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More than half of U.S. adults turn to the Internet when they have health or medical questions, according to a survey from the Pew Research Center. (Did we really need a research center to tell us that?) More alarmingly, a survey in April found that 50 percent of doctors turn to Wikipedia for medical info!

How does Wikipedia fare as a medical reference? Its collaborative, user-generated philosophy generally means that errors are caught and corrected quickly. Several studies, including one examining health information, another probing articles on surgery, and one focusing on drugs, found the online encyclopedia to be almost entirely free of factual errors.

Better still, the articles improve significantly with time, according to a study Clauson published last December in the The Annals of Pharmacotherapy (vol 42, p 1814). “Wikipedia’s editing policy does work,” he says.

Read the article at newscientist.com

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Embedded below are slides from a presentation from Bob Coffield titled “PHRs, Health 2.0 and the Impact of Social Media on Health Care”. It was given at the American Health Lawyers Association 2009 annual meeting in Washington, DC.

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Take a look at the latest chart of US Hospitals that are on YouTube and Twitter. Currently 213 Twitter accounts and 142 YouTube Channels!

As more hospitals launch their social media campaigns, it is more likely that your own medical lead generation could get lost in the Web2.0 land rush. Here’s a few tips to help keep your own healthcare online marketing campaign head and shoulders above the rest.

1. Don’t use social networking robots. There are a lot of sites out there that can provide a lot of empty stats like lots of followers and fans, but the real metric that counts is the amount of interaction your campaign receives.
2. To receive more interaction with your readers and followers remember that social networking is all about sharing. Launch a giveaway, host a contest, or provide some kind of content that is unique to your industry.
3. To keep your campaign fresh and dynamic, assign a creative person inside your organization to run your social network accounts. They should show a strong knowledge on how the social campaigns function.

There are many different types of social networks that your business could use, so make an informed decision about what kind of network best suits your company’s personality. For example, take a look at this pie chart of the types of platform that US hospitals are using.

If you have questions about how the healthcare industry is using social media for medical lead generation and branding leave us a comment, talk to us on Twitter, or find us on Facebook.

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Yesterday was a big day for Mac and iPhone users. Apple hosted its annual World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) and announced the latest updates to their wildly popular iPhone. While the majority of the opening keynote was focused on updates to the Apple products, they did allow some time for featured developers to discuss their latest technologies using the iPhone.

A very exciting presentation was done by AirStrip Technologies. They made medical devices and their presentation at WWDC 09 was about AirStrip Critical Care which delivers real time information to practitioners like ventilator flow tracings, patient vital signs data and rhythm strips.

The medical industry is flocking to the tech market and applications like this are a glimpse into the future of healthcare. Patients are looking for their healthcare providers to take steps toward advanced technologies. It’s important that your medical company show its strong commitment to staying current and valid in today’s dynamic market.

While you may not have the ability to create your own medical technologies, there are other ways to establish a presence of innovation and we can help you do it.

We specialize in:

• creating integrated marketing campaigns that include TV, radio, print, outdoor and interactive
• developing surgical cases for healthcare facilities, surgical centers and surgeons
• ensuring your staff effectively captures and tracks leads
• patient generation for individual physicians and physician groups
• website development
• pay-per-click (sponsored keywords) to drive targeted leads
• natural/organic search engine optimization to drive targeted leads
• powerful social media tools that capture grassroot leads doing research on the web
• results that are quantifiable by our proprietary software tracking and CRM system

Find out more at LEVELTWO Medical.

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While millions of users twitter away details about what’s happening in their life, you can use Twitter to market your product and services to customers in your area.

We’ve put together a list of some online and mobile tools you can use to search, find, and interact with people in your area.

1. Twitter Search
   You can use the advanced search function built into Twitter. We wrote a detailed how-to back in March. “Twitter tools for those who don’t have an iphone.“
2. Social Meetup
   While you can make an impression on the internet, you can really gather a lot of new contacts and leads by attending a meetup that is organized online. A group of people that are interested in the same topics will schedule and plan to meet to discuss their common passion. Here’s two great places to find a meet up in your company’s industry:
   – Tweetup Meetup – http://tweetup.meetup.com
   – Twtvite – http://twtvite.com
3. iPhone Apps
   If you have an iPhone there are several apps that can provide you with geo-locating tools.
   – Twinkle
   – Twitterfon
   – Twittie
   – Twittelator
4. Non-iPhone Tips
   TwitterLocal is similar to the advanced Twitter search, but you are able to manage your local Twitter feeds directly from your desktop using their free software. It’s basically a free way to do what the iPhone apps provide.
5. LocalTweeps
   It’s a local Twitter directory. You can use this local twitter directory to find and interact with users in your area. Since it is based on zipcode and not on city names your listings and searches can be much more specific. Other similar services include:
   – NearbyTweets
   – happn.in

If you found these tips useful, please consider subscribing to our blog via RSS or email. You also follow us on Twitter to get the latest updates.

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Interesting facts and figures describing the way social media and new media are changing the healthcare industry.

The text is kind of hard to read, so here’s a few of the interesting points from the video.

