by Ken Krause | Oct 26, 2016 | Blog
By now you’ve no doubt heard about the benefits of establishing a corporate blog. One of the most important, of course, is for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes. Google (and other search engines) rewards frequent content updates on your website, so if your blog is connected to your website, and it’s active you’ll rise in the organic search rankings. That makes blog writing a pretty important part of your marketing program.
This simple fact creates an ongoing challenge for many, however. Namely, coming up with interesting topics to blog about.
Sometimes the ideas flow easily, especially at first. It seems like you have a cornucopia of information to share with the market. After that initial gold rush, however, you find yourself staring at the blinking, nagging cursor for longer and longer periods of time. You’ve expended the obvious topics and begin to wonder if establishing that blog was such a great idea after all.
The reality is great blog writing ideas are all around you. They crop up in your life every day. Like Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza’s idea for a show about nothing, you just have to learn to recognize them.
Comment on industry articles
One of the good things about working in healthcare and health IT (HIT) is that there is never a lack of new information, new approaches, new discoveries or new regulations coming out. Most of us get several newsletter and at least scan the headlines every day.
These articles can become a rich source of blog fodder. For example, if an article announces a new rule or a change to a program from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) that will affect your customers/clients, that’s a blog post! Link to the original article, provide a one- or two-sentence synopsis, then add your thoughts about what it means to the industry.
Or perhaps a new research report has come out that could affect your clients. Again, bringing it to your clients’ attention and providing a little analysis with it can provide added value to them while giving you a blog post that practically writes itself.
Share a tip or trick that helped a client with a general issue
This is another rich source of blog writing ideas. Perhaps your team has helped a client solve a particular issue, such as data that needed to be scrubbed in a certain way in order to be used in a specific electronic health records (EHR) system. Whatever the issue, there’s a good chance it isn’t just that one client who is facing it.
Talk about the challenge, and the problems it’s causing, then explain how to solve it. All you really have to do is recap what you’ve already done no original thinking required. If you’re not directly involved with this aspect of the business, check with the development or customer service team. They can probably keep you supplied with ideas for months. Just be sure not to give away anything the business would consider a competitive advantage.
Blog about discoveries in a related field
Everything you write about doesn’t have to be directly in your company’s space. Sometimes it can just have a loose relationship with a tie-back later.
Take the example of cognitive computing. There are all sorts of advances in this area going on outside of healthcare as well as inside. If you hear about how cognitive computing is being applied to make self-driving cars smarter, there’s a blog post. You can write about what is already happening with cars, the speculate on how it might affect healthcare or HIT in the future.
Mine some key data
Data and analytics are huge in healthcare and HIT these days. It seems just about every organization is generating tons of them. Most, however, are under-utilizing that information, especially when it comes to marketing.
You can take advantage of that by looking through the reports for trends that are interesting without giving away anything that again is proprietary. For example, if you have software that enables payers to create member portals, and there is a sudden uptick in the number of portals your team is creating, you may want to comment about how portals are on the rise and speculate as to why. That will also give you an opportunity to talk about the advantages of portals to encourage more sales.
Or maybe you see that your clients’ customer satisfaction scores are suddenly on the rise. You can find out what changes they’ve made to enable that to happen and share them with your blog audience.
Pay attention to day-to-day conversations
Each day you, your co-workers, your clients and others share information and ideas in passing. It may be through conversations, emails, reports, meetings or some other sources.
Hidden within the ordinary course of business may be a few nuggets that can make worthy blog posts. All you’ll need to do is listen to them with that filter in mind. If a co-worker says something you find interesting write it down. Establish a folder for emails that contain good ideas that you can reference later if you’re stuck.
However you save them, the good news is when you need an idea and none are coming to you immediately you can go back to your files and dig one up. Just be sure you have enough information available to remember what the original topic was. Nothing worse than having a great headline and no idea what it means.
