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Refuse to lose

Over the last few months I’ve talked to several companies in and out of the healthcare staffing industry all dealing with the same thing.  The down economy.  I’ve talked to business owners and employees that are all struggling with the same issues: budget cuts, layoffs, salary reductions, down revenue, loss of clients, etc.  I’ve been hearing it so often it’s become standard conversation.  I’ve found that it’s created a very negative mindset in most of the people around me, including myself.

Until this week.  On Tuesday I spent some time with a friend who just started a new company called NedSpace.  NedSpace is a Portland, Oregon based co-working environment for startups, innovative technology companies, non-profits, artists and social entrepreneurs.  While I was there I talked to several people who are entrepreneurs trying to get their new company off the ground.  These people all had great ideas and vision.  I listened to their stories about the problems they’ve overcome or that they’re currently working through.  Some of them told me they found this time to be perfect for starting a business.  Some of them told me how they found themselves here due to being laid off from their jobs. 

The biggest thing I noticed about these people was how positive they all were.  Here’s a group of individuals without any security, without pay checks, without revenues, without any assurance of success, all taking major risks because they believe in their idea and what they are working on.  Being an entrepreneur myself I found spending the afternoon in this environment surrounded by these people to be recharging. 

All of this has reminded me that it’s the hard times that show you who you are.  That confront you with challenges to meet.  That present you with obstacles to overcome.  It’s the hard times that make it all meaningful and make every minute and all of your efforts really count.

To me, it was all very encouraging and made me want to encourage others out there that are struggling and have lost focus.  Keep your head up.  Stay motivated.  Recharge your vision.  Get creative.  Don’t slip into a negative mindset.  Embrace the challenges out there right now.   Perform.  Don’t give up.  And most importantly – like Chuck D. said - refuse to lose. 

Common terms related to Healthcare Vendor Management

Management

Vendor Management Services/Vendor Management Systems (VMS) - VMS technically refers to a web-based software application a client uses to manage the suppliers servicing the clients staffing needs. VMS systems cover a wide spectrum of features that can include job requisitions, credential management, interview scheduling, time keeping, invoicing, performance measures, notification systems and data reporting.  VMS companies may or may not offer multiple product offerings as well as a suite of services.

Vendor/Supplier - An organization that provides contingent labor services to a client.   Also, Supplier is a much nicer term than “Vendor.”  Who came up with that one anyway?

Vendor on Premise (VOP) – An organization that has a physical presence on the client's premises.  The VOP is the primary staffing entity for the client and works to meet the clients staffing needs 100%.  In order to do this the VOP will often times contract with other “Sub-Contractors” that may be partners or competitors.  VOPs may or may not use technology to manage this process.  Essentially, it’s a Managed Services Provider with a more ominous name.

Managed Service Provider (MSP) - A nicer sounding name for a VOP with a few twists.  An MSP isn’t always located physically at the client location.  Occasionally, MSPs bill themselves as being more “Vendor Neutral” by not actually providing staff to the client in all cases and working with the client to find the best performing suppliers according to the client's requirements.   MSPs may or may not use technology to manage this process.

Vendor Manager (VM)/Vendor Management Organization (VMO) – Term given to an organization providing Vendor Management Services.  It is not specific to any model.

Group Purchasing Organization (GPO) – An organization that purchases goods/services in bulk and offers them to clients at discount pricing.  GPOs have entered more into the services realm in the last few years, offering vendor management services, similar to that of an MSP or referring partne,r as part of these services.  Such services may or may not include a technology solution and often times involve Rate Compression or Standardization as part of their service.

Hospital Association (HA) – Each state has a hospital association that provides advocacy for the hospitals in its state.  These associations can be for or non-profit.  Several state Hospital Associations also offer products and services to their member hospitals.  In recent years, many of these organizations have started managing the staffing services for their member hospitals much in the way an MSP does.  Such organizations may or may not include a technology solution in their offering. Early on, these organizations we’re involved with Rate Compression as part of their service but have moved more toward Rate Standardization or avoided rate negotiation all together as part of their service.

Vendor Neutral – This is a term used when the organization providing VMS/VM is a neutral 3rd party and does not supply staff or disproportionately advocate for one supplier or group of suppliers over others.  True Vendor Neutrality cannot come from a staffing supplier.  Often times staffing supplies argue that they too can provide vendor neutrality.  However, I’m not quite sure how that is possible since they are in fact – a vendor – managing their competitors. 

