Just settling back into the office after a whirlwind trip to Orlando and back for HIMSS11. It was typical HIMSS: lots of people, lots of vendors, lots of Health IT discussions. Here’s a video blog, recorded on March 22, with my impressions of HIMSS from a marketer’s perspective.
As you’ve come to expect, I recorded a number of videos with marketing directors, which I’ll posting over the next few days.
Mr. HIStalk and Inga have had a few things to say about marketing, and me.
I caused a minor kerfuffle last month when I expressed my opinion about HIStalk’s advertising options. Mr. HIStalk took some exception when I wrote that Inga “claims to be female and sports a sultry avatar”. Here was his response:
An online article suggests that perhaps Inga is a man writing as a woman. I couldn’t wait to tease her about that, but she had already seen it and responded back that a couple of readers have e-mailed her with the same suspicion. Let me forcefully allay that speculation: Inga is most definitely female, and a quite striking example if I may say (not only at least as cute and charming as her avatar suggests, but darned smart and caustically funny in our offline e-mails). So let’s treat the lady with some respect, OK? She’s the queen around here.
Obviously, I don’t want to offend such high-powered thought leaders, so I emailed both Mr. H. and Inga a mea culpa. I will never again doubt Inga’s femininity. And, for the record, Inga asked my opinion about how they could improve their ad options. I don’t think they plan on changing their format any time soon, but it was kind of them to listen.
Speaking of Inga, she questioned the wisdom of some HIT vendor’s PR tactics a few days ago:
I’m still wading through the endless number of e-mails and need some PR person to answer me this: why does every single vendor feel the need to issue press releases during HIMSS? Don’t companies realize their news is more likely to be overlooked because of the sheer volume being churned out by companies, PR people, and media outlets?
As a journalist, she’s got a point. Surely vendors must know that releasing their bit of news during HIMSS increases the chance of getting lost in the shuffle. My response is that news releases aren’t really for journalists, anymore. The biggest benefit of news releases is how they can strengthen your search engine marketing. Services like PR Newswire and Business Wire get a lot of link love from Google and other search engines, and when content from their news release links to your site, that’s golden.
Sure, news releases are often the right vehicle for announcing new products or some newsworthy happening to journalists. But the real work happens on the follow-up. When a corporate PR manager or PR agency has healthy working relationships with health care journalists, they’re more likely to be able to get your organization the publicity they want during heavy traffic times such as HIMSS.
One HIStalk respondent—”Beastly”—shared some best practices for PR that are worth repeating here:
A true PR professional knows the difference between [what is] newsworthy and [what is] wasting a journalist’s time. We also have an ethical responsibility to advise our clients if and when their perception of news doesn’t merit coverage. Issuing press releases about non-news compares to the ‘boy who cried wolf,’ syndrome.
I’ve had to tell vendor leaders that their “news” doesn’t merit a news release. Those conversations are never easy.
Your turn: Are news releases relevant to your marketing efforts?
I sat down for a few minutes last week with MedicExchange.com at HIMSS to talk about what was happening on the show floor. The video interview lasted about four minutes, and they used about half of it in their HIMSS edition of MedicExchange TV. My bit is about 30 seconds in.
Alex van Klaveren and his team have billed MedicExchange as a place where providers can go to research health care technology. Their initial niche was with radiology solutions, and they’ve built a strong community of vendors and an impressive search engine presence. They are now making a big push in the broader health care IT space.
When I first met Alex about a year ago, my impression was that his site was another online buyer’s guide. I’ve got to admit, I didn’t look close enough. The site also includes a growing social network, where health care vendors and providers can interact. And MedicExchange TV is their newest offering, and highlights the latest HIT vendor news. Their greatest benefit might just be the search engine bump they give to their clients. They may be worth checking out.