Meet @polarwisdom - A Case Study (PDF)

MEET @POLARWISDOM

a ground zero glance at building the first condition-specific, collaborative

advocacy Twitter feed an OrganizedWisdom Health project

Monday, April 6, 2009

http://twitter.com/PolarWisdom

http://twitter.com/PolarWisdom

METHODOLOGY, DECK: JEN MCCABE GORMAN

• Chief Patient Advocate, OrganizedWisdom Health

• Cofounder, NextHealth (NL)

• Medical Education Evolution (Ning)

• Tweet all about it


http://hmrx.posterous.com/

http://hmrx.posterous.com/

http://organizedwisdom.com/Home

http://organizedwisdom.com/Home

http://www.health20.nl/

http://www.health20.nl/

http://medschoolevolution.ning.com/

http://medschoolevolution.ning.com/

http://twitter.com/jenmccabegorman

http://twitter.com/jenmccabegorman

THE FINE PRINT• CreativeCommons

Attribution = Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

• this means you can share it...(copy, distribute and transmit and remix it)

• for NONCOMMERCIAL purposes (shared for the greater good people, don’t you feel all warm and fuzzy?)

• but you must attribute: Jen McCabe Gorman, OrganizedWisdom Health, 2009

• if you alter, transform, or build on this, MUST distribute under same/similar license

• questions? [email protected]


http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/




“WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF SOCIAL MEDIA FOR HEALTH?”if you’re asking yourself this question, your social

media efforts are destined to fail...


THE RIGHT QUESTION(S)

• what are the benefits of a SPECIFIC SOCIAL MEDIA tool/site/service for the health of MY userbase/audience?

• (um, who IS my userbase/audience?)


HOW TO FIND YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA HOME

• we knew we wanted a depression-oriented initiative, with bipolar focus

• did web searches using 3 keywords: depression, bipolar (BPD), and major depression (MDD)

• searched using Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Google, Google Blog search

• ‘depression’ with most results (2x), bipolar second most ‘popular’

Don’t assume you know how users/consumers are talking about the space you want to address.

GO FISH! Find out what terms they’re using, what slang, and how often this shows up in search! results!


ALSO ASK YOURSELF...

• how does X social media tool/site/service help connect patients and providers? (Myca/HelloHealth)

• or does it connect providers and providers? (Sermo, Ozmosis)

• or people who are patients and people who are patients? (PatientsLikeMe, CureTogether, SugarStats, TuDiabetes)

engage across professional forcefields?


OBLIGATORY GENERALIZATION

• Health and medical ‘tweets (people who use Twitter regularly) including both providers and patients, are increasingly using Twitter to converse about illness, injury, treatment, and recovery. Good opening slide to break

benefits of social media channel ‘gently’ to the rest of your organization.

Be diplomatic when introducing these channels. No one wants to feel late to the party.


OUR ‘PREHISTORIC’ STRAGEGY• launch “PolarityWisdom” feed (1.15.09) - begin tweeting (Jen

+Emily)

• announce feed on Twitter (Jen, Unity at personal feeds @jenmccabegorman, @unitystoakes, and Unity at OW feed @organizedwisdom)

• add self-identified depression, bipolar, psych, mood, health/medical tweets to follower list

• try to recruit external doc; decided to go with our Medical Director Dr. Scott Pearlman

• after action review = ask Twitter community for feedbackMonday, April 6, 2009

WHAT WILL IT DO?“You’ll be able to read the latest doc-reviewed content from OrganizedWisdom Health related to depression, but you’ll also be able to take quizzes and share other resources.”


@POLARWISDOM0-400 followers in less than 8 weeks


NICE TO TWEET YOU.let’s take a closer look at how


WHAT QUESTIONS DID WE HAVE?

• how many Twitter feeds do we need? (depression, bipolar, MDD)

• what content do we use (already available WC?)

• how do we get followers/who do we want to follow?

• who’s responsible for care and feeding?

• how are we gonna do this (process)?

• what type of stuff should we be tweeting?

• how should we skin it? special design?

• how should we make it interesting, authentic, valuable, yadda yadda?


OUR SOCIAL MEDIA SOUL SEARCHING

benefits of using Twitter to connect with our OrganizedWisdom audience?


WHO IS OUR AUDIENCE?WHAT DO THEY DO?

• “our audience is anyone searching for health information. It is self-segmented by search topic/WC/category. They segment themselves, but if they are searching they are our audience.”