Work with your PR agency on ideas
While most healthcare and health IT companies tend to be very specialized in a particular aspect of the industry, PR agencies such as Amendola Communications cover a much wider swath. That can work in your favor by bringing in ideas that are related to, but not dead center in, your sweet spot.
If you have one, you can brainstorm topics with your PR agency, taking advantage of their experience to in other areas, especially general industry knowledge, to develop blog topics you might not have thought of on your own.
Of course, having a PR agency also means you can turn over some or all of the content creation to them, particularly if writing isn’t your strong suit. But even if you prefer to do your own writing, that sort of collaboration can open you to new ideas and areas that help build your blog as a go-to resource for your target audience.
Yes, blog writing can be challenging. The Internet is always hungry for new content. But the reality is great ideas for posts are all around you. You just have to know how to find them or let them find you.
by Ken Krause | Oct 5, 2016 | Blog
Clamoring to get the most followers on social media doesn’t always translate to a profitable social media audience. It actually can create a lot of noise instead of driving profitable traffic.
Social media platforms are a way to connect with people without the restraints of proximity. A profitable social media audience is composed of specific followers not just anyone and everyone. Imagine your company’s social media account as a storefront. You want potential buyers looking through your windows not loiterers, right?
No matter what social media platform you are using it will work best when your foundation is solid, meaning your audience cares about what you are doing. Your social media audience needs to be built of 3 main groups: influencers and experts relevant to your brand, decision makers in your target market, and the field agents of those decision makers.
The beauty of the social platform is the sheer amount of people you can reach which happens to be the same obstacle in getting these influencers and decision makers to listen to you. So how do you build a social media audience that will give you a return on your investment? Give them a reason to follow you, tailor to how or where they are listening to you, and listen and engage with the right people.
Give them a reason to listen: Post Relevant Content
I see far too many companies posting about irrelevant content just to keep up with random trends. I worked with a car dealership that posted an “I hate Mondays” meme every week on Facebook. The social media manager thought it was funny but it sent the message that the company is lazy.
Ask yourself if the trend is just random or can it add value to your social media strategy? Sometimes that answer is yes, it can add value. On National Dog Day there were many companies posting about their employee’s dogs or dogs that were brought into the office. It gave the reader some insight into the company and engaged employees.
Jumping on a trend will get you visibility to a wide audience which may happen catch the eye of your target market. Get creative and route the trend back to your topic of influence. Don’t avoid trends, but do consider if it is worth posting, or better yet worth reading from your target’s perspective.
Tailor your content to where they are listening: Understand the Platform
There are dozens of social media platforms available, but you don’t need to be on all of them. In my opinion there are 3 core platforms that are beneficial for healthcare IT companies: Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Other notable platforms are Instagram (if you have the right content), Pintrest, and Google+.
When choosing which platforms you want to use for your company’s social strategy make sure you understand each. If you are not using the platform yourself I recommend starting your own account.
Using the platform daily helps you understand what type of content is being posted and what content is working. Then it is easy to see what type of content you and others like to see on each different platform.
Each platform is unique and while one person might be on multiple platforms it doesn’t mean they go to each to look for the same thing. LinkedIn is used for professionals and companies looking to connect in a professional way. Typically LinkedIn is where you want to have a formal voice where Instagram is where people look for visual content. Think about what type of content you want to see and interact with on each platform to help tailor the company’s account content.
Engage with the right people: Find the Industry Influencers and Connectors
Finding the right people can be difficult. Start by growing which accounts your company will follow. Vendors, publications that run positives stories about your company, and other industry leaders of interest are a great place to start. Don’t forget to check out what accounts your competitors are following!
Always thinking from the viewer’s perspective, build up your accounts to be perceived as prestigious to others when they come to view. Follow only legitimate accounts that are leaders, active influencers, and clients or users. You will find accounts will begin to follow yours back as long as you are posting good, relevant content.
