Oct 1 2009

Hospitals Need to Friend Their Employees

October 1, 2009 – 8:11 am
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By Jenn Riggle

As organizations adopt social media and create corporate pages on Facebook, they have to take a closer look at themselves and decide who their friends really are.

This is especially true in the health care industry.

When you look at hospital Facebook pages, it’s surprising how many hospitals have only a handful of fans. Yet, as one of the biggest employers in a community, you would think they would have lots of people who want to follow them.

The problem is one of trust and control.

Many hospitals don’t allow their employees Internet access at work because they are concerned their staff will spend too much time updating their Facebook status. While this is a valid concern, it’s important that someone from the organization to monitor the hospital’s Facebook and Twitter accounts to see what people are saying and answer any questions they might have. The key to great customer service is responding quickly and transparently to these queries – and to do this, the marketing team needs to have Internet access.

Other hospitals have actually blocked people from commenting on their Facebook page, making it just an online brochure.

Rather than limiting access, hospitals need to engage their employees in their social media efforts. They represent a large portion of the communities they serve and while they may not be able to comment during work hours, they should be encouraged to join the conversation. After all, employees serve as a hospital’s brand ambassadors in the community.

One hospital that is doing a great job at this is Sarasota Memorial Hospital. Shawn Halls, a market research manager at the hospital, manages the Sarasota Memorial’s Twitter account at @SMHCS perhaps said it best during an interview with The Side Note: “We’re not just Sarasota Memorial Health Care System, we are 4,000 individuals who are part of our larger communities, and we enjoy communicating with our customers because they’re also our neighbors and friends.”

To provide ground rules for helping employees engage in social media, hospitals should provide their employees with a social media playbook or Code of Participation that outlines:

  • Who will represent the organization online? This may be specific individual or a team of people.
  • How will the organization respond if employees post something inappropriate online? For example, emergency staff at an English hospital were recently suspended for posting photos of them participating in the “lying down game” on Facebook.
  • How to respond to questions and/or negative comments? Quickly responding to negative feedback can help diffuse the situation and put it into perspective.
This is an exciting time for hospitals, as they use social media to find new ways to engage with their community, their patients – and their employees. By being open and extending their hand in friendship, hospitals can make a difference in how people view health care.
 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Jenn Riggle | Posted in Livingston Communications, communications, social media | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (13)
Sep 30 2009

The New Buzz Bin

September 30, 2009 – 10:10 am

Livingston Communications was folded into CRT/tanaka six months ago. Since then, we have been driving social media across the line, from implementation to internal best practices and training. Now it’s time to become more public with our learnings and evolve the Buzz Bin from a one man show to blog representing CRT/tanaka’s best thought leadership in the space.

As such, it was important to create a new, slightly revised look.  We also tweaked and revamped the editorial mission, too:

The Buzz Bin provides a point of view on integrated communications, including PR, social media, interactive and general marketing topics. We serve our mission – as well as our customers, employees and the general industry – when our point of view stimulates meaningful conversations.

Topics range from strategy and tactics to news commentary and trend analysis. The discussion should be provocative enough to encourage questions, disagreements, and meaningful dialog as to whether we are right or wrong. It’s not about being safe, it’s about pushing the envelope, thinking and, hopefully, learning.

The new Buzz Bin will feature a multitude of new authors, including CRT/tanaka President Mike Mulvihill and Director of Social Media Priya Ramesh. Here’s our new line-up.

• Monday – Geoff Livingston: SM/Comms strategy best practices

• Tuesday – Mike Mulvihill – Industry trends and analysis

• Wednesday a.m. – Priya Ramesh –Social media

• Wednesday p.m. – Timothy “Wyatt” Wood – Interactive or SM

• Thursday — Jenn Riggle – Health Care 2.0

• Friday – Michael Whitlow – PR Beat, Humor

With the new change, as of today I will be blogging once a week on the Buzz Bin, solely on social media and or/communications, as well as managing the blog, in general. Regular nonprofit readers, if you haven’t already migrated to my personal blog, please do so. I’m still writing for you every week, too, just elsewhere! Please excuse the inconvenience.

The main CRT/tanaka whatcanbe blog will also continue as is. It’s main purpose will be to continue serving as a place for the other 60+  CRT/tanaka employees to voice their views on the ever-changing communications marketplace.

As it’s social media, please provide your feedback at will. We want the Buzz Bin to continue serving the industry as a thought provoking blog! Let us know how we can do a better job.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Livingston Communications | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (3)
Apr 9 2009

Livingston Is Gone

April 9, 2009 – 12:01 am

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We are announcing the acquisition of Livingston Communications this morning by CRT/tanaka (original tight race image by Jani Kajala).  The deal closed on Tuesday, March 31. As part of the acquisition, we will cease to trade as Livingston Communications, and become the Washington, DC office for CRT/tanaka.

