long-term care providers who are using social media as a business/marketing tool. If you would like to have your organization considered for inclusion, contact us.
For this post, we interviewed Roxann Rogers Meyer, Director of Sales/Marketing for Immanuel Senior Living, the leading provider of senior living in Nebraska.
1. What online properties, aside from your website, do you own/operate and how long have you been using each?
We’ve been using Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn since October 2009.
2. Do you have a blog?
We do not have a blog right now, but it’s something we’re looking into launching in the near future.
3. Why did you choose each of these particular social media tools?
Because social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are where our target audience is searching and these are the tools they are using. As a retirement community, Immanuel Senior Living is in the midst of a perfect storm. The 2000 census found that there were 35 million Americans at the age of 65 or older. In addition, the U.S. Census Bureau projects that by the year 2030, approximately 71.5 million Americans will be over the age of 65. That means the percentage of people 65 or older will more than double from 2000 and will make up nearly 20% of the entire projected U.S. population. In addition, adult children and prospects are actively using these popular social media sites to network and gain information.
According to a digital marketing firm iStrategyLabs, from January to July of 2009, the number of Facebook users older than 55 jumped by more than 500 percent. In addition, people 35 to 54 now are the largest age group on the site, accounting for 28.2 percent of users in this country.
For us, it’s the opportunity to connect with these people and show them what kind of lifestyle they or a loved one will have if they choose to come live in our community. It’s also an opportunity to educate the general public on senior issues and aging.
4. Why haven’t you launched a blog yet?
We decided against blogging right from the start because while it’s important to have a social media presence, it’s also important to put out fresh content on a regular basis. We felt if we launched our social media sites & also started a blog—that would be a lot to handle all at once. Right now we are going through a brand study and once we’ve completed that, we will make those decision about when to launch the blog. As for content, ideally, we would like several blogs from various perspectives including a day-in-the-life of a resident, from a CEO’s perspective as well as health care.
Immanuel is the leader in senior housing in our area, so we have a lot of expertise on a variety of topics. We are considering using WordPress to build a blog, and then linking it to the homepage of our website, but that too is still in the developing stage.
Immanuel Senior Living Homepage
5. Who manages your social media sites?
Our corporate marketing assistant, Lora Ullerich.
6. How much time does it take Lora to manage your social media activities per week?
She usually checks in several times a day, tries to tweet/retweet at least once a day and post fresh content on Youtube and Facebook once a week. It’s something that you continually have to keep up and not just post and ignore.
7. Are your senior executives planning to use the social media tools you’ve chosen?
We have asked some key members at each of our communities if they are interested in joining in the social media conversation. People like activity directors, wellness managers, health care directors and others who can provide some interesting insight into the day-in-the-life of a senior living community. The key again, is, someone who can consistently provide fun, interesting content that is also meaningful for our audience.
Immanuel Senior Living YouTube Video
8. How are you using each tool and who are you trying to reach?
Again, we’re trying to reach prospective and current residents along with adult children to educate them about the lifestyle at Immanuel Senior Living and to gain insight on how we’re doing.
9. Do you have a social media strategy?
Our social media strategy is to inform and respond to issues regarding Immanuel Senior Living, the senior living industry and those affecting seniors.
10. Are you getting help from outside professionals or are you trying to do it all on your own?
Staying on top of the current trends in social media involves research, attending conferences/webinars, and looking to experts in the social media realm who continually are putting out fresh content and answering questions.
11. Do you have a social media policy or set of guidelines? How are you addressing HIPAA?
We are currently working on one. We are looking at what other industry experts are doing and then fine-tuning it for our purposes. Since we’re not talking about a senior’s health issue, there’s not necessarily a HIPAA violation–at the same time, our resident’s privacy is something we take very seriously. For some videos, we do have consent forms signed and make sure our residents feel comfortable being part of the story. If they don’t feel comfortable, we do not feature them in the story, video or picture. Each community is the resident’s home and we are fortunate enough to work there.
Part 2
Be sure to read Part 2 of this post where Roxann provides insight into the realities of social media time management, success measurement, and ROI; and shares some real-life stories about how Immanuel is benefiting from their social media efforts. Stay tuned by suscribing to this blog via RSS or email.