• Quantcast.com for details on current demographics


HEALTH 2.0 = ?

• content+community

• health content = forming partnership, conversation, between patient and provider, or patient and patient, or provider and provider, or well...

• yeah. it’s a community thing


WHAT KIND OF CONTENT?

• where is most need for advocacy - light in the tunnel tweeting?

• mental illness/mood disorders - stigma

• depression does not define you


TO TWEET OR NOT TO TWEET....

first, we aim to reduce stigma attached to living w/conditions. If you’re a cancer survivor, you’re celebrated.

If you’re a survivor of a depressive illness, you’re derided.


DEPRESSION IS A PART OF WHO YOU ARE.

IT DOES NOT DEFINE YOU.


YOUR GOALS. OUR TWITTERFEED.


WHAT I TWEET @POLARWISDOM

• twitter helps reframe healthcare research, news and content in terms of personal, n=1 context

• how does this news/journal article impact me if I have bipolar depression (or know someone who does?)

• what kind of resources are available for caregivers? survivors?

• what is the latest research on medication development, clinical trials, and side effects?

• how do I advocate for myself by learning more about my condition?


“DEPRESSIVE ILLNESSES ARE OFTEN TREATABLE, MANAGEABLE CONDITIONS.

THIS FEED IS ABOUT SELF-FULFILLMENT IN THE FACE OF DEPRESSION -

ABOUT LIVING WITH THE CONDITION RATHER THAN

GIVING IN.”


WE WANT TO ADVOCATE FOR YOUR PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL ADVANCEMENT.

DEPRESSIVE DISORDERS ARE MANAGEABLE ILLNESSES FOR 70-90 PERCENT OF PATIENTS.

IT DOESN’T HAVE TO COMPLETELY TAKE OVER YOUR LIFE.


WE ALSO WANT TO GENERATE DISCUSSION.

YOUR EXPERIENCES CAN BE GENERATIVE FOR OTHERS.

WE WANT THIS COMMUNITY TO SUPPORT LIFE GOALS THAT INTEGRATE A

TREATMENT-CENTRIC, RATHER THAN AN ILLNESS-CENTRIC, APPROACH.


YOU CAN ALSO “REQUEST WISDOM”

BY SENDING A DM TO @POLARWISDOM.

OUR PRODUCERS WILL CREATE CONTENT BASED ON YOUR SPECIFIC NEED.

AFTER IT’S APPROVED BY OUR MEDICAL TEAM, WE’LL PUBLISH IT ON @POLARWISDOM.


AND THE PRICE?gratis


WHY USE THE TWITTER COMMUNITY?


SHORT+SWEET


PATIENTS RELATE, IN BRIEF, SUBJECTIVE IMPACT LIVING WITH DEPRESSION

HAS ON LIVES,


PUBLIC+PRIVATE


@POLARWISDOM EMPHASIZES

CONVERSATIONAL ASPECTS OF LIVING

WITH DEPRESSION USING TWITTER, A COMMUNITY FORUM FOR PERSONAL

UPDATES WHICH SUPPORTS RECOGNITION OF THE CATHARTIC EFFECTS OF

TALKING (AND TWEETING) ABOUT LIVING WITH DEPRESSION.


GOOD = ADVOCACY FOR BPD


BETTER = EVIDENCE BASED APPROACH


OUR TWITTER APPROACH MIRRORS THE CLINICAL APPROACH

“BRIEF SOLUTION ORIENTED” TREATMENT -

FOCUSED ON WHAT YOU CAN DO NOW TO

MAKE YOUR LIFE BETTER. Consider real-world, brick and mortar care when designing your social media strategy. Our Twitterfeed @polarwisdom approach (and all our TwitterWisdom accounts in fact) are based on ACTUAL CLINICAL TREATMENT MODALITIES in behavioral health.

cognitive reframing


IN OTHER WORDS...if tweeting about something you’re dealing with helps you get through the day, @polarwisdom wants to help you do that.

Depression tends to be an episodic, isolated illness, with significant time spent alone.

Twitter is a 'safe' at-will forum to share personal, subjective information about living well with depression.

It's experiential narrative, shared, in short, soundbite format.

Journaling, for example, may feel to intense for someone in the throes of mania. A tweet, however, is easy to fire off.


WAIT A MINUTE...this would work for more than just the BPD community, right?


