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The Case of Hospital Website Monitoring and Spamming

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

Many hospital and healthcare systems look for new ways to reach out to their patients and the community. Sometimes they implement new and possibly non-traditional hospital and healthcare strategies to reach those in their community who may not be familiar with them, or are newcomers to the area.

Spam is not good... for hospitals OR to eat!

A hospital client of ours recently started a service to welcome newcomers to the area. This service allowed new people to sign up on their Website for free items–area maps and an environmentally-friendly shopping bag–from the hospital, as well as allowed them to register for things, like a gas card. Things were going well until they noticed that all of a sudden many of the requests were from around the country and NOT their target area.

Hospital Website Monitoring = Good; Spamming = Bad

The client was, luckily, monitoring their Website and caught this before it snowballed into a huge headache and chaotic mess. It turns out, that someone found the link on the client’s Website, copied the link and then spammed it on an online forum that caters to the “sharing of knowledge about couponing, refunding and frugal living.”

Process of Removing Forum (Spam) Posts

So, to find out about how I could get this post removed for our client from this online coupon forum, I took on a pseudo-investigative journalistic approach. I simply contacted the moderator from the coupon sharing Website, told them I represented the client and politely emailed them about removing the post with the link in it due to the fact that it is only available for a select, targeted audience. Although I received no email back, I did notice that within 24 hours the post was taken down. Success!

The Point About Monitoring Your Hospital’s Website

Offering incentives is a great tactic to help you connect with your community while driving traffic to your Website, but be aware of what could happen if you are not monitoring relevant traffic to these promotions or services. It may even be wise to put a clause or note on your Website specifying that this promotion/service is only available for a certain area of people.

This case is not closed, because monitoring never ends.

Lisa Federico | Content Specialist | AVID Design

AVID Design specializes in online healthcare marketing and offers hospital Website monitoring.

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Monitoring With Tweetdeck and Searching With Twitter

Tuesday, December 29th, 2009

Just the other day AVID Design was approached by a client who had a question about monitoring their brand on Twitter.

Searching through "junk," much like "dumpster diving," is NOT how you want to obtain your search results.

When searching for their name – which happens to also be an acronym shared by others – a lot of unrelated “junk” showed up on the results page.

The client was eager to learn that filtering out all the “junk” (by using Tweetdeck) with Twitter’s search operators makes it easy to follow mentions and search specific keywords.

Tweetdeck – No Need to Ask…

You’ve heard us talk about Tweetdeck before and how most of us at AVID Design use it and advocate it. It turns out, that it’s a great tool for brand monitoring and a way to keep track of certain types of mentions and Tweets for your hospital’s Twitter account.

Basically, Tweetdeck is an organizational tool for Twitter that takes your feed and breaks it down into pieces which you can customize, manage and monitor. Tweetdeck allows you to easily see what is (and what isn’t) being said by your hospital and about your hospital. It’s especially useful if you have multiple Twitter accounts in need of monitoring, which you know you must do.

That’s all groovy and gravy about monitoring, but what about filtering out the “junk” and drilling down to find what you are really seeking?

Twitter’s Search Function – A Smooth Operator…

Not only can you search Tweets based on words, people, places, dates and attitudes, but many Twitterers are unaware that you can also use Twitter’s search operators in the search box to help filter out the “junk” and become more specific with what you are looking for.

For example, if you want to search for specific Tweets that contain the phrase “swine flu” with links, you would simply type “swine flu filter:links” in the search box and your results would appear.

But what about searching for something like “nursing” without generating tons of results such as “nursing home” or “nursing school?” For this, you can use a search operator to contain a word, while omitting one commonly linked to it. You would type “nursing -home” in the search box. And voilà…the results you want!

This awesome search technique allows you to dig deep and drill away to get the search results you are looking for.

We know you don’t have a lot of time and are understaffed, that’s why AVID Design offers free Web 2.0 assessments and services for online marketing strategies such as social media and brand monitoring to make your job and life easier, just like we did for the client mentioned in this blog post.

Lisa Federico | Content Specialist | AVID Design

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Posted in Brand Monitoring, Social Media, Social Networking, Twitter, Web 2.0 | No Comments »

Son of a Gun! Why You Should Monitor Your Brand

Friday, November 13th, 2009

After being away for business for nearly a week, I received a Google Alerts message saying that AVID Design had recently released a new product. First, I was excited to hear of such news, but then when I saw the product, I was shocked. What would AVID Design need a Gun Tool for?

Monitoring your brand online is equally important so that you are aware of what is being said and posted about your organization, company or product.

The Gun Tool is basically a single multi-tool device specifically made for hunters and shooters that includes 18 of the most frequently used long tools for shotguns and rifles. This all-in-one instrument appears to be pretty versatile in what it can do. Let’s take a look:

• Can be used to tighten fasteners (I like nuts and bolts)

• Take down trigger assemblies (…ok)

• Swap out choke tubes (sounds interesting)

• Mount a scope and more (now we’re talking!)

That’s pretty impressive…but, hey wait a minute….This is not the AVID Design who are search engine optimization gurus. This is not the AVID Design that creates award winning hospital website designs. This is not the AVID Design that has an enterprise content management system that was developed specifically for hospitals and healthcare systems. This is not the AVID Design that understands best practice strategy for hospitals and healthcare Web sites…This is that other AVID Design that just happens to have our same name.