Contact Information
Roxann Rogers Meyer, Director of Sales/Marketing
rrogers@ihsi.org 6757 Newport Ave. Suite 200 Omaha, NE 68152
__________________________________________________________________________
For more on how your company can benefit from social media and online community, contact us. You can also join our free Online Marketing Community for marketing professionals in senior living, homecare, LTC, and hospice. Just click the image blow:
Senior Living, LTC, And Social Media: What We Learned In 2009 [Part 1]
This was the year that senior living, long-term care, homecare, and hospice providers began experimenting with social media. Social tools like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn; blogging/publishing platforms like WordPress; and white-label social/group networking platforms like Ning and Groupsite have started to penetrate these industry segments and are slowly beginning to change the way these companies are doing business. Even ALFA, the Assisted Living Federation of America, launched a social media initiative this year and is active on multiple social sites.
Since August when I launched this blog, I have posted many articles about companies in our industry, both small and large, that are beginning to use social technologies to derive business benefits. Some posts feature interviews with industry insiders who share their experiences and offer great insights into what’s working, and what’s not. Other articles provide information, tips, and resources designed to help your company navigate the social media landscape. In case you missed any, here is a list of my Top 10 Most Popular Posts for 2009:
- California’s Largest Retirement Community Kicks Butt Using Social Media [Interview]
- Home Care Company Uses Twitter To Build Brand Awareness And More [Interview]
- 7 Best Social Media Tools For Senior Living And Long-Term Care
- Social Media And HIPAA: What You Need To Know
- Nation’s Largest Senior Living Company Embraces Social Media [Interview]
- How Senior Living And Eldercare Companies Can Build A Winning Social Media Team
- Senior Living Companies: You Must Blog Now!
- Beacon Hill Retirement Community Launches Resident Blog – Smart Move
- Blog, Twitter, And Facebook = Big ROI At SeniorsForLiving.com [Interview]
- Web-Savvy Senior Living Companies Are Making The Move To Social Media. Are You?
What We Have Learned: A Year In Review [Part 1 of 2]
Below is a summary of important lessons from the world of social media as they apply to the senior living and long-term care industries, along with links to more detailed content if you want more juice:
- Social technologies are transformative and are here to stay. The statistics are mind blowing. This video drives that point home.
- The static, brochure-style website is going the way of the dinosaurs. Dynamic, interactive websites that encourage dialog and participation and help you build relationships with customers and prospects is where it’s at. If you don’t have social and community-building elements built into your website, it’s time to rethink your online strategy.
- Your customers are online, in a big way, and they love social networking and social media. This video from MSNBC is one example. The fact that seniors are Facebook’s fastest growing demographic, by far, is another.
- Many experts, including myself, believe that social media/networking can and will have a profound impact on the quality of life of seniors living at home and in retirement communities – allowing them to stay connected to friends and family like never before. This study from the University of Alabama, and others like it, aim to prove that point with real data.
- Social media can be used for employer branding purposes and to help you recruit top talent. Sites like LinkedIn and Twitter can help you attract and engage both management and care staff. Branded online communities, like the one over at Terrace Communities, can function as a recruiting tool by posting jobs in the discussion forums and asking prospective employees participate in the online community during the interview process.
- Privacy and HIPAA issues, while important in our industry, should not prevent companies from adopting social technologies. With the proper strategies, policies, and guidelines in place, senior living and LTC companies can safely participate on the social web.
- A company blog is a critical tool in the social media tool box. It can drive traffic to your site, position your company as a trusted resource, and help you build community on the web. Whether you have a company blog or have yet to build one, these articles can help with your blogging strategy.
- Keeping up with the fast paced world of social media can be a job in and of itself, and presents as one of the biggest challenges for companies in every industry. New tools and applications enter the market every day. For companies in our industry, these 7 tools are the best place to start.
- Most senior living and LTC companies I’ve interviewed believe that social media ROI is difficult, if not impossible, to measure. Lucky for us, a couple of smart social media pros have shown that this is not necessarily the case. These articles cover the all-important ROI issue.
In part 2 of this series, which will be published next week, I will summarize what we learned from the interviews I conducted in the Social Media Success Series.
Build Your Social Media Presence In 2010
Thinking about starting a company blog? Interested in getting into social media but don’t know where to start? Fascinated by the prospect of online community? Contact us. CareNetworks is the only company dedicated soley to providing social media strategy and solutions to senior living and LTC providers.
