March.....really??

I don't know how March showed up so quickly but it's here which means...

• Mum's birthday is Thursday (51 years young)
• Media efforts ramp up at work to address the upcoming conference
• And my workload is about it get ridiculous as all our programs seem to run during the same three month window.

Between our conference and two public education initiatives I'm busy enough but now we're starting to consider how we can use social media to help. We've now got a Twitter (@CdnDermatology) account which has a few followers but we're really just getting going and a Facebook fan page where we're going to be posting a lot of stuff (like videos, pictures, handouts) about our Sun Awareness Campaign and FREE skin cancer screenings. (Search "Canadian Dermatology Association" on facebook.)

We're also discussing a massive redesign of our website (www.dermatology.ca) which is going to be an insane amount of work.
                      SIDEBAR: If anyone knows of any good web design
                      companies in Ottawa, I welcome any and all suggestions.
But hopefully, they will give me a reasonable timeline to have the redesign done and can roll it out in phases rather than as one giant lump sum.

Hmm, I'm noticing that my blog posts of late aren't really all that tied to social media and have taken on more of a form of ranting diatribes. I suppose it was bound to happen at some point. My apologies.

Content Rules

My boss lent me a pretty interesting book:

"Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and more) that Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business" <- longest book name ever!

I haven't quite made it all the way through the book yet but so far it's intriguing and Chapman and Hanley's approach is unique. They discuss content in terms of their kids and how the small principles of nurturing are needed for new ventures (social media). And the way to keep the momentum going is to "feed the beast".

I jumped a couple chapters to the section about webinars for two reasons. First, a large part of my field includes attending webinars and web-based meetings. And second, because of the title "If Webinars Are Awesome Marketing Tools, Why Do Most Of Them Suck?" it totally sums up my opinion of webinars nicely. I find most of them tedious to sit through or frustrating because something always fails to work properly.

Anyway, the chapter defines what a webinar is and how they underperform on a regualr basis. But they also make sure to outline what you should consider when you do decide to put on a webinar.

Now I understand that webinars aren't the most appealing mainstream social media option but when done properly I think they are effective business to business tools. If tracking is done properly (number of registrants : number of participants : number of leads generated) webinars can be an effective way to monitor messaging and business growth.

Links:
Google Books "Content Rules"
C.C. Chapman