Starting a following is where the nerve-wracking guesswork beings. No reason to get nervous yet; in fact you probably already have a following. Email lists, followers on other platforms, and employees are all potential followers that are already engaging with your company in a different way. If you are nervous about asking your email followers to follow yet another place to get your content, remember that they already said they like you. Prove them right by continuing to feed them content that is relevant and beneficial for them.
Growing your company’s profitable social media audience is important but typically a little slower. Since you are already posting good, relevant content and using trends wisely you will see some followers trickle in. Gain more visibility by posting or sharing others content. Tag them in your posts along with using hash tags. Try using search terms to find people talking about problems your company can fix and join in on relevant conversations.
Social media is not a monologue or the old school marketing tactic of talking at your audience. Now we have the chance to engage through dialogue with our audience in real time. Capitalize on this opportunity to drive profit through a profitable social media audience rather than attracting loiterers.
by admin | Aug 24, 2016 | News
Amendola Communications, a nationally recognized, award-winning healthcare and healthcare IT public relations and marketing agency, announced today that it has been selected as the agency of record for Vocera Communications, Inc. (NYSE:VCRA). Amendola will provide a broad range of public relations and content services that promote Vocera’s mission to break down communication barriers and improve the healthcare experience for patients, families and care team members around the world.
“We knew Amendola Communications was the right agency to promote our unique value proposition to the right audiences and media outlets, with its deep industry knowledge and significant media and analyst relationships in the healthcare and healthcare IT sectors,” said Kathy English, Vice President of Enterprise Marketing. “The decision to hire Amendola was a clear and easy one to make after vetting the agency’s track record of delivering high-performance PR and marketing campaigns in our targeted markets. In just a few months, Amendola has already exceeded our expectations.”
Smartphones and wireless technology are fundamentally changing how care teams connect and collaborate, and Vocera is leading the way by supporting all types of communication, working in concert with multiple devices, and integrating with more than 70 clinical systems. The Vocera Communication Platform provides a secure, enterprise-class solution with an intelligent active staff directory that enables users to connect and communicate with each other instantly via voice communication, secure text messaging, and contextual alarm notifications. Used by more than 1,000 hospitals around the world, Vocera delivers the right information to the right person at the right time, saving valuable steps and time.
Amendola Communications is executing public relations, social media and content marketing strategy and programs for Vocera, with a special focus on the company’s thought leadership. Vocera’s leadership team is made up of widely respected clinicians and tech industry luminaries who are at the forefront of national movements in healthcare today, including offering technology solutions that address longstanding communication challenges and restoring the human connection at every point of a patient’s healthcare experience.
“We felt an instant connection to Vocera’s impressive team and look forward to promoting their initiatives and successes in this high-tech market where we have deep expertise,” said Jodi Amendola, CEO of Amendola Communications. “Our team is leveraging both Vocera’s thought leaders and clients to convey their important value proposition to the healthcare industry that critically depends on teamwork and the right information in order to globally dismantle communication barriers across even the largest healthcare enterprises.”
About Amendola Communications
Amendola Communications is an award-winning national public relations, marketing communications, social media and content marketing firm. Named one of the best information technology (IT) PR firms in the nation four times by PRSourceCode, Amendola represents some of the best-known brands and groundbreaking startups in the healthcare and HIT industries. Amendola’s seasoned team of PR and marketing pros delivers strategic guidance and effective solutions to help organizations boost their reputation and drive market share. For more information about the PR industry’s “A Team,” visit www.acmarketingpr.com, and follow Amendola on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Media Contact: Tara Stultz | 440.225.9595| tstultz@acmarketingpr.com
by Alex Whitten | Aug 10, 2016 | Blog
Honestly, before I started as a PR intern at Amendola Communications three months ago I knew relatively nothing about Public Relations.
I’m currently studying journalism at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, so while I have had some exposure to PR, I really didn’t know what it takes to work in the field day to day. I only knew how the two fields intertwined.
