The word is that it takes decades to build a good name and moments to ruin it forever. It used to be that folks could claim credit for things that they had no part in and run from the bad news with which they might have played a big part.  Not so in 2011. The www, phones with cameras and tweets galore make us all potentially infamous.

In this spirit a few words for Mr. Cain:
1) Strike the word NEVER…immediately makes one suspect.
2) Your own personal communications program should be a plan.
3) You can’t make it up as you go along.
4) What you said at noon will be repeated to you at 4. Count on it.
5) You have successfully placed yourself into public life. The rules are different now.
6) The other members of your party are not on your team. They are out to destroy you.
7) Your message points have to be truthful. Truth floats.
Stick to your message points. Don’t go off script.
9) Asking “who” made the allegation does tend to acknowledge that there is a real one.
10) The people at The National Press Club are not your friends.
Gang,
We coach on this sort of thing. Best we can offer up is to tell the truth. Tell it the best way you know how, but tell the truth. Get the bads news out fast. Absence of your point-of-view will enable your enemies to make up their own version. And once you deploy the facts and answer the questions, behave with sincerity. You can then move on to whatever it was you were doing prior to the mayhem. But sadly, at this point the playing field is not the one that you knew it to be.

60 Second Articles:

1. Six Months Down, Six To Go: A Reality Check To Increasing Your Profits
2. Lost In Space? Get Google’s 32-Page SEO Starter Guide
3. Why Word Of Mouth Should Be Part Of Your Marketing Plan
4. The 60 Second Close: You Don’t Get This From Others 

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1. Six Months Down, Six To Go: A Reality Check To Increasing Your Profits

• This month marks the halfway point of 2011, a year projected to have a positive economic rebound for most companies. But one thing seems to remain the same: out of a need to increase profits, many companies are still actively seeking the magic answer by jumping online for the next big thing, hoping for easier ways to profit.
   
• While many great online tools are available, the most successful companies are well grounded in traditional marketing. These businesses understand that to win the game, a company must excel inside before it can excel outside. Companies such as Nordstrom have followed this template perfectly for years.
   
• With six months to go, where is your company focusing its efforts? On the hopes that a social media miracle will supply instant profits or on pushing the internal operations of your company up a notch? 

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2. Lost In Space? Get Google’s 32-Page SEO Starter Guide

• The foundation of online marketing is search engine optimization – being easily found online when a user types in and searches keyword phrases relevant to your company’s product or service.
   
• While it’s a challenge to get listed within Google’s first two pages, as three million other companies are competing for the same twenty spots, it can be done.
   
• More companies, tired of being lost in cyberspace and hurting from the lack of online visibility, are realizing the importance of budgeting additional dollars to hire the right team to accomplish the goal of being found online – and hopefully within Google’s first two pages.
   
• To learn more about SEO, just email me for a free copy of Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide.

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3. Why Word Of Mouth Should Be Part Of Your Marketing Plan

• The most important and trusted source of information a consumer gets about your company’s product or service is not from your company’s marketing efforts, but from other consumers. Their reviews and recommendations can make or break your company.
   
• With the trust level of consumers talking to consumers, more companies are allocating their marketing dollars into creating experiences at every customer touchpoint to ensure a stronger word of mouth and a better customer experience. 

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4. The 60 Second Close: You Don’t Get This From Others 

• Differentiation is a big part of the services our company provides. While we can easily draw the pictures and come up with the big idea, our strength is in guiding your business in the right direction and making sure every element and process is in place to ensure your success.
   
• From the very obvious aspects to the things you never think of, such as helping you build a championship team, separating the online facts from fiction and even advising on intellectual property rights, we’re a little different than your normal advertising marketing firm. And we’re proud of that.
   
• If you’re ready to experience something a little different, then call us. We can get you there … faster than ever. And don’t forget to email me to obtain your free copy of Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide.

Social media now allows a hospital to be a part of a patient’s journey, no longer just a building with intelligent employees and expensive equipment, but a friend who shares in celebrations and hard ships. Through the creation of a robust social media strategy, a hospital is able to connect more effectively with consumers, meet patients before they arrive and maintain friendships after they leave. It is through this communication venue that long sustaining relationships and referrals are often cultivated.