Personally, I am thrilled by this move. As I mentioned in a prior post, social media adoption is in full swing now. The time is coming when this media form will  no longer be special and become fully integrated into the larger communications mix.  I’d rather not wait three years for it to happen. You can see CRT/tanaka CEO Mark Raper’s views in his blog post.

CRT/tanaka is an outstanding firm with a strong reputation in the PR and advertising space. And we have developed a reputation for strong, results-oriented social media programs.  The acquisition brings us back into the larger communications fold, and together we intend to make CRT/tanaka one of the early firms to integrate social media across the front line.

To start our efforts together on the right foot and continue the social media ethos we’ve established, we published a white paper on the Cultural Challenge to Integration. It is based on a recent series of Buzz Bin posts. Enterprises seeking to adapt social media can use this white paper to help address one of the primary barriers to success.

Here is some third party analysis from Beth Harte and Kami Huyse.

Five Lessons Learned

This marks the end of a three-year entrepreneurial endeavor for me, from the basement to award-winning author, through boom and recession to a successful conclusion.  There are some things I’ve learned along the way, which I’d like to share:

1) Your personal life means more: Being an entrepreneur requires 60-100 hours of your week.   And you and your family suffer for it.

3374841087_14b819c538 An executive’s life isn’t much easier, but there’s less responsibility and weight on your shoulders.  I value a renewed relationship with my wife much more than being “the man,” and as a result look forward to being more present for her.  I wish I knew this three years ago, but the resulting lessons have created a better husband.  To my wife, Caitlin (pictured above), I love you.

2) Personal branding and companies don’t mix well: One of the biggest challenges I’ve had was the short-sighted mistake of putting my name on the door.  The resulting scaling problems were always a point of contention, and we actually seriously considered rebranding as Verv Communications last spring. We didn’t because of the timely equity behind “Geoff Livingston” and Now Is Gone.

This experience is still one of the primary reasons why I fight personal branding tooth and nail. I cannot tell you how thrilled I am to work under a banner without my name on it.  It will be good to become a worker amongst workers in name now as well as spirit. And if I ever start a company again it won’t be named Livingston. Team social media, heck, just team period. That’s the way of companies.

3) Being an employer will make me a better employee: Oh, now I get where my bosses came from. And I think I owe a few of them amends. :) Amazing how it feels to have the shoe on the other foot. Thanks to my prior employers for the experience and the lessons learned.  Even if it took me starting this company to learn them.

4) It’s not all that. I’m not Chris Brogan, but I’m not John Doe either. Yet, you can tell by my irreverence towards nano-fame that it doesn’t mean much to me. In fact, it can be much more of a nuisance than a benefit with issues like privacy, heckling, etc.   For me, what does mean something is benefiting society though strong actions, helping a client, showing someone a way to help grow themselves, and generally, just being kind and giving.

Nano-fame should be a non-conditional by-product of doing the right thing as opposed to the ultimate goal.  Winning means accomplishing something.  What do you want to do? Be known or do something that impacts your world?

5) Don’t announce a deal until it is closed. I still have the utmost respect for Maggie Fox and crew at Social Media Group.  But I think it’s safe to say that both Maggie and I wish we had gone through the paces quietly and found out our cultures did not mix on the side rather than the civil, yet public break-up we experienced.

At the same time, there’s a second lesson from the failed acquisition with SMG.  You can fail, get up and try again. In fact, you can succeed where you have failed in the past.

Thank You

Over the Spring we will be rolling over our branding to CRT/tanaka. And thus this chapter is now gone.  Thank you to everyone for their support over the past few years.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Blogs of Fire, Livingston Communications | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (89)
Mar 9 2009

Geoff Livingston Addresses National Park Service Communicators

March 9, 2009 – 12:13 am

I had the great privilege of addressing the National Park Service public affairs conference last Thursday on social media adoption. Discussion includes Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, focusing on the Service’s mission, and pitfalls like Shiny Object Syndrome. Case studies included:

  • Congressional Tweeting
  • TSA Blog
  • The Library of Congress on Flickr
    The Nature Conservancy Flickr Effort

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    AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Blogs of Fire, Geoff, Livingston Communications, social media | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (2)
    Feb 25 2009

    Looking for the Social Media Savvy

    February 25, 2009 – 6:49 am

    It’s tough losing a bright, talented team member like Qui Diaz, who will leave the company at the end of April to prepare for a new married life in Spokane, Washington. Building the company’s social cause practice with Qui is one of my favorite career achievements. But at least our work to benefit society will continue in the new book Social Media for Social Good due out in 2010. All of us at LComm wish Qui and Ryan a happy prosperous life together.