TWITTERWISDOM MISSION

TwitterWisdom is an internal initiative, composed of various condition-specific accounts, to use ‘real time’ social media tool Twitter.com to promote healthy living

by populating a daily tweetstream with news, links, commentary, quizzes, quotes, research, and WisdomCards


2 TYPES OF CONTENTinternal+external

Although Twitter.com may seem like a very broad-spectrum qualitative tool, OrganizedWisdom is a

very metrics-oriented organization.

Our ROWE (all-virtual) work environment means our team is used to communicating very

effectively using social media and web-based tools.

This isn't just a “feel-good, slap up some content”

feed - we have developed quantitative performance metrics for TwitterWisdom.


WHERE TO GET FODDER

• INTERNAL: WisdomCards

• INTERNAL: HealthCenter

• INTERNAL (hot!): quizzes, slideshows, FAQs

• EXTERNAL: Event - staff member attending? livetweeting?

• EXTERNAL: Blogs (also internal)

• EXTERNAL: Tweeted links

• EXTERNAL: News/current events


GREAT, BUT...HOW DO I KNOW WHAT TO TWEET?


5S THEORY OF CONTENT SHARING

• skip = move on to next one

• scan = look for highlights, move on

• stop = thank you for triggering thinking!

• save = and revisit + times in the future

• spread = share it for you

The 5s Theory of Content Sharing.

March 2009 by Rajesh Setty, "Life Beyond Code" blog.

You want to hit the spread - where people are touched "so much they voluntarily spread it for you."


HOW DO WE TRAIN THE TEAM?

• TwitterWisdom FAQs (mission, goals, process) V1.0, 2.0 - composed by Jen McCabe Gorman

• Twitter101 Class (open to anyone in the organization)

• Editorial Calendar review, discussion (monthly phone call, real-time ATM chats as needed, PlanHQ)

• ‘teaching moments’ using Google chat, Twitter, Bitly

• internal team strategy chat; best practices, examples


DEEP DIVE: TWITTERWISDOM

EDITORIAL CALENDAR

Weekly topics that are broad-themed (BPD and pregnancy) are combined with weekly features (for example, Monday’s recurring “things you always wanted to know about” = tyaw2k).

Then we pull content from internal and external sources to generate conversation.


SECRET SAUCE = DPSR METHODOLOGY

• D (data gathering) = reading email, scanning news %

• P (processing) = finding relevant link %

• S (synthesis) = reading the article, thinking about who’s interested in this research, where to post it, do I need it %

• R (redistribution) = tweet the link %Pick a link from your email inbox (say MEDPAGE). Here’s DPSR in action...where do you think you should spend the most and least time?


DPSR PROCESS SPECIFICS =A SNAPSHOT

• select content area (internal/external); Ex = WisdomCard

• post link to target WisdomCard using Bitly - shorten, ‘sandwich’ with commentary

• post follow up comment relating to why WisdomCard is important (weekly editorial issue? hot news? twitter convo?)

• try to find news that supports, questions WisdomCard

• tweet news links (1-10) using Bitly


HOW TO ASSESS UTILITY =QUICK & DIRTY

• if of interest to one of your followers (synthesis), include @name and comment (cc)

• use TwitterSearch keywords for WisdomCard terms to find tweets who may like related tweetstream (follow, address as above)


BEST PRACTICE = QUANT RESULTS

• Dell makes 1M using Twitter...in 18 mos

• Blendtees “Will It Blend?” YouTube campaign drives 5x increase in sales

EBM is all about measuring outcomes. How could a health organization do any different using communication channels? Without quant support you make a weak cases.


BENCHMARKS AND PAA• PAA = pre action assessment (military)

• obvious stats = ‘public face’ - Facebook fans, Twitter followers if you got ‘em, Digg links, existing web traffic/pageviews

• cloudy stats = your ‘kimono’ - SEO rankings, CrunchBase, referrals, customer satisfaction, other biz data

• ROI/benchmarks = what are you using now? pageviews? unique visitors? Goog analytics?


IF YOU’RE INTIMIDATED...default to tweetstream ‘lurking’

Passive ‘monitoring’ of Twitter - failboat. But if you must learn the ropes silently, please do have a plan in place to participate. You’ll be shut out by signing up and not updating.


OUTCOMES = ?engagement metrics. this isn’t rocket science - it’s analytics.