Schneck Medical Center is one such place. Through its Facebook page, Schneck is engaging with patients, meeting new ones and sharing its unique healthcare capabilities.

60 Second Articles:

1. Turn Your Website Into A New Business Generator With 12 Product Offers
2. Three Key Sales-Building Tools For Twitter No One Told You About
3. Is Customer Satisfaction A Policy Of Yours? Get Rid Of It Now!
4. The 60 Second Close: You’re In The Media Business Now!

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1. Turn Your Website Into A New Business Generator With 12 Product Offers

• The purpose of a website, beyond being an informational platform, is to convert users into leads, ultimately nurturing those leads into qualified prospects and customers.

• Most companies have forgotten this critical objective, resulting in an unfavorable online return on investment. A website should inform, subtly sell and capture as much information about visitors as possible by incorporating a lead generation function

• To attract and capture leads, a strong landing page is critical to persuade visitors to participate in various offers in return for providing contact information. The more valuable and category-specific content a website offers, the more visitors register to receive it, eventually creating more leads and turning your website into a new business generator.

• Below are 12 kinds of products you should consider offering on your website, at various times, that can effectively convert your visitors into leads:
   
  1. E-book
  2. Newsletter
  3. Webinar
  4. Research results
  5. Testimonials
  6. Case studies
  7. Mobile application
  8. Infographics
  9. Special articles
  10. Videos
  11. Whitepapers
  12. Podcasts

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2.  Three Key Sales-Building Tools For Twitter That No One Told You About

• Automatic “Thank You” Notes: Instantly send a personalized “Thank You” message to every new follower to your Twitter account with more information about your company. Read more www.socialoomph.com

• Look Who’s Secretly Talking: Search out those tweeting about your company that you’re not aware of because they’re not replying back to you, at www.BackTweets.com

• Network and Lead Generation: To find prospects by their occupation in a specific geographic location, as listed on their Twitter bio, visit Google and type the following in the search field:
  intext:”bio * occupation” intext:”location * State” site:twitter.com — specifying both the occupation and the state.

• For example, to find attorneys in Texas, type the following into Google’s search field:
  intext:”bio * attorney” intext:”location * Texas” site:twitter.com — and Google searches Twitter profiles that have “attorney” in the Bio field and “Texas” in the Location field. Also do a separate search with the State abbreviated.

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3.  Is Customer Satisfaction A Policy Of Yours? Get Rid Of It Now!

• It’s time to get rid of “customer satisfaction.” This worn-out phrase from the ‘60’s did its job, but times have changed.

• Nowadays, no company – regardless of its product or service – can afford to keep merely satisfied customers or clients. Aim higher and replace satisfaction with excellence. Aim for “customer love.”

• Old customer satisfaction programs must be elevated so customers rave about your product or service, sharing their experiences with others. This way, customers become your own marketing ambassadors.

• Upgrading your customer satisfaction program can bring huge results for your company. Your choice: just a satisfied customer or one who’s really in love with you?

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4. The 60 Second Close:  You’re In The Media Business Now!

• No matter the business category, in order to be successful online, companies must be active in the media business by publishing articles, videos, testimonials, podcasts and more.

• The Internet provides countless opportunities to publish content so it is found by prospective customers and clients. The more a company’s content is found online, the more successful the company as the website becomes a new business generator.

• Developing website content should be an important part of your marketing plan. What will you publish? How will it be found? How will you capture leads and turn them into customers?

• These are the actions we implement for our clients to help them succeed. We’re ready to do the same for you. Just call us. We can get you there … faster than ever.

The conference featured some of the most influential leaders in word of mouth and social media marketing including Brian Solis, Geno Church, John Moore, Duncan Watts, and more. We garnered insights on topics ranging from mobile marketing, to influencer outreach, to bringing sexy back to offline marketing. One consistent thread throughout the entire conference was – every single consumer touchpoint provides an opportunity to make your brand talkable.

