The brilliance of this tool for BrightStar is that they offer the tool for free to anyone, even if you’re not a BrightStar customer. This puts the BrightStar brand in front of non-customers who may need BrightStar’s services and offers these prospects a powerful tool that provides real value. Customers get the added bonus of being able to integrate the tool into BrightStar’s scheduling system – allowing them to better manage care appointments.

The tool is similar to Lotsa Helping Hands and Cozy, both of which are also free. Here’s a video explaining the tool:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6FOufZV8zM

Senior living communities are very social places, so it would stand to reason that senior living companies would want to showcase some of the social aspects of their communities on their website.

Many senior living companies use a Facebook Page as an online community for residents, staff, and family members, but most don’t integrate that Facebook Page into their websites. Why not? The standard way senior living companies demonstrate their presence on Facebook is by placing a small Facebook icon on their homepage, but who really ever clicks on those?

Why not entice people to visit your Facebook Page by embedding a small section of the actual page right into your website’s homepage using Facebook Social Plugins instead?

When we sat down recently with the folks at Meadow Ridge, a premier Continuing Care Retirement Community in Connecticut, to develop a strategy for their new website, we made the case for building social integration right into the design.

Meadow Ridge is an amazingly vibrant place with a beautiful campus, state-of-the-art facilities, a talented leadership team, and, most importantly, a lively community of residents, staff, and family members. But their website was an outdated and static digital brochure with no ability for site visitors to get a real sense of the place, a feel for the community, or to engage with the company through modern social channels.

So, among many of the strategic design elements we built into the site, we embedded their Facebook Page right into the homepage.

The plugin gives the page a dynamic social feel and shows that the company has real fans who love them, not stock images of fake seniors spouting canned marketing messages. Check out the site and let us know what you think.

If you’re interested in a new strategic social design for your website, contact us. We’d be glad to help. 

• What Every LTC Organization Needs to Know About Their Website
• Social Media and HIPAA: What You Need to Know
• How Senior Living & Eldercare Companies Can Build a Winning Social Media Team

Whatever the reason, we want to thank the good folks at SeniorHomes.com for nominating us, and thank you for voting for us (which you can do here).

So what’s in store for 2012 besides hopefully winning this awesome award? Well we’ve been busy helping senior living, home care, LTC and hospice companies around the country tap into the power of updating their websites and adding social media to the mix, and we’ll have some great real-life stories to tell in the coming months, so stay tuned.

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:

1. Attract new visitors
2. Inform site visitors
3. Engage site visitors
4. 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.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC_M6PzXS9g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ7-n930zJo

When Dave deBronkart learned he had a rare and terminal cancer, he turned to a group of fellow patients online — and found the medical treatment that saved his life. Now he calls on all patients to talk with one another, know their own health data, and make health care better one e-Patient at a time. The tide is turning….

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;-)