HOME #13 - Be Everywhere

[Christopher Boyer]

BE EVERYWHERE - hospitals today are facing a difficult challenge - how to combine effective offline marketing techniques with online marketing. Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing - does it really matter?

And can you preserve your brand on the internet?

What can a hospital do?

Search engines are becoming content creators. No longer are they just returning websites - now they're returning answers - like stock prices, movie listings, weather. Death to websites - death to the domain.

In a Google/Facebook/Twitter world, does a single domain really matter? Or are these other websites just pale imitations of your own website? Is social media just websites if your own website? A multiplication of your online presence? Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, FriendFeed, Vimeo - are these just rubber stamps of your so-called online life? Longtail this!

The ghetto-ization of the web, brought to you by Google!

How do I take back the web? It's uncontrollable! Yes, I have a brand - but on the web, do I really own it?

A Control Freak's Guide to Social Media = "Don't be a control freak!" I am the master of my own domain. These are the rules on how NOT to respond on social media:
1) Feed the trolls
2) Don't be transparent
3) Don't participate
4) Build walls and not doors

Social media's impact, like Woodstock (like U2, like hula-hoops, like Stephen Colbert, like Rush Limbaugh) is highly exaggerated. We need real-world interaction. All this emphasis on "SEO-this," "SMO-that" is stupid. The web will never cure a disease. It will never take care of a sick child.

Television has more impact than any viral video - for now.

But marketing still matters. Online, offline - it still matters. Having your online presence on multiple sites is good. The web is a huge distribution network reaching out to your patients. And you need to provide the answers - the right answers - on your website. And social media not only provides distribution, it provides transparency. Radical transparency.

It's the dream of social media - "no more crappy products" and "open conversations." And on the web, what you write, what you comment on, the content on your site, it lasts forever.

Listen, online marketing is necessary, but it's not the only thing going. The old paradigm was on ownership of brand, and authoritative answers. The new paradigm is to be in multiple locations at once.

Be Everywhere.