Posts Tagged ‘social media’
Medtech Using Social Media #5: Winning the Lottery
Our conversations help individuals lead groups forward.
Working on a client’s factory floor yesterday, I heard a guy describe how his troubles would be over if only he won the lottery. It’s a common enough thing to say and I’m sure we all think it from time to time. I happen to think winning the lottery would be more like trading one set of problems for another. Without the life disciplines that build on any skill (including making money), without a bit of thankfulness, suddenly receiving lots of money may not change all that much about a person’s life. Maybe for the moment more expensive toys enter the picture. But without discipline, the money eventually runs out and even larger debts take their place.
In marketing communication, just like in every other area of life, we search for the perfect tool that will solve everything. The perfect strategy of engagement. The perfect ad or the perfect media buy. The perfect social media tool. But deep-down we all know that perfect tools don’t exist. Or perhaps the perfect tool for the job does exist, but it gets corrupted when interacting with us.
The vision for engagement using these new social media tools is a vision for engaged contact with a group of people who believe in what you are talking about because you are talking about what they believe in. The vision is precisely not sharpening the perfect tool for the perfect kill (that is, the perfect sale, or the perfect implantation of our message in some consumer’s brain along with the instruction to “Buy!”). And even though lots of folks are—for the moment—listening to the social media channels, with Twitter and Facebook making headline news daily, newer channels will arise and suck away attention. The enduring lesson is that we all do better when we talk things through—no matter what technology enables that talk.
The equivalent to winning the lottery for a medical device firm using social media is a group of committed friends, colleagues and fellow-travelers making a journey together. It is a group where questions are shared as freely as answers. It is a collection of conversations where your brand is given legs and flesh as the brand promise works its way out through conversation after conversation. Winning the lottery is about building a fierce loyalty along the way.
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Medtech Using Social Media #4: The Power of the Question
Yes--what is your question?
A question changes everything. A question mark sets a thought on a pedestal in the street and invites comment. It says, “I don’t know the answer—do you?” When I teach, a question is one of my most powerful tools. With a question I ask for input while simultaneously implying “You’ve got something valuable to say and I want to hear it.” The best, most fruitful discussions happen when I present what I know and then invite students to contribute from their experience and thinking. Something alive often happens, something I could not plan for or even predict. Something that moves us all forward.
For marketers, the question is equally powerful. If we’re lucky, we’re in a team where we can ask questions openly rather than pretending to own all the answers. Our usual path to outward communication is to ask our questions in the (relatively) protected environs of conference rooms and among colleagues. Then we polish and hone the messages into one-way barbs to shoot out through our media channels. But what if the questions themselves were our communication points? What if we started with questions to our growing community of similarly-interested people, long before we ever started polishing messages for public consumption?
Once upon a time my team worked on promoting a new heart failure device. We identified a single main message that incorporated three strong benefits (based on market research) which became the core of our campaign. We tested our messages informally, received anecdotal feedback and pushed forward. Today, with the help of social media, that scenario might look like this: take the received market research, our questions and immediately begin dialogue. Proceed with message polishing and honing even as the community dialogue continues. At some point the internal and external dialogues blend and the end result is something beyond what we could conceive on our own. Best of all, this new something already his mind-share in a community of interested people. And if you have a sales force, you know that mindshare is a key gear for turning sales.
Next Up: What would dialogue success look like?
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Photo credit: Colt Elementary PTO & JustHost.com
Medical Device Firms Using Social Media, Step #2.1: Curious People Make Better Conversation Partners
I'm interesting? You're fascinating!
Frenemies are talking—according to one medical-device insider—but mostly because the genie is out of the bottle. What we need is a wave of curiosity to beset our organizations.
You know and love curious people: they are the ones who unearth some fact about you when in conversation, find it fascinating, and then probe your knowledge of it. And when anybody finds us fascinating—they are instantly fascinating themselves.
Seth Godin, in Tribes, describes the difference between a fundamentalist and a curious person. He wasn’t talking (only) about religion. A fundamentalist receives new information or experience and immediately compares it with established dogma with the intent to reject (or perhaps even approve). In contrast the curious person receives the new information or experience and immediately engages what they have learned with what they know, looking for areas of overlap and disagreement. The curious will also reject ideas, but not before engaging, understanding and even mentally giving the idea a test drive.
Bless the hiring managers who incorporate curious regulators and lawyers into these positions—people willing to explore a changing communication landscape even while respecting the letter of the law.
Can we resolve to test for curiosity before hiring?
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Photo credit: OpenPhoto / Sarah Klockars-Clauser
Medical Device Firms Using Social Media, Step #3: A Busker’s Tip for Making Friends in the World
Studio perfect or street-corner authentic?
When thinking about social media or advertising, there’s a familiar hurdle for every medical device marketer: a narrow audience. Unless you are marketing consumer goods, most target audiences need to be found through existing channels that cater to the specific needs of that particular, well-defined audience. It was a function of our old scarcity economy, where there were few channels that spoke directly to, say electrophysiologsts. So we ponied up our advertising dollars to buy a double-truck ad in PACE.
But communication is changing as fast as media opportunities emerge. How to take advantage of them? Let a busker answer the question. For Rob Firenix, a fire-dancing comic I met in Windsor, Ontario at the International Busker Festival, the best part of busking is “speaking directly to the audience.” Standing before an audience he has gathered lets him tweak material and get instant feedback.
Glen Hansard, the Irish musician, “Once” actor and Oscar winner (with Marketa Irglova) for best song started his artistic life as a busker. “When you are playing in the street, you are open to the street around you. The street becomes your club and people start to trust you.” Hansard describes the difference (around six minutes into this World Cafe recording) between making music in the studio and making it on the street. The studio allows the opportunity to perfect the sound while putting together something light and airy out in the public has a different kind of authenticity.
After looking for dialogue partners and pursuing the important internal conversations, find a way to get your conversation going with the people you want to reach. You want to start a conversation that will attract the dialogue partners whom you would have only received 10% interest from with your PACE print ad. But engaging them the way a busker attracts and holds an audience is worth the effort. Find your dialogue partners with authentic posts, useful information and well, entertainment.
Why not start today?
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conversation is an engine 