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    This presents a great opportunity for a social media-savvy person (original image taken in London). The company needs to find an able-mined director to execute fantastic social media programs on behalf of our clients.

    Ideally, we’re looking for someone with 6-10 years of communications experience and the following qualifications:

  • Someone who wants to innovate and do great things online
  • A demonstrable social media success
  • Either a traditional PR or advertising background
  • Ability to create communications strategy
  • Excellent project and time management skills
  • Prior personnel management experience
  • Strong writing skills
  • Technology or nonprofit experience a plus

    • If you want to be part of a team that’s already done great things in social media, and you’re ready to lead and shine, we need you. Applicants must be located in the Greater Washington area. Please feel free to email me your resume and links to prior social media work at geoff AT livingstonbuzz DOT com.

     
    AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Livingston Communications | Tagged , , , , | Comments (2)
    Jan 11 2009

    DC’s Big O Party

    January 11, 2009 – 11:37 pm
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    This post may seem a little bit off the beaten path, but as one of the leading marketing blogosphere outposts from the Capitol Region, it seemed appropriate to shed a little light on a once in a lifetime phenomenon happening here. The Obama inauguration is transforming DC into a gigantic celebration similar to a New Orleans Mardi Gras or a New Year in the Big Apple.

    This will be my fifth inauguration since moving to the district in 1992 (I’ve live here for 16 of the last 17 years), and none of them have been as celebratory as this one. Longer term residents, including some who saw Kennedy inugurated, say that this is a completely unique event.

    Consider the parties. The usual events — dubbed inaugural balls — feature several black tie parties. This year, in addition to the ten official inaugural sponsored balls, wide swaths of congressional delegations, political bodies and special interests are throwing their own balls and parties. Further, the District has passed a temporary waiver on late night bar hours for the four-day festivus weekend.

    It’s to the point that the city will pretty much shut down next Tuesday for security reasons as 1-3 million visitors flood the National Mall to witness the 44th president taking his vows. We actually are closing for the four day inaugural weekend as the preceding Monday is MLK day, a federal holiday, and most of LComm lives across the bridges and could not come to work on inauguration Tuesday anyway.

    I will be attending my first ball on Sunday night, the Lincoln 2.0 ball sponsored by the District of Columbia. This one is particularly fitting as the inauguration has taken on the Lincoln theme, celebrating the other famous president from Illinois. Lincoln 2.0 is being held at the same place as Abraham Lincoln’s 1865 Inaugural Ball, what is known today as the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

    Then there are the floods of celebrities and performers coming in to witness history. It may as well be Oscar night!

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    Every administration seems to affect the city (Washington Post’s Linda Davidson photo shows Obama visiting Washington institution Ben’s Chili Bowl). The Bush I years were conservative yet solid. The Clinton years, well, they were wild, but open, fun, and sometimes contentious. The Bush II years were just downright repressive at times. I’ll never forget driving across the Key Bridge months after 9-11 and seeing a tank pointing its canon across the bridge from Georgetown.

    Like the rest of the country, Obama’s win seems to have set off a sigh of relief in DC. And one hell of a big inauguration party. Only time will tell how the cultural feel of the city will change, but until then all eyes are on O.

    What about your neck of the woods? Any special inaugural activities planned?

     
    AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Geoff, Livingston Communications | Tagged , , , , | Comments (3)
    Jan 5 2009

    BlogPotomac 2009 Features Great Minds

    January 5, 2009 – 4:17 pm

    badge-blogpotomacIt’s a new year, and now more than ever it seems we still need great, affordable events to learn about social media best practices.  BlogPotomac 2009 will be held on the second Friday of June this year (June 12) at the State Theatre again.  Like last year, 2009’s line-up features seven sessions from some of the sharpest minds in the business including this year’s keynote Shel Holtz. 

    Here’s the full line-up…

    Morning Sessions

    Afternoon Sessions

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    To get a little more unconference-like this time, our seventh and final session topic will be determined by attendees in a month-long open voting session starting on April 1.  In general, our modified format will remain the same.

    Debbie Weil and Viget Labs are continuing as advisory board members, and I will chair the event this year solo.  Both Debbie and I will co-emcee BlogPotomac 2009.

    Over the next couple of weeks, we will be updating the BlogPotomac site to reflect speakers bios and pictures, the new agenda, as well as the new dates. Tickets will go on sale January 19 at a cost of $95. Like last year, we will limit the amount of tickets to 150, and any profits will be donated to a charity once all costs are paid.

