the blogging of health care january 26, 2007 kaya walton internet consultant issue dynamics inc....
TRANSCRIPT
“The Blogging of Health Care”
January 26, 2007
Kaya Walton
Internet Consultant
Issue Dynamics Inc. (IDI)
SOTI – State of the Internet
• About 141 million American adults are online.• 91% read or send e-mail.• 79% research for health or medical info online.• 58% visit sites that provide support or info about
medical conditions.
Source: Pew Internet Project, December 2006
SOTB – State of the Blogosphere
• 55 million blogs• 39% of adult Americans online have read a blog.• 8% have created a blog.• Political blogs are driving blogosphere growth.• 1% of blogs cover health issues.
Source: Pew Internet Project, December 2006
Blogging Affects Issues?
• 61% of bloggers cite motivating other people to action as reason for blogging.
• 49% cite providing important information to others.
• Blogosphere = strongly linked network
Source: Pew Internet Project, July 2006
Blogosphere Network
Top 40 Political Blogs – Coverage of 2004 Elections
Source: Intelliseek, The Political Blogosphere and the 2004 U.S. Election: Divided They Blog
So You Want to Start A Blog…
Recipe for Blogging Success
Mission, goals and objectives
Readers Time, resources
and training
Accurate, currentInformation
Feedback
Good Blog Post
Mission
• What is the mission of your company or organization?
• What will be the mission of your blog? • What is your audience? • Focus on a specific issue or topic.• Don’t forget the big picture. How does the blog fit
in?
Goals
• What are your communications imperatives?• What role will this blog play in your
organizational strategy?• What are the expectations?• What about ROI?
Writing for the Web• Keep it short.• Use the “inverted pyramid.”• Make it easy to scan (short paragraphs, lists,
etc.).• Quote other bloggers and sources.• Use links.• Highlight important words.
Other Suggestions
Coming up with something new to write every week isn’t easy. Here are some tips:
• Be realistic about your publishing schedule.• Focus your writing on what you know. Keep
track of what others are saying.• Have several bloggers publish entries.• Include open-ended questions in your blog
posts.
Don’t forget your headlines!
• Headlines play a unique role on the Internet• Appear in lists • Appear in search engine results• Appear in RSS feeds• Tend to be used as links
Blogging Policy Questions
• Do you have established guidelines? • Will there be an approval process?• Will you be accepting comments?• What is the escalation process?
Blog Commenting Policy
• Three types of comment options• Decide what is allowed (Terms of Use)• What will be deleted?• How will users be informed?• Will there be an “escalation” option?• Make sure everyone knows
Blog Monitoring & Promotions
The Value of Blog Monitoring
The better you know the landscape of the blogosphere, the more effectively you can monitor and grow the value of your blog.
Blog Monitoring
• Who is driving the discussion?• Who supports you? • Who is critical?• What is being discussed about your topic? • What’s important to bloggers?
How to monitor the blogosphere• Technorati• Bloglines• Google News Alerts• BlogPulse
• http://www.technorati.com, http://www.bloglines.com
Promoting Your Blog
Blogosphere
Social InternetYour Blog
Promoting Your Blog
• Blog roll• Blogger relations• Social networks
– Flickr, YouTube, Digg, del.icio.us
• RSS Feeds
Other Sites You Can Use
• Advertising: BlogAds.com• Tracking: Technorati.com | BlogPulse.com• Launching: LiveJournal, Blogger, BlogSpot,
TypePad, Moveable Type• Writing: BlogWrite for CEOs
Blogwrite.blogs.com• Intelligence: BloggerRelations.com
For questions and comments:
Kaya Walton
Internet Consultant
Issue Dynamics, Inc.
(202) 263-2942