Every time a consumer interacts with your brand (whether that is using your restaurant’s bathroom, reading your product label on a store shelf, or engaging with your staff) it is an opportunity to make a consumer not only remember your brand, but to fall in love with your brand and to tell others about it.

Word of mouth is all about giving people reasons to talk about your brand – what are you doing to keep your brand talkable?

To find a few more lessons from school, check out our tweets from @auntiekaykay and @Collopyj1.

More and more, people want—and expect—information at their fingertips. And research is predicting that within five years, more people will access their mobile devices than PCs. As marketers, we need to meet our consumers at their connection points. And as experts in the healthcare industry, we’ve identified a number of opportunities for hospitals to be more accessible to their patients and physicians with web sites formatted for mobile usage, as well as mobile phone apps. Having that top-of-mind hospital app for on-the-go consumers and physicians can give hospitals an edge. Just think of the possibilities – strengthening your community presence, extending your infrastructure, expanding your patient education offerings and supporting your physicians – whenever and wherever your customers need access.

If you are looking for ways to maximize your communication opportunities, visit us at http://www.northlichhealth.com.

But as the conversations progressed and the discussion turned to dealing with potential food crisis and communicating product recalls via social media (my contribution to the panel), I quickly realized there was a gaping disconnect. Suffice it to say I was virtually sitting alone at the table … and it was lonely. And somewhat alarming.

For the past two to three years many of us in the public relations and marketing communications field have been studying, planning, strategizing, communicating and ENGAGING audiences via social media channels and doing so with content and conversations that we sincerely believe matters. But I now realize that in many of these engagements the true “experts” – those with years of first-hand experience and battle scars earned saving lives and averting disaster – are often left sitting on the side lines in times of crisis. It’s as if the tables have been shifted and the proverbial card table is now overflowing with expert opinion, hard-fought for and well-deserved accredited initials, and voices that should and must be heard.

So, when will these “experts” join us at the BIG table? When we make room for them and invite them to share, participate and engage. Let’s add a leaf (or two or three) to the Social Media table and pull up more chairs. There’s always plenty of opinion. Let’s be sure to add some “experts.”

Charlene shared her insights on building relationships with social media tools like Twitter, Facebook, Blogging, etc. She emphasized that while these tools help facilitate relationships, they aren’t the foundation. That foundation comes from a mutual understanding of the informality of the platform.  Think about your personal relationships. They are safe, trusting and friendly, right? Now, envision social media relationships exactly the same way.  Here are two important things to remember:

Relationships take time to grow.

A strong social media community will not be built overnight. Yes, Charlie Sheen may have been the fastest to 1 million followers on Twitter, but is that really a community or simply a popularity contest?  Healthy social media growth is built on a strong strategy of consistent and valuable content that helps everyone succeed.

Relationships are not immune to problems.

In all relationships, mistakes are made and apologies are needed. Inappropriate tweets and status updates will inevitably happen. When they do, take ownership, apologize, and begin the process of rebuilding the relationship. That old adage about what you put into a relationship is what you get out of it. Yeah, it applies to social media.

Geno stressed the difference between campaigns and movements. So often in this business we try to start campaigns. But the problem with campaigns is that they have a start and an end. Movements, on the other hand, continue as long as the passion is alive. Influence can be made, but passion cannot.

By identifying those that are passionate about your business, understanding what fuels that passion, and handing them the reins to your business – you will create a sustainable social movement that creates people that are on fire for your brand.

Whether your mission is to stop the horrible act of human slavery or sell more orange handled scissors, it’s about the people. Identify passionate people and empower them to move your brand forward. People, the true killer app.

According to ebennett.org, a site dedicated to studying social media and its impact on healthcare, there are nearly 900 hospitals in the US with some sort of social media presence. Why? Because they see the opportunity! Just by creating a social media presence, they could become top-of-mind in these conversations. It might come from a Facebook page tag in a patient’s status update about a pleasant experience, or a tweet from a patient asking for recommendations on specific service lines. Having these handles allows a hospital to be present and respond quickly and effectively. Patients are talking. Shouldn’t you be?