     
    AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Blogging, Internet Marketing, Livingston Communications, social media | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (9)
    Dec 31 2008

    Happy New Year

    December 31, 2008 – 9:28 am

    With the sun rising on 2009, all of us at Livingston Communications wish you a happy, prosperous New Year.

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    AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Livingston Communications | Comments (1)
    Dec 22 2008

    Work Ethic 1.0: Good Stewardship

    December 22, 2008 – 1:08 am
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    The recent “web 2.0″ boom of the past few years has changed the dynamic of the workplace, in many ways for the better. At the same time, it has brought an era of dramatic privilege, a sense that employees should do what they want, whenever they want, and that employers should work to fulfill those desires if they want to keep said employees. And in my opinion, that change in work ethic proves the point that some things don’t change for the better.

    Nothing typifies this more than the crazed directions the personal branding phenomena has branched into. While many purists debate with me about semantics — feeling that personal brands really mean an individual’s reputation — it’s clear that the movement has become something much more akin to Internet fame and rock stardom.

    Lately, you’re not hearing that attitude so much. Millenials are now realizing their first economic downturn, and a more sober attitude seems to be arising from the general web 2.0 crowd towards works. The common statements of the day are “I’m grateful we’re busy,” or “I’m happy to have a job.”

    That’s not to say that some of those gains should be turned away. In a world where you move from job to job or project to project in periods of years and months (rather than decades), it’s only natural to seek work in areas of interest. But being satisfied with a non-fulfilling job — even just for today — is OK, too.

    One almost surefire result of America’s most difficult economic time since the Great Depression will be a return to old fashioned work ethic. This ethos, something that got drilled into me by my father and mentors in my twenties, revolves around good stewardship. While the nature of jobs have changed dramatically within a much shorter window of time, the principles of good stewardship still apply.

    Good Stewardship

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    For the purpose of this discussion, let’s define stewardship as the successful execution of the management another’s property or financial affairs; one who successfully administers anything as the agent of another or others. So when someone pays you to do something — a.k.a. a job — they are financially compensating you for acting as their steward (Image: Working Class Hero by Jurek D.).

    You don’t see fulfillment or building personal brands in this definition. Far from it really. What is evident is an underlying attitude of service. Rather than preach, it seems best to put down ten of the standards I try to apply to my own activities past and present:

    1) I am responsible for my actions.

    2) As part of my job (either full time or as part of a consultancy) I am paid to perform a service. I will do this, even if I only intend to stay for a year (or the project is for a couple of months).

    3) Sacrifice is required at times. I make those sacrifices, even when it affects me personally. I did this before I owned my own company, too.

    4) That’s because a job is not about accepting status quo, instead taking the baton and moving it further.

    5) Success means passing the baton on so the next guy can take it and run, with a real opportunity to do even better than me.

    6) By being a good steward, I will build a good personal reputation as well as benefit the larger brand. But selfish motives in day-to-day activity will actually reap the opposite reward.

    7) In that vein, I succeed when my boss/client/company looks good as a result of actions taken.

    8) Agreement with my company/client is not something I need to perform my responsibilities. If I voiced my concerns and I’m told to do something a different way, then so be it. I’ll do such activity with the best attitude possible.

    9) When I make mistakes, I try to own them and when appropriate make amends

    10) Perfection is not possible, but progress is. Therefore, I seek to evaluate, analyze, explore weaknesses, and build. More progress is always attainable.

    I’m interested in your thoughts about shifting work ethic attitudes. Here’s another thought from Bonnie Parrish-Kell.

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    AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Livingston Communications, social media | Tagged , , , , | Comments (12)
    Dec 9 2008

    Two Case Studies Featuring LComm Work

    December 9, 2008 – 11:18 am

    Please excuse me for taking the opportunity to write this brief post that shines some light on some of Livingston Communications’ current efforts.

    National Ranked Blogger Jason Fall, the lead voice at Social Media Explorer, wrote up our reputation management efforts with Network Solutions. Jason said, “This reputation management effort was a success. It’s still ongoing and not finished by any means, nor is any social media effort. These are not episodic, quarterly defined campaigns. These are ongoing conversations and relationships with your customers. But as Livingston Communications and Network Solutions have proven, even those can be quantified and measured.”

    And the world’s top change blogger and non-profit social media consultant Beth Kanter did a case study on our current Save Darfur campaign. Beth wrote, “Be A Voice for Darfur is an excellent example of multi-channel campaign designed to bring attention to the appalling genocide in Darfur. Geoff Livingston and Qui Diaz are behind this brilliant multi-channel campaign that is using social media for social good.“

    Thanks to both Jason and Beth for taking the time to write these case studies.

     
    AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Case Study, Livingston Communications, social cause, social media | Tagged , , , , | Comments (1)