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05
Jul 2011

AVID Design Gets Mentioned in Ragan Communications’ eNewsletter

Learn "A Bit of Advice" from Bayhealth physicians.

We were recently mentioned in Ragan CommunicationsHealth Care Communication News eNewsletter and on their Website for the “Bit of Advice” video campaign we produced, shot and edited for Bayhealth Medical Center.

Check out the mention and article here.

Videos = More Interaction = Conversions

Because of the integration of this video campaign on their site, Bayhealth has seen  actual results and a significant increase in traffic to these physician pages,  as noted in the article.

As we always tell our clients,  having engagement opportunities online increases interaction that potentially lead to conversions.  Search engines rank sites higher if you have quality content, and videos are considered quality content.

Our state-of-the-art video production studio is a perfect place for your next video shoot, or we can bring our studio to your facility–we have everything that is necessary for a professional video shoot.

If you’d like to brainstorm with AVID Design on how we can produce videos for your hospital’s Website or develop a video strategy, contact us today.


Lisa M. Rickard | Web Content Specialist/Writer/Editor | AVID Design

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13
Aug 2010

Hospital Website Design Myths and More… Revealed

Although I have a few phobias, like my alarming fear of heights and flying in airplanes, Friggatriskaidekaphobia (fear of Friday the 13th) is not one of them. We all hear about myths and superstitions associated with this particular date, so with that day being today, I thought I’d compile a short list of myths relating to hospital Website design, SEO and the like.

Happy Friday the 13th from Jason Voorhees and AVID Design

Happy Friday the 13th from Jason Voorhees and AVID Design.

Since a list of 13 myths would be more apropos for this date, I thought I’d spare the folks out there who too suffer from phobias, like triskaidekaphobia (fear of the number 13).

1.) Website Design – A hospital (or any) Website redesign will solve all my Web problems.

Many hospital marketers believe that a redesign is simply the “cure” for solving any and all Website problems because a fresh design is all that is needed. This is untrue. These same people don’t take into consideration that the strategy that goes into a redesign can sometimes be as important, if not more important, than the actual design itself.

2.) Content— If users are going to be guided to my hospital’s Website to read up on procedures and services offered, then posting every bit of information I have online is the only way to go.

First things first…users don’t read on the Web, they simply scan, so it’s best to write relevant, bite-sized chunks of optimized copy that are easier to read (e.g. bulleted lists). Secondly, content is not just written text, it is also images, videos, etc. And don’t be fooled about trying to fit all information on one page, it is okay to have a few pages as long as the copy is relevant and includes at least one call-to-action and effective anchor text to navigate through the pages.

3.) Social Media and Web 2.0 – If I build a Facebook fan page for my hospital or I start a hospital CEO blog, it will accumulate numerous fans and page hits overnight.

This doesn’t happen overnight, it takes time and effort to cultivate an audience, and a good social media and Web 2.0 strategy should be put into place before embarking on this trip.

4.) Website Design – I have to do my hospital’s Website redesign all at once.

Truth be told, redesigns take an extended period of time to fully complete, so it’s best to break down the redesign process into phases where each phase allows you to concentrate in a particular area, like focusing one phase on your hospital’s specialties and content and another phase on examining rich media. Also, change is received better with your employees and users when made in increments rather than all at once.

5.) Search Engine Optimization—Once you optimize your hosptial’s Website, then you are good to go and should be ranking well in the major search engines from here on out.

SEO is an ongoing process and is never finished (much like that of your hospital Website). What your hospital ranks today for pediatric cancer quite possibly not be the same three months from now. It’s best to have a professional (like AVID Design) provide you with an SEO assessment (that’s FREE) of your hospital’s Website to get the ball rolling on developing a proper search engine marketing (SEM) campaign.


Lisa M. Federico | Content Specialist | AVID Design

Don’t let your hospital’s Website fall under a spell of bad luck, make sure your hospital Website design and optimized content doesn’t suck!  Call AVID Design today to speak with our hospital marketing strategy consultants to get you on the right path(without that black cat crossing it) toward achieving your online marketing goals.

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28
Jun 2010

Are Viral Videos Right For Your Hospital?

Viral videos have become more popular these days, but many healthcare organizations haven’t really embraced this phenomenon yet.

Viral videos, in general, have proven to be an excellent marketing tool and are a great way for hospitals to raise awareness for campaigns and issues affecting the community.  If your hospital’s executive board or senior leadership is supportive with the idea to create one, then yes they certainly can be right for your hospital.

Lights, camera, action! Viral videos are a great marketing tool for hospitals.

Boom Boom Pow- Viral Videos For Hospitals…An Example

Open Heart services are coming to Gwinnett Medical Center, thanks in part to the community’s overwhelming support.

By thanking donors, partners and friends who helped bring Open Heart to GMC (as well as raise awareness about the new program), a viral video was created by GMC’s Marketing Department.

For an unusually more “conservative” type of organization, the video, set to the Black Eyed Peas’ track, “Boom Boom Pow,” features doctors, nurses, staff members, board members, executives, and even members of the Gwinnett Gladiators donning red gloves while dancing and pop-locking inside hospital corridors and around its campus—all in an effort to show their excitement for the new program.