Brian Geyser, APRN-BC, MSN is a clinician, consultant, educator, blogger, social media strategist, online community manager and the founder of Carenetworks, LLC. He blogs regularly here at Carenetworks.com and would love to connect with you on Twitter, Linkedin, and/or Facebook.
Senior Living And Socialnomics: Why Online Community Makes Fiscal Sense [Video]
“Why the heck would any senior living company want to invest in an online community? What’s the big whoop about all this social media babble anyway? I need to see some hard figures. What’s the ROI?”
Sound familiar? It kind of reminds me of back in the ’90′s when companies were still trying to decide if they should have a Website. “I mean, why do we need a Website? People can just look us up in the phone book.” That statement is laughable now, but the same phenomenon is occurring today when it comes to social media. While some progressive senior living companies have seen the light, most are still either burying their heads in the sand or just don’t get it (yet). The fact is, the vast majority of senior living company websites today are static, information-only billboards that don’t allow for user interaction, participation, or engagement. Smart senior living companies are capitalizing on the new social Web by building online communities for their audience, joining the conversations, and combining information with participation.
Wait, lets back up. What exactly is social media anyway? Well, according to Wikipedia, social media is media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing tools (like blogs, wikis, discussion forums, shared videos, etc.). It supports the human need for social interaction with technology, transforming broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogs (many to many). Social media supports the democratization of knowledge and information, transforming people from content consumers into content producers.
“Got it. So, what’s an online community?” An online community is simply a group of people who have something in common and who gather together using social media tools to connect, communicate, collaborate, and share. Everyday, millions of people with common interests or facing similar challenges create, join, and contribute to online communities; and business in every industry have taken notice.
“Okay, so how do I apply this to my business?” Senior living companies are in the business of community. An online community is simply a natural extension of what you already do everyday. Senior living communities are vibrant, dynamic places made up of residents, family members, staff, outside professionals, referral sources, and many others. The interactions, conversations, and activities that happen everyday in your offline community, can (and should) also be happening online. An online community can have marketing and operational benefits for you, and, more importantly, can provide a host of benefits to your residents, family members, and staff.
“Yeah, that’s all great, but (and here is the dreaded ROI question) what’s the ROI? I need to see some hard data.” Okay, I’ll show you some data in a minute, but let me first ask you a few questions.
- What’s the ROI for that Veteran’s Day event you held last week? You spent $1,700 on food, decorations, the bag pipers, and flyers. How do you measure ROI there?
- What’s the ROI of your phone system?
- What’s the ROI of your email system?
- How much would it be worth to have the ability for prospects to easily find you online and have an open dialog with your sales and marketing team, your clinical team, or your executive team anytime, from anywhere?
- What’s the value of providing a platform where staff can post articles with photos about the amazing things going on in your community every day; you can easily communicate company news to the world; and family members can stay in touch with their loved ones or reach out to staff for support?
Okay, now back to your ROI question. This video should cover it…
Brian Geyser, APRN-BC, MSN is a clinician, consultant, educator,
blogger, online community manager and the founder of Carenetworks, LLC. He blogs
regularly here at Carenetworks.com and would love to connect with you
on Twitter, Linkedin, and/or Facebook.
Social Media ROI: The Real Deal [SlideShare]
One of the best presentations on social media ROI I’ve seen. humorous, informative, entertaining. A little long, but worth it. If you’re wondering about how your senior living, eldercare, LTC, or homecare business can afford social media, watch and learn…
How Senior Living & Eldercare Companies Can Build A Winning Social Media Team
Senior living and eldercare service providers who dabble in social media quickly realize that, in order to do it right, they need a small internal crew of Web savvy staffers who can manage and be responsible for the organization’s social media efforts. Just check out any of my recent interviews with industry organizations using social media to prove my point. Even if you decide to hire a pro to do some of the work for you, people inside the organization still need to be involved. Here are a few ways to build your internal social media team without breaking the bank:
- Identify your crew. Look for people from different departments (admin., marketing, recreation, nursing, social services, food services, dementia care) who are already using social media in their daily lives (Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, etc.) and who would be jazzed about helping your organization get into it, or get better at it.
- Recruit your best staff. Try to get your stars from each department involved, even if they’re not all social media savvy. Include your company’s social connectors, like your receptionist and your popular direct care staff, in the mix.
- Promote a social culture. Let everyone from staff to customers to partners know about your social media strategy, empower them to get involved, and give them tools to do it.