Add to that the challenges of having a focus on healthcare and health IT and if feels like I’m in a very demanding school when everyone else is off for the summer, simply because I’ve continued building upon what I’ve learned at school with what I have learned here. So here are a few things I have learned about PR since I started my internship.
PR Is More Complicated Than I Thought
Before my internship what I knew about the field of PR is that it includes a lot of press releases and pitch writing. In fact, my desire to learn more about the PR field is what drove me to pursue an internship at Amendola Communications. Boy, did I learn quickly that PR is a lot more than press releases and pitches. Here are a few things I learned that PR professionals do:
1. They manage social media accounts. Can you imagine being in charge of someone’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat and more?
2. They create content for those social media accounts, like infographics and videos.
3. They manage websites, and sometimes even manage creating them to begin with.
4. They create, gather and analyze large amounts of data. Then use that data to create strategies to use for everything else they manage.
5. They set up and do research for interviews.
6. They even help train people on how to do interviews if they don’t have experience.
7. They manage any sort of PR crisis, or as I’d like to think they’re the firemen and women that put out the fires.
8. And you know they manage press releases and story pitching.
Teamwork Makes The Dream Work
Managing all of these aspects of PR is too much for just one person to handle. To make all those social media posts roll out smoothly and assure that everything is meeting its deadline takes a team of professionals to make a company look like a PR pro. It really does take all the teamwork of the “A Team” to make sure the PR machine is running at full capacity. I can’t stress enough how important it is for everyone who is my age and in college to learn how to work in a team, as much as we all hate doing assigned group projects. It’s more important than you’d think, and very much an everyday occurrence in the working world.
It Also Takes a Wide Range of Skills
When I started studying journalism my professors told me that companies are looking for people who are well-rounded, with many different skills and abilities, rather than someone who is only trained in one thing. It really helps in the working world to know a lot about different things such as different forms of media, different computer programs and more. Now I don’t mean everyone should go out and become a jack of all trades and a master of none. You can be a jack of all trades and a master of some, but don’t spread yourself too thin.
It’s Not Impossible to Start a Business
During my time as an intern I got to sit in on calls and meetings. During them I couldn’t help but be inspired by the people I met or spoke to who had started their own businesses. It was amazing working with people who were so excited about what they were doing and so ready to get their businesses up and running with a little help from Amendola Communications. It made me realize that starting a business isn’t always a bust and that it can be a huge success.
The Healthcare System is a lot More Disconnected Than You Think
During my internship I quickly learned that most people are under the illusion that anything involving their health, such as their medical records with their primary care physician and their health information from the last time they went to the emergency room, are all somehow connected and easily accessible among different doctors and nurses, simply because we now have computers and electronic health records. Most of the time, we couldn’t be more wrong. From what I’ve learned it’s actually very difficult to transfer information between doctors and emergency rooms and elsewhere. I’ve also learned that people are purposely creating programs and companies to help correct this issue.
It Takes One Angry Person to Cause a Healthcare PR Crisis
At one point during my internship I helped one of my supervisors make a vlog about “How to Handle a Healthcare Media Crisis.” At the moment, I understood the topic but I didn’t realize just how important it was. Until someone close to me had a medical emergency where something went wrong. Obviously they were angry and about to go on a social media rampage, when a lightbulb went off in my head. I immediately thought “this is what the vlog is about, this is why it’s important.” In our world of social media, all it takes to damage a healthcare or health IT’s reputation is one angry Facebook post to trend. Trending happens so quickly, and as stated in the video, most healthcare or health IT companies don’t even get a chance to comment on what has happened before it is too late. This is possibly one of the most important things a PR team handles.
In Conclusion
As my internship starts to wind down due to school starting I’m glad I was able to learn so much about PR, along with building upon what I already knew, from Amendola Communications. Going back to school I feel like I have a much better understanding of the PR field, and even my own field and how to interact with PR even better. In addition I now know more about healthcare and health IT than I had ever expected. At school I feel like I’ll be able to give some good insights to my fellow students about how we will be using what we’ve learned, and what we need to prepare for once we all enter the working world.