This is what they did.

So Why Did Gwinnett Medical Center Want To Do A Video Like This?

The idea came from another viral video done by a medical center in Oregon to raise awareness for breast cancer.  Astounded by the number of hits that video received on YouTube, GMC thought that this would be a great way to promote their new program publicly and help with fundraising.

“In the context of us going public with our fundraising campaign for Open Heart, we thought this would be a wonderful way to promote the coming program, the campaigning and drive traffic to the hospital Website so people could learn about all the other wonderfully trained physicians we have, as well as the state-of-the-art equipment we have right in our own backyard,” said Gwinnett Medical Center Foundation President Jason Chandler.

“It [the video] also is a way to show continued community support, create awareness of GMC, the Foundation and the need for Open Heart services, and increase donations to the Open Heart Campaign,” added Gwinnett Medical Center Foundation Communications Coordinator Karen Eggers.

Viral Videos DO Work For Hospitals

For GMC, their Open Heart Campaign viral video has contributed greatly not only in raising awareness and funds successfully for the campaign, but also has raised employee spirits and attitudes.

“Creating this video was a great morale booster and gave associates the opportunity to take ownership of all the hard work that went into the Open Heart Campaign.  The departments were very competitive and had a fun time.  Many have asked when the next video will be produced,” stated Eggers.

The video can currently be seen at openheartgwinnett.com, gwinnettmedicalcenter.org , at the Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce and at Gwinnett Braves games.

Want to help contribute to GMC’s goal of raising $8 million for the Open Heart campaign?  Visit GMC’s Foundation Website for details.


Lisa M. Federico | Content Specialist | AVID Design

AVID Design puts the “Boom Boom Pow” in hospital and healthcare video production. AVID Design offers interactive healthcare marketing solutions like rich media, Flash development and physician videos for your hospital’s Website. Contact AVID Design today for more info.

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05
Feb 2010

31% of Users Want Online Healthcare Video to Solve Problems, Offer Incentives

No sooner than after we finished publishing our healthcare online video SEO blog series, eMarketer released some extremely interesting figures about ways that Internet users want hospitals to use online video and new media.

Click image to see full-size image.

Click image to see full-size image.

Although the survey data also included figures for other industries and sectors, healthcare was often at the top (or bottom) of most categories:

• 31%: Solve my Problems/Provide Product Service Information

• 31%: Offer Me Incentives

• 26%: Solicit My Feedback on Products/Services

• 25%: Develop New Ways for Me to Interact with Brands

• 19%: Entertain Me

• 19%: Market to Me

What the Figures and Findings Mean to Healthcare Marketers

Extrapolating the real meanings of these findings doesn’t require too much thought, whether looking at the top or bottom ends of the results:

• At the top, users want healthcare videos to provide solid reasons to come to your hospital. If it’s not a solution to their specific problems, then it’s an incentive that users desire—of which both are quite presumably being measured against what your competitors can or can’t deliver.

• At the bottom, users clearly don’t want to waste their time. Most healthcare marketers would likely not create videos that are designed to purely entertain visitors, but they might be inclined to use video to explicitly or aggressively market their brands. At any rate, neither are users want.

Do you agree with the results? Do they compare to objectives for your hospital’s online videos? What else do you think users want or don’t want?


Derek Rudnak | Communications Specialist | AVID Design

AVID Design offers full-scale and mobile healthcare video production solutions.

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28
Jan 2010

Creating a Video Sitemap on Google

Getting traffic to video content on your hospital’s Website such as physician video testimonials and virtual hospital videos can be a tricky task, especially if you do not have a video Sitemap in place.

Creating and sumbitting a video Sitemap is important for video content on your hospital's Website.

Closing out AVID Design’s blog series on video search engine optimization (VSEO), it’s important to know that for optimizing videos you must create a specific Sitemap for them so search engines, like Google, can make your video content searchable for your hospital’s Website visitors.

By using a Sitemap protocol, and video specific tags you can easily create your own video Sitemap. Be sure to include the following:

• A keyword rich description in the metadata fields
• Links to any landing pages that video content is on
• The location of the video player, video file and thumbnail file
• The Sitemap location in your robots.txt file

After you create your video Sitemap you are ready to submit it to Google Webmaster Tools—which also provides great tools for analytics, configurations and diagnostics— and for it to be indexed.

All this should help you get your video content fully searchable on Google Video and be listed in Google searches.

Check out some of these great Websites/articles for information, tips and tricks on creating a video Sitemap:

Google Webmaster Central: Creating Video Sitemaps
How to use Google Video XML Sitemaps for Video SEO by Mark R. Robertson of ReelSEO.com

Has anyone out there created a video Sitemap for their hospital’s video content?  Do you have any additional tips on doing such?

This concludes our VSEO blog series, but you can always check out other blog posts or any of AVID Design‘s services including  healthcare video production, healthcare Website design and healthcare content strategy and creation.


Lisa Federico | Content Specialist | AVID Design

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