- Participate yourself. Top managers and senior leaders of the organization must participate on a regular basis, even if just once a week. It’s hard to get your staff involved, engaged and excited if you’re not stepping up too. Plus, you want to have the perspective of senior leaders added to the mix.
- Communicate expectations. Decide what you expect from each member of the team and put it in writing. Make sure each member is able to dedicate a little time each day or each week to meeting the expectations.
- Identify a social media manager. One person within the organization should ultimately be responsible for all social media activity, including posting content, monitoring social media outposts, and responding to company-related activity. The marketing person may be a good choice. Sometimes it makes sense to have two co-managers. You can also hire an external pro to do some of this for you, but you will still need a point person within your company to work with the pro. To get a sense of what a social media manager does, check out this list.
- Cover yourself first. Have policies and guidelines in place so everyone knows what they can and cannot do online. Make sure you address HIPAA in your policies.
- Measure progress. Set goals with time lines and develop ways to ensure that you are achieving them. Here are a few resources for measuring social media success:
- Social Media Success Doesn’t Start With ROI
- KDPaine’s PR Measurement Blog
- STATS: 84% Of Social Media Programs Don’t Measure ROI (make sure to check out all the comments on this post for some goodies!)
Getting Professional Help
For some organizations, it may make sense to hire a pro to do the heavy lifting. The benefits to having an outside seasoned professional on your team can far outweigh the costs. Their experience, objectivity, technical skill, and guidance can be invaluable in a social media world that just keeps changing. Just make sure the person has a verifiable social media and online community building track record. Ideally, the person would also have direct experience in the industry and segment your company belongs to. For more about professional social media services to our industry, visit carenetworks.com.
Oh, and you may want to aviod this guy:
Related Posts
- Online Communities: Let Your Best employees Do The Marketing For You
- What Is A Social Media Expert? [Video] Too Funny!
Brian Geyser, APRN-BC, MSN is a clinician,
consultant, educator, blogger, online community manager and the founder
of Carenetworks, LLC. He blogs regularly here at Carenetworks.com and
would love to connect with you on Twitter, Linkedin, and/or Facebook.
Blog, Twitter, & Facebook = Big ROI at SeniorsforLiving.com
This is the third post in our new Social Media Success Series, which features interviews with innovative senior living, eldercare, home care, and dementia care companies who are using social media as a business/marketing tool. If you would like to have your organization considered for inclusion, contact us.
In this interview, Gina LaGuardia, Editorial Director at SeniorsforLiving.com shares some fantastic insights about how they are using Twitter, Facebook and a company blog to drive traffic to their Website, establish strategic alliances, nurture relationships, listen to and learn from others in the industry, extend their online reach, and build brand awareness.
Company Profile
SeniorsforLiving.com is a free consumer service that helps seniors and their families research, evaluate, compare and connect with quality assisted living, independent living, retirement communities, and other senior care providers.
Interview
1. What online properties, aside from your website, do you own/operate? We have a Twitter and Facebook account, plus a company blog on our Website.
Website
2. Why did you choose those? My personal experiences on Twitter have been immensely successful and edifying to my professional growth, so it made sense to try this for our business as well. As for Facebook, the statistics show tremendous growth in usage by baby boomers and seniors, and that’s our target audience. Our blog is our main content “voice.” Though we typically publish new features on our “Articles & Resources Page,” our blog — consistently updated five days a week — enables us to talk about current topics within the senior housing and senior care space/boomer trends/etc.
3. Who manages your blog, Twitter & Facebook accounts? I’m the editorial director for the company and I manage them. I have two bloggers who contribute to the blog, and I manage all posts. One blogger is a public policy coordinator for the Alzheimer’s Association and a former activities director at an assisted living community; the other works in health care.
4. How much time does it take you to manage the accounts per week? We are active on Twitter at least five days a week at various points throughout the day and night. We are in the process of allocating additional time to our Facebook group. On the blog, we update posts everyday, so it’s a full-time effort. 
5. How are you using each and who do want to reach? Twitter has been an invaluable source for connecting with other professionals in our industry who have similar interests and target markets. Although many of our followers may be perceived as “competition,” the potential for establishing business development and affiliate relationships has far outweighed any of those concerns. We are also primarily utilizing Twitter and Facebook to deploy content from our blog and establish a working partnership with other blogs and sites that provide content around similar issues.