Overall, I’m happy that I got the opportunity and experience of being a PR intern at Amendola Communications. It really made me feel reassured that what I am studying and learning at school is very important and what I really enjoy.
(All GIFS courtesy of GIPHY.com)
by Jodi Amendola | Aug 3, 2016 | Blog
Cloud technology gets a lot of deserving recognition for equipping organizations with a modern IT infrastructure at a fraction of the time and upfront cost it would require to build one in-house. In an interesting paradox, the value of hiring a public relations agency is less perceived, even though the benefits are much the same professional expertise and tools (and not to mention, valuable media relationships) all at the ready, priced at a pay-only-for-what-you-use basis. Yet PR agencies are often asked, “Why should I hire you instead of adding a full time employee?”
As it happens, there’s a quantifiable difference. While there’s no doubt that a full-time, senior-level or even junior employee can bring value to an organization, there’s a decided limit in experience, media relationships and hours in the week. By contrast, a public relations agency like Amendola typically assigns a team of five people to each client account. On average, each team member has 15+ years of experience in one or more niches such as account management, strategic counsel, crisis communications, social media, media relations, content development and more all of which won’t necessarily cost more than bringing on a single full-time employee. In addition, when employees call in sick or go on vacation, you may be caught short. Not so with an agency team behind you, where PR activities are constantly covered.
Hiring the PR agency brain trust
One of the most compelling reasons to hire an agency like Amendola is that our employees come from a variety of backgrounds, giving our clients access to broad expertise. Some of us hail from agencies, while others are former TV, newspaper and radio reporters. Others come from the client side, including provider and payer organizations, healthcare IT companies and industry trade associations. What this means for Amendola’s clients is that instead of having one person with some degree of knowledge in multiple areas, they can put multiple experts to work in many different areas.
For example, a client that’s been focused on the provider side may at some point want to enter the pharmaceutical space. That’s no problem at Amendola, where we can quickly add strategists or writers, social media or media relations experts–deeply versed in life sciences to the existing client team. We even have market intelligence researchers who can uncover valuable information about newly targeted spaces. When it comes to gaining insight and a foothold on new markets, the power of an experienced PR agency works faster than just one or two insulated employees.
Strategy driven by business goals instead of personal comfort levels
Speaking of the in-house bubble, very often whoever drives public relations and marketing in these departments makes decisions based on their own expertise, comfort and convenience. This isn’t a criticism so much as the natural propensity of humans to do what they do best even if it’s not necessarily best for the company’s business objectives. And so, these professionals end up spending all of their time/energy/budget on their favorite or most familiar strategies, and neglect other often important areas.
At Amendola, we offer expertise in all areas of marketing communications, branding, PR and content, which no single person can possibly provide. This enables us to determine and deploy strategies that are most likely to meet our client’s business goals. If that includes social media, we’ll assign a social media expert to the account. If brand awareness, we’ll bring in a well-connected media relations. We will customize our services to meet your business objectives.
The rewards of resource sharing
You might be skeptical that all this access to public relations expertise really can be had without investing in a sizable in-house department. But as a PR agency that works with many different clients, Amendola is able to spread the business costs across this extensive client portfolio another commonality with cloud services vendors that spread the cost of infrastructure across multiple accounts, sparing any single customer from having to shoulder the entire cost. While we offer a full range of services, including some that are a la carte, the majority of our clients have monthly retainer agreements in place that are comparable to the monthly payroll of a single employee, minus the costs of training and other in-house employment expenses, such as health insurance.
Again, these clients benefit from the experience already gained by our work for others; very rarely do we encounter a completely unfamiliar topic in the realm of healthcare or healthcare IT. And when we learn something new, all of our clients benefit sooner or later. That’s the power of “public relations-as-a-service” it brings top-tier public relations services to all.
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