Listening To & Engaging Your Audience

February 2008

• Stephanie Marshall, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

• Qui Diaz, Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide

Web Executive Seminars

Social Sites for Social Good

February 26, 2008National Press ClubWashington, DC

Learn more: www.forumone.com/wes

Campaign Goal

Engage national and local leaders in the challenge

to help Americans prepare for a pandemic flu.

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Defining Your Audience

Insight: People want to hear important messages

from those they trust, not the government

– Target audience = national leaders

– 1-day Leadership Forum + 5-week blog

Research is Imperative

Insight: although the issue of pandemic flu has

dropped from the headlines, it is still being

discussed at high levels by passionate citizens

online

Assessing the Landscape

Social media “Conversation Map” revealed online

pan flu community

• Flubies & Flublogia

Daily Kos

• 12th most popular blog in the world

• 404 posts about pandemic flu since March 2005

• 9 posts on pandemic preparedness since the beginning of 2007; 10 – 420 comments per post

• Most posts about pandemic preparedness are by Greg Dworkin, a.k.a. “DemFromCT.” Greg is also the editor of FluWiki.com

www.dailykos.com

Flu Wiki

• One of the most influential resources on

pandemic flu, with referrals from most pan flu

resources and mainstream media.

• Main editor is Greg Dworkin

• Home to the Flu Wiki Forum

www.fluwikie.com

FluTrackers.com

• Preparedness comprises 15% of discussion

threads and 9% of posts.

• 30 forums | 12,447 threads | 65,961 posts

www.flutrackers.com

Videos

The Pandemic Detective

• A PSA by the Alameda County Public Health Department

•“Cover your mouth, wash your hands, stay informed.”

• Views: 353

Bird Flu

• A music video by M.I.A. (Sri Lanka/London artist)

• Views: 155,839

Preparing for Pandemic Flu: A Family Checklist Video

• By Edna, 41

• Views: 1,463

How to Prepare for an Influenza Pandemic

• By the Spokane Regional Health District

• Views: 5,198

More Multimedia

Google Earth Map Mashup of Avian Flu Country Situations

Uses Google Earth to track the spread of Avian Influenza.

Pandemic: The Game

“Evolve, Infect, Kill! Pandemic is a game where you get to evolve you own biological virus and wipe out mankind!”

Criteria for Assessing INFLUENCE

Blogs

– Number of inbound links

– Frequency/timeliness of posts

– Number and content of comments

– Affiliation of author

– Search engine visibility

– Traffic

– RSS feed subscriptions

Multimedia (Videos/Photos)

– Number of views and downloads

– Number and content of comments

– Ratings/peer assessment

– Relevant groups

– Number of subscribers

– Number of inbound links

Message Boards

– Breadth of boards

– Quantity and timeliness of activity

– Search engine visibility

– Affiliation

– Membership numbers

– Traffic

Social Networks

– Membership numbers

– Types of community features present

(e.g., profiles, blogs, video, message boards)

– Activity level on features

– Affiliation

– Search engine visibility

13 Contributing Bloggers

Inviting Advocates into the Conversation

Insight: give your advocates full/partial

ownership – they have more access than

you

Lessons Learned

Blogging has an impact

. . . when it’s informed by research

. . . and leverages WOM

Pandemic Flu Leadership Blog | RESULTS

• Site visits = 39,162

• Unique visitors = 19,765 (6 continents, 113 countries, 50 states)

• Page views = 132,619

• Inbound links = 344 links (from 110 blogs)

• RSS subscriptions = 811

• flutracker Says: Sec. Leavitt: Thank you to you and the HHS and the

Ogilvy staff for this blog. It has been interesting and enlightening. I hope

HHS and other federal and state agencies and legislators will take from

this experiment the idea that direct communication with the citizens

in this manner works well and benefits everyone involved.

• Bravo and congrats to the Health and Human Services

Department for its innovation and courage. If a government agency

can step out of its comfort zone and explore avenues to engage and

leverage conversations online think of what a Big Brand or medical

center, or non profit or school or business or .. or .. or .. As the saying

goes, you are limited by only your imagination and a little bit of

chutzpah.”

•Page Impressions, Visits, Unique Visitors

•Time Spent, Pages per visitor

•Emails opened, click-throughs

•Videos viewed, audio plays

Engagement & Reach

•Number of Mentions, Posts, Comments

•Recommendations

•Mentions-per-user

•Send This To A Friend

•Inbound links

Word of Mouth

•Offline media mentions

•Online media mentions

Earned Media

•Higher search results

•Greater search results “share”

•3rd party results

•Customer/stakeholder feedback

•Product sampling

Research

Search Visibility

Measurement Ingredients

Maintaining Momentum

Insight: your new community is not a "one-off" –

continue to give them incentive to trust and

participate

• Ongoing collaboration with Flublogia

“. . . the entire

process is a credit to

the HHS, Dr. Raub,

and the Internet flu

community that is

being recognized

more with each

passing day as an

important partner in

the battle against a

possible pandemic.”

Lessons Learned

• You don’t always need to create your own online community to reach

your audience. Meet them where they are.

• You don't have to hit MySpace and Facebook to find your target

audience. Social networks are trending as smaller, niche

communities.

• Working with bloggers and communities – especially those which are

invested in your cause – is smart (not adversarial)

How to use social media for WOM today

• Listen closely

• Respect the power of the consumer (new influencer)

• Offer different and deepening ways for people to engage

• Make it easy to share

• Build relationships not just campaigns

• Measure performance now

LEARN MORE:www.forumone.com/wes

Web Executive Seminars