One project I am particularly proud of that has developed from our initiative on Twitter is our Seniors/Boomers: News You Can Use blog carnival, which ensures high page views with each installment and numerous linkbacks (great for SEO), as well as increasing our blog readership and keeping us abreast of topics being discussed about senior housing/caregiving/boomer issues, etc.
We also regularly feature guest bloggers’ contributions on our blog based on synergies either between our two companies and/or the sharing of a common interests/goals. We do not pay for guest blogs, but we typically “blog post swap” where we also contribute a post to their site/blog. Without our blog, we wouldn’t have much “meat” to engage our SM followers with, so I’d say that is the means to the end. The tool I most enjoy and from which I personally derive the most value is Twitter.
6. Do you have a social media strategy? We definitely have a strategy — that is, to use social media to engage potential users and/or those who care deeply about seniors. As I mentioned, the relationships we have made has served to enhance our business, hone our editorial message, and enable us to emerge as a leader among online senior housing/senior care directories.
7. What is your primary goal for using social media? To increase branding for our site across social networks, establish ourselves as a content leader in the space, and affiliate with those who are equally passionate about seniors and providing the best care for loved ones.
8. Are you planning to expand your social media reach? Yes, we are planning to increase our footprint on Facebook in coming months and are considering LinkedIn as another avenue for expansion.
9. Are people responding? They are, and those with whom we have connected have proven helpful both in terms of expanding our base of knowledge about issues related to senior housing and senior care and in expanding our audience. Social media is truly a community of colleagues and friends. The key is to find people with whom you share interests, goals, and passion. For us, we regularly watch the #seniors, #boomers, and #caregiving hashtags (on Twitter) and conduct those (and related) keyword searches. What may begin as a business initiative to garner a mass to whom you can share news of your services, offerings, products, etc. will turn into a group of people you respect, rely on for information, advice, and insight, etc. It’s truly an amazing thing to watch evolve and flourish!
10. What are your biggest challenges so far? There is a time issue…. The best cultivation of social media, in my opinion, is enhanced by an adequate investment of time.
11. Did you have to try to convince someone at your organization to try social media? The management of SeniorsforLiving.com has been very supportive of our social media efforts, and the rewards are plentiful — from increased site visits and SM referrals to connecting with our partners and clients online.
12. Are employees on board with your efforts? Yes, although I am the only representative Tweeting at this time.
13. How are you measuring success? We are monitoring success via page referrals from the SM sites, linkbacks to content hubs, feedback from clients and users, etc.
14. Can you tell if your social media activities, including the blog, have actually affected your bottom line? Have you garnered actual paying customers because of your blog, twitter or facebook accounts? We have certainly reaped an increase of traffic thanks to those users who have discovered us via our various SM endeavors. Additionally, the linkbacks garnered as a result of SM are very effective for our SEO initiatives. We have also made quite a mark with our partner communities and providers who are watching our SM efforts and seeking us out as they climb aboard themselves.
15. What’s the one piece of advice you would give other senior living, home care, eldercare, or dementia care companies about getting into social media? Social media should be an important aspect to your online marketing plan. The potential to connect with customers and potential customers is ever evolving and never ceases to amaze me. Smart companies will not only converse with others about their services and offerings, but about the everyday challenges of senior housing and senior care. It should be about relationship building, not drumming up business.
___________________________________________________________________
For more about senior living online communities and social media, visit carenetworks.com. To ensure you get more post like this delivered right to you as they are published, subscribe to our blog.
For more information about SeniorsforLiving.com, contact:
Doug Johnson | EVP-Sales & Marketing | Seniors for Living | P: 212-490-6290 x227| F: 212-490-6296 or visit them online at SeniorsforLiving.com, Twitter, or Facebook. My thanks to Gina LaGuardia for taking the time to share her amazing insights!
Related Posts
- California’s Largest Retirement Community Kicks Butt Using Social Media
- Homecare Company Uses Twitter To Build Brand Awareness & More
- Web Savvy Senior Living Companies Are Making The Move To Social Media. Are You?
- Social Media: Are You Ready? [Great Video]
Brian Geyser, APRN-BC, MSN is a clinician, consultant, educator,
blogger, online community manager and the founder of Carenetworks, LLC. He blogs
regularly here at Carenetworks.com and would love to connect with you
on Twitter, Linkedin, and/or Facebook.