WHAT TO TRACKbasics


OUTCOMES = ENGAGEMENT METRICS

• followers

• DMs

• RTs

• @replies

• PAGEVIEWS


OPEN GOWN = HOW WE SHARE DATA

• first weekly team strategy call of the month EVERYONE gets update on TwitterWisdom

• primary staff member responsible for TwitterWisdom feed(s) shares followers, DMs, RTs, pageviews

• also selected quotes, events, ‘highlights,’ star followers

• ALL ITEMS housed in public, ‘available to all’ working docs hosted in cloud (Google docs)

• anyone can contribute, anyone can take notes, see exec team feedback


YEAH. THAT’S GREAT.

BUT HOW MUCH DOES IT COST?


COST OF DOING BUSINESS:COUNT IT.

• @organizedwisdom we consider social media participation a cost of doing business (part of my job description)

• daily COBD line - organizational goal (1/4) = ‘Traffic & Engagement’

• one primary staffer, support from 3 others (per feed)


WANNA TAKE A PEEK @PRODUCTIVITY?

Ok. I’m sold. I’ll put a team member in charge of tweeting for our org. But how do I measure her performance?


PRODUCTIVITY METRICS

• goal = 50 tweets/week, 10 tweets/day (min)

• goal = 100 new followers/month (min)

• goal = 4k PAGEVIEWS/month (min)


HOLD YOUR BREATH: DEEP DIVE INTO BITLY


THAT’S GREAT. BUT HOW DO YOU

CALCULATE PAGEVIEWS?


‘ABC’ PAGEVIEW CALCULATION

pageviews/visitor(a) x visitors/tweet(b) x tweets/month(c)

Using what you track, manage what you measure!

We track pageviews using Bitly.com and


NOT JUST ABOUT PAGEVIEWS.go for link-love via RTs

Without retweets and conversations, it’s just about slamming your feed with links.

We’re working to lower our ratio of tweets/responses from 10:1 to 3:1.


EASY KEYWORD TRACKING

• Twittersearch/Summize = daily. Org name, staff member(s), org account, keyword

• Google Insights for search = monthly, prior to team call, creating editorial calendar

• Google Trends/Analytics = useful for combo terms, phrases (“organizedwisdom+health2.0+jenmccabegorman”)


MORE FEEDS! NOM NOM NOM

• http://twitter.com/ow_mental_healt (mental health)

• http://twitter.com/owBipolar (bipolar)

• http://owDepression (depression)

• http://twitter.com/owDrugsMeds (drugs/meds)

• http://twitter.com/ow_womens_health (womens health)

We’re also trying automated ‘streaming’ update feeds that autopopulate when new subject-area WCs are published. Shocker - these aren’t nearly as popular; more like


http://twitter.com/ow_mental_healt

http://twitter.com/ow_mental_healt

http://twitter.com/owBipolar

http://twitter.com/owBipolar

http://owDepression

http://owDepression

http://twitter.com/owDrugsMeds

http://twitter.com/owDrugsMeds

http://twitter.com/ow_womens_health

http://twitter.com/ow_womens_health

YUM.BUT HOW WILL IT FEED OUR

BOTTOM LINE?Roi. Roi. Roi.


THE REVENUE QUESTION

• how does it make money?

• ads?

• sponsorships?

• paid subs?

We won't be supporting bits or bytes of 'paid' content or ads on @polarwisdom (yet) - although we havenʼt ruled this out. Outside companies don't pay me to tweet.

I tweet for myself @jenmccabegorman and for OrganizedWisdom.com @polarwisdom.


AGAIN - WRONG QUESTION

• pop quiz - which is more important...

• PRICING

• VALUE-GENERATION

Answer = both are vital.

How do you generate value for users, and for the company, using a social media comm channel?


TIED TO ORGANIZEDWISDOM MODEL

• feed, designed by President and cofounder Unity Stoakes, Medical Director Scott Pearlman, and Chief Patient Advocate Jen McCabe Gorman (with team input throughout!) will act as a platform for content within a supportive online community

• we, the company, will collaborate with health and medical organizations interested in supporting the community oriented feed


BUT HOW WILL PEOPLE KNOW WHO ‘WE’ ARE?

• decided NOT to ‘require’ employees to have personal twitterfeeds, so couldn’t use the @naming convention

• use #owfirstname to identify tweets/team member

• harnesses existing Twitter convention of using hashtags to identify events, keywords, etc and track conversations

• @polarwisdom tweets = #owjen, #owemily, #ownicole, #owamy, #owscott

• team members can CHOOSE to share personal tweetstream if they so desire, or keep it separate from ‘pro’ tweeting


http://www.hashtags.org

http://www.hashtags.org

LAST GASP OF RESISTANCEbut what if somebody says something BAD about us?!


