The Thread team had the opportunity to travel to Chicago for the annual conference of the Society for Healthcare Strategy and Market Development--known as SHSMD.  Healthcare is at the intersection of two lines of dynamic change--healthcare delivery is changing and so is marketing.  Leaders in this field are adapting with an incredible amount of innovation and creativity.  For me, it boils down to the idea that you still need to make a connection with people, but in healthcare that increasingly means connecting with people when they aren't sick.  In other words, you need to be part of the "ecosystem" of a customer's life, as one presenter put it.

Good for your brand page? Good for engagement? Not necessarily both. Facebook's new News Feed algorithm puts more emphasis on livestreaming. Yes, sigh, Buzzfeed got 800,000 live viewers for exploding a watermelon with rubber bands during a Facebook Live session. What is a normal experience for most brands? 

A recent Poynter Institute experiment with Live posts and non-Live posts showed a vast difference in Reach and Engagement.

Poynter’s live video of Corey Lewandowski accepting a CNN position reached more than 6,000 users for every engagement. Another top article post on changes to the Associated Press Stylebook only reached 36.

Poynter then looked at the post clicks and engagements these two posts received. The post linking to the Stylebook article had 7,851 post clicks — almost 40 times more than the Lewandowski live video.

Best Practices for Facebook Live

We want to achieve both Reach and Engagement with our published posts on Facebook. So while the goal of this new feature is to increase brand awareness by having Facebook deliver Reach to a wider audience, engagement is not automatic. That’s on you to create a great experience and make the engagement happen.

Here are some best practices for a good Facebook Live experience:

• Pre-announcement for Facebook Live post: Let your audience know when and what is coming. Write a compelling description before going live, then broadcast for at least 8-10 minutes. You can go live for up to 90 minutes.
• Check your connection: Wait for a strong signal/WiFi. Create a seamless experience.
• Questions and comments during a session: Actively engagement with the audience during the session. Answer questions, affirm statements and ask follow up questions.
• Major events or product Q&A: Pick your spots. Align with an event or discuss a product or product launch during your Facebook Live session.
• Behind the scenes: Some news organizations broadcast during breaks and commercials. Show your fans unique “behind the scenes” content.
• Call out to your audience to tap the Follow button, and opt-in to get notifications of upcoming Facebook Live broadcasts

Great Example of Facebook Live

Facebook has come out with new features including filters and the ability to doodle while going live. This is clearly targeted at users who do these things on Snapchat. Facebook has also suggested the ability to add multiple users who can tag-team and share a live broadcast. This is supposed to roll out in August.

What’s a good example or case study of Facebook Live? Check out Gettysburg National Military Park, which did a great job with the recent anniversary of the 1863 battle. Remember that your session must be compelling, unique and informative.

All companies know that they need SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for the success of their website. Search Engine Optimization is the process in which you design and create content for your website that search engines favor. SEO is like spices and seasoning. Without it your website is bland and flavorless to the search engines. But did you know that you can overseason your website to the point where the search engines find it unpalatable. Google’s algorithm not only rewards websites that do proper SEO, but it also punishes websites that over-optimize or try to game the system.

We've gotten used to seeing the various "disciplines" within marketing converge, and the trend of placing advocacy into marketing and advertising, as noted by a former high-level executive with McDonald's Europe, would just be the latest example.

The folks from Gallup are out with the news that is probably not a surprise to anyone:  employee engagement is stalled around the world.  It is better in the US, but even here it is only 32%.

(No, this is not an article about Pixar).

In PR, one of our biggest challenges is helping laypeople understand complicated subjects.  Whether it is the science behind plant emissions, a complex financial issue or, really, any kind of communications related to change, helping people understand scientific, technical and mathematical concepts is among the toughest jobs we have.  Early on, a big hero was Edward Tufte, whose classic book The Visual Display of Quantitative Information created a cult following devoted to the importance of design, graphics, and integrity in creating understanding in these situations.