• 60 million consumers are using new media to interact and share their health experiences online
• 277 US hospitals use social media
• Facebook has 175,000,000 active users
• 3.5 million users become fans of Facebook pages each day
• Roughly 1,200 Facebook communities advocate for cures for different chronic illnesses
• 83 Hospitals have Facebook pages
• Twitter had 475,000 unique visitors in February 2008, 7,000,000 million in February 2009
• 201 US hospitals have Twitter accounts
• 77% of active internet users read blogs
• 93% of global consumers use search engines to find and access websites
• 72% of e-patients searched for medical information just before or after a doctor visit
• 23,000,000 million Americans have downloaded and listened to an audio podcast in the past month
• YouTube has 1,000,000 videos viewed per day
• 135 hospitals have YouTube accounts

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Just this week hulu announced their new desktop viewing software. It features a sleek new look that’s optimized for use with standard Windows Media Center or Apple remote controls, allowing you to navigate Hulu’s entire library with just six buttons. While some video distribution sites might be worried about their place in the market, we are excited to see yet another step closer to the internet becoming integrated with our operating systems.

With all of the online applications now available it is not too far in the future that the internet will become the platform for all of our personal computing tasks. Maybe we’re already there! Webmail, online calendars, invoicing, faxing, making phone calls, and of course the huge popularity of iPhone apps that integrate an online cloud computing system with the mobile software.

You can do it all on the internet. If the future of personal computing is online, that’s where businesses need to focus their marketing efforts. Facebook is replacing your address book and Twitter is replacing texting. As the social networking industry works its way into our daily lives, businesses can’t afford to not be apart of the shifting technology. The search market is integrating with the social market, search is universal!

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The Internet has brought many unique benefits to marketing, including overall cost reduction for the distribution of information and media to a much broader, even global audience. This benefit alone has given online marketing a huge marketplace advantage.

Additionally, the interactive nature of online marketing, both in terms of providing instant response and eliciting responses, has also proved imperative in modern day marketing strategy. Below we take a look at four of the most powerful methods of online lead generation.

Search Engine Optimization

Configuring or optimizing your website with targeted keywords or phrases, also known as SEO, not only offers the most cost-effective method of promoting your business online, but with approximately 80% to 90% of all website traffic originating from search engines like Google, Yahoo!, and MSN, it is crucial to be at the top of the list. A first page position on Google can generate thousands of unique visitors to your website, generating the leads we want, affecting your bottom line.

Would you like your website to rank well in the organic results on Google, Yahoo and MSN? Would you like to see a steady increase in the amount of visitors to your website? If you answered yes to either of these questions, LEVELTWO can show you how to achieve effective and efficient search engine optimization results.

Pay-Per-Click

If your practice is new to the web and you would like to generate business from your website immediately, Pay-Per-Click advertising could be the solution you are looking for. PPC advertising offers direct advertising to millions of people per day and is targeted by specific keyword searches so you can reach your practices’ audience. Pay-Per-Click advertising is an auction-based bidding system where you compete with your peers to achieve prominent positions in the Paid Search Results.

Media Purchasing

Sometimes just getting your name out there is enough to convert a prospective patient into a real patient, but to really get the most return on your marketing investment you need strategic media purchasing.

At LEVELTWO, our specialty truly is strategy. From innovative research tools to highly targeted demographic placement, we don’t just purchase media, we generate leads with every buy. So whatever your current circumstances are we can provide direction through creative, innovative and effective marketing solutions.

Social Marketing

As the Internet continues to fuel our economy and our society, it is more important than ever to participate in social marketing. Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace are just some of the social marketing networks that can do most of the work for you.

By interacting with your followers, you can not only generate leads, but you can form unique relationships with them. And we can show you how use these relationships as effective marketing tools that directly increase your bottom line.

Interested in adding one or more of these tools to your online strategy? Contact us or give us a call at 469-619-0573

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www.LEVELTWOMedical.com

We’re excited to announce the launch of our new website focused on medical marketing. Generating leads in the medical industry requires an arsenal of tools. We specialize in a variety of marketing tools including:

• Integrated Marketing Campaigns
  – Creating integrated marketing campaigns that include TV, radio, print, outdoor and interactive
• Lead Generation
  – Patient generation for individual physicians and physician groups
• Lead Capturing
  – Ensuring your staff effectively captures and tracks leads
• Website Development
• Website Marketing
  – Search Engine Optimazation
  – Search Engine Marketing, pay-per-click (sponsored keywords) to drive targeted leads
  – Media Purchasing
  – Social Marketing, powerful social media tools that capture grassroot leads doing research on the web
  – Tracking CRM Tool, results that are quantifiable by our proprietary software tracking and CRM system
• Online Branding

Take a look at our portfolio and client list. We currently provide healthcare marketing for many medical leaders in the industry and we’d be happy to answer any questions you might have about generation for the medical industry.

Visit the new site at www.LEVELTWOMedical.com

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According to research from Pew Internet & American Life Project 74% of adults in the U.S. go online and, of those, 80% look for health information online. 29% of all internet users have looked online for information about a particular doctor or hospital.

To effectively harvest all the healthcare prospects that view your website you must stick to some basic best practices. When a patient is browsing your site they are typically looking for these basic components:

1. Your medical specialty
2. Educational background
3. Board certifications
4. Awards and honors
5. Types of insurance accepted
6. Office locations
7. Hours and contact information

If you want to really make your website functional and useful, try adding

1. Copies of standard forms that the patient needs to fill out during their visit
2. A frequently asked questions section
3. An integrated social component (blog, Facebook, YouTube, ect)

For example, take a look at NicholsonClinic.com (screenshot below).

It’s easy to understand Dr. Nick’s medical specialities, board certification, awards, and contact methods. But not only does this website offer lots of key information at a glance, it also offers fully interactive social media campaign complete with videos, a Twitter account, and a daily updated blog.

Use this medical website best practices checklist PDF to see how well your own website stacks up.

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