SWALLOW. DIGEST. RESPOND.love hurts.

so does looking at your org through social media’s collective gaze.

We had a follower @markhawker let us know about a critical blogpost from Highlight Health.com. “OrganizedWisdom: Much Ado About Very Little.”

I emailed our team, with suggested response. Team weighed in. @unitystoakes responded in the comments section. Thanks Twitter, and tweets, for lookin’ out!


BONUS SLIDESfor any docs in the room...or those who love ‘em

Twitter is NOT just for Health 2.0 type companies!

It’s for patients! It’s for providers!


MICHAEL LARA MD=HOW I USE TWITTER

• “I’ve found Twitter to be a useful adjunct to my private practice”

• 3 categories: info collection, info sharing, DIRECT PATIENT CARE

• doc-doc re: non-urgent matters, office staff-patient appt. reminders (gee, that sounds as useful as the Pony Express)

http://mlaramd.typepad.com/michael_lara_md/2009/03/how-physicians-should-use-twitter.html












THE GOOD DOC RE: WHAT NOT TO TWEET

• to communicate directly with patients and their families (what??)

• to communicate re: ‘urgent’ or ‘timely’ matters (wait, can’t I choose the channel that reaches me most quickly?)

• to answer inquiries re: ‘details about patient care’


BUT WAIT - JOHN SHARP SEZ...

• slideshare presentation “Digital Customer”

• healthcare uses for Twitter = “updating families during procedures” (slide 14/33)

• also, “emergency communication”

http://www.slideshare.net/JohnSharp/digital-customer-in-health-care-1198211












SO WHO DO WE BELIEVE?and why does the dichotomy matter?


“EVERYONE SHOULD HAVE A BASIC UNDERSTANDING OF HOW TWITTER WORKS. EVERY TEAM MEMBER, FOR EXAMPLE,

SHOULD UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE

BETWEEN A DIRECT MESSAGE AND THE PUBLIC TIMELINE.

OUR RULE IS TO TWEET ONLY VIA DIRECT

MESSAGES, BUT ASSUME THAT THE TWEET WILL BE ON THE

PUBLIC TIMELINE.”Monday, April 6, 2009

TRANSPARENCY ON TWITTERvia the public timeline

The “Grandma Use” Rule=

If you wouldn’t say it out loud to your grandmother, or a patient’s family member, you probably shouldn’t tweet it.


DO NOT ASSUME ANY TWEETS ARE PRIVATE

DM or no DM...if you remember 2 words about using social media, remember “public domain.”

Your team MUST know the risks and benefits of using a given social media channel.

And your organization MUST have a coherent strategy on transparency of those communicating on these channels.


“ANOTHER TWITTER TENET IS UNDERSTANDING HOW/WHEN KEY TEAM MEMBERS INTEGRATE TWITTER INTO THEIR

WORKDAY.”

CHEWY GOODNESS: DISTRIBUTE TWEETS VIA

TWEETLATER Or schedule them using organizational calendar.

I put hour to tweet an item right onto our TwitterWisdom Editorial Calendar.


WHO’S LISTENING WHEN WE’RE OFF DUTY?

people don’t tweet 24.7. well, cough cough, MOST don’t...

We are NOT treating people on Twitter, nor are we recommending treatment. However, you should give people access to a resource that CAN help treat them (911, suicide helpline, etc).


LET FOLLOWERS KNOW YOUR TWITTER SCHEDULE

via @lizscherer - are you present all the time? Tweet 9-5, M-F?

After Liz gave this feedback at HealthCampPhiladelphia, that same Friday we started letting tweets know who was on ‘weekend on call’ and how to reach us (via email).


AND THEY ALL LIVED HEALTHILY EVER AFTER.

not quite. but this should be the goal of social media for health.


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NICE TO TWEET [email protected]; (w3rk)

[email protected]; (lif3)LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jenmccabegorman

301.904.5136 (m0bil3)


mailto:[email protected]




http://www.linkedin.com/in/jenmccabegorman

http://www.linkedin.com/in/jenmccabegorman

STAY TUNED...for more on analyzing efficacy, ROI, and tweetstream/pageview

conversion analysis via TwitterWisdom.


Health & Medicine

Meet @polarwisdom - A Case Study (PDF)