Guns N’ Online Monitoring

So this brings me to the point of branding and online monitoring. Branding as we all know is pretty much your identity and it plays an important role in a business. It should convey a message and appeal to your target market.

Monitoring your brand online is equally important so that you are aware of what is being said and posted about your organization, company or product. I use Google Alerts and receive an email when something is indexed by Google based on my selected terms or topics, or through the likes of social media sites. It is definitely something that every hospital should do. Do you currently monitor your brand? Do you know what people are saying about you?

You should.

If you don’t know what is being said about you and don’t know how to find out, AVID Design offers free Web 2.0 assessments and services that include blog monitoring. ku

Andy Darnell | Director of Web Development | AVID Design

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Posted in AVID Design, Best Practices, Brand Monitoring, Social Media, Social Networking, Things 'n' Stuff, Web 2.0 | No Comments »

I Didn’t Say That: Monitoring Your Twitter Account

Thursday, September 24th, 2009

The irony of advocating the usage of social media for hospital marketing is that it unintentionally is inviting people to create new problems for themselves.

That statement is even more ironic since one of the ways we advocate social media is by touting its many benefits and ease of use—which is something we stand behind.

However, if you are going to engage in social media—personally, professionally or both—you must monitor your accounts, for reasons both good and bad.

The Good

As I do at least once a day, I scan the “Mentions” column in my TweetDeck application (my preferred app for Twitter, both on my computer and my iPhone; but I would love to hear about what you use!).

Usually, tweets in my “Mentions” column are exciting and affirming. I almost always thank the people that mention me, and if I’m not already following them, I also usually end up doing so.

The Bad

However, the other day, I saw a retweet in the Mentions column that supposedly originated from my account; it also contained a link to a bogus “work for Google at home” scam.

What’s noteworthy is that the tweet was written in a way where it wasn’t immediately obvious that the link was a scam. Since I immediately reported the tweet as spam, it was stricken from the Twitter record, so I can’t find what it actually said. However, it was along the lines of “I agree with @derekrudnak!” with a shortened link to the scam’s Website.

Had I not been diligent about monitoring my account—or even trusted what seemed to be a benign and slightly flattering statement—this tweet would still be floating around out there…essentially telling the world that I support that Website and its related scam.

It’s not hard to extrapolate the potential damage this type of fraudulent tweeting practice can do to the reputation of a person—such as a doctor, a hospital administrator, or perhaps even an entire hospital. Monitor those accounts, folks!

Does your hospital have a trusted and reliable partner to build, manage and plan your online marketing strategies? AVID Design offers free assessments for Websites, content, strategy and more.

The irony of advocating the usage of social media for hospital marketing is that it unintentionally is inviting people to create new problems for themselves.

Most of the time, tweets in the “Mentions” column are positive—but don’t just scan the column. Be sure you know exactly what is being said (and where links go) in Tweets that mention your name.

That statement is even more ironic since one of the ways we advocate social media is by touting its many benefits and ease of use—which is something we stand behind.

However, if you are going to engage in social media—personally, professionally or both—you must monitor your accounts, for reasons both good and bad.

The Good

Usually, tweets in my “Mentions” column are exciting and affirming. I almost always thank the people that mention me, and if I’m not already following them, I also usually end up doing so.

The Bad

However, the other day, I saw a retweet in the Mentions column that supposedly originated from my account; it also contained a link to a bogus “work for Google at home” scam.

Does your hospital have a trusted and reliable partner to build, manage and plan your online marketing strategies? AVID Design offers free assessments for Websites, content, strategy and more.

Derek Rudnak | Communications Specialist | AVID Design

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40.55% of Tweets are Pointless, or Why I Blogged Yesterday about Monitoring

Friday, August 21st, 2009

A mere matter of hours after writing a blog about why I believe that a social media marketing strategy should begin with monitoring, I read an eMarketer story about “What People are Tweeting About.”

Almost 38 percent of Tweets are conversational. Does your social media strategy recognize the importance of listening as much as it does with broadcasting your messages? (Click image to see larger graph).

As with most discussions about social media, the article’s emphasis was on using social media to distribute marketing messages.

As I said yesterday, that “me to you” priority misses what has made Web 2.0 and social media so powerful and exciting.

Most simply, it’s the opportunity to listen—which starts with careful monitoring of social media and the Internet.

Using a Virtual Fine-Toothed Comb for Web 2.0

Granted, 40.55 percent of Tweets may be “pointless,” but that doesn’t mean anything worthwhile isn’t being said or written. After all, how much of what is said or written elsewhere on a daily basis can also be considered “pointless?”

The most important statistical groups of Tweets are harder to track, but you can be assured that they exist—specifically, “Tweets that are relevant to your hospital” and “Tweets that are about your hospital.”

Again, this is why I believe that social media begins with monitoring. There have always been channels for your messages, but there’s never been a channel like social media that lets you so precisely dial-in what you target is saying and lets them (and everybody else in that socially networked community) know that you are paying attention.

Remember, Web 1.0 was about what you had to say. Web 2.0 is about what they have to say. Hear it and let the act of being a visibly active participant in the communication be a marketing strategy.

Does your hospital have a trusted and reliable partner to build, manage and plan your online marketing strategies? AVID Design offers free assessments for Websites, content, strategy and more.

Derek Rudnak | Communications Specialist | AVID Design

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Posted in Blogs + Blogging, Brand Monitoring, Marketing, Research and Studies, Social Media, Web 2.0 | No Comments »