Sub-Contractor – This term refers to suppliers that are sub-contracted to a primary staffing company that is providing Vendor Management services to a client.

Affiliate Partnership – A partnership whereby a company receives service fee discounts or revenue sharing opportunities by advocating for or referring the services of a VMS provider.

Contingent/Supplemental/Temporary Staff – Staff provided to a client or directly employed by the client on a temporary or contract basis.

1st Tier/1st Call – A process whereby a staffing supplier (or group of suppliers) receives access to all open job requisitions of a client 1st for a specified period of time, prior to these requisitions being distributed to another supplier (or group of suppliers).

Internal Resource Pool (IRP) – A group of contingent staff employed by the hospital for the purposes of filling open job requisitions.  IRPs are often implemented as a strategy for reducing or eliminating the usage of outside labor from staffing suppliers.  Such labor pools are typically built and managed by the client directly but are often built and managed by outside companies (potentially even staffing suppliers).

Supplier List – Pretty much what it sounds like.  A list of suppliers that a client or VMS provider works with for contingent labor services.

Per-Diem/PRN/Daily – A single shift that occurs on a specific day.

Long Term/Contract/Traveler – A job assignment that has one healthcare professional on an assignment for longer than one day.  Typically, this is in the form of a 4, 8, or 13 week assignment.  Often times staff work in different parts of the country and are required to “Travel” to the assignment.

Conversion – Term to describe how many candidates are being accepted by a client versus the number submitted by a supplier.

Profiling – Sending summary or detailed (client dependent) information on a healthcare professional for the purposes of having the client pre-screen and review their qualifications prior to accepting the candidate for a position.

Scheduling – The act of placing staff into open positions.  This process typically involves job requisition, profile screening and verification and acceptance.

Core Scheduling – The primary scheduling performed by a hospital for managing and scheduling their regular, full time (core) employees.  This process often begins with patient census, acuity monitoring and staff to patient ratio tracking and is done in 4 week blocks with a watchful eye on labor and overtime rules.

Self-Scheduling – The ability for hospital or supplier staff to set their own availability and hospital preferences, as well as determine their own schedule.  Typically, this term is used in regard to a software application that allows for such functionality.

Contingent Workforce/Labor – Temporary or flexible employees that work for a hospital on a part-time, flex or contract basis sometimes under a different set of rules, guidelines and pay structure.  These labor resources can be employees of the hospital or a staffing company that supplies the contingent worker to the client.

Bidding – The process whereby open job positions are awarded (or considerations are given) to staff or staffing suppliers based on the rate, conditions and additional incentives offered or “bid” on by the candidate or supplier.

BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) – The model in which a company (staffing supplier or other) provides a hospital client with complete business process operation management.  This service can be delivered on or off-site of the client location and can include recruiting, hiring, credentialing, interviewing and staffing.

Centralized Staffing – A hospital system of staffing management whereby the staffing of the hospital is done by a centralized office, entity or company.

Decentralized Staffing - A hospital system of staffing management whereby the staffing of the hospital is done by multiple people (often unit supervisors/managers).

Clinical Staffing – Refers to the staffing of clinical staff.

Non-Clinical Staffing – Refers to staffing at a hospital location of non-clinical staff.  The distinction seems obvious but can be necessary, as non-clinical staffing is very different than clinical staffing.

Pricing & Payments

Rate Compression – Decrease in the bill rates staffing suppliers charge their clients.  Typically, this term is used to describe an involuntary rate reduction that is being mandated directly by the client or through a 3rd party such as a Vendor Manager.

Rate Setting/Rate Standardization – Service whereby the client or the Vendor Manager standardizes or sets the rates at a particular price point.  Such a service can provide the client with simplicity by having one set of rates and can potentially lower spending if the rates end up being lower overall.  This can be different than Rate Compression as it does not always lower rates for all or any suppliers.  Such a practice has to be done skillfully and with much research.  If rates are set below what the market delivers the client can end up with a lack of supply or lose suppliers due to the ability of the suppliers to find market rates in other areas.

Contract Management/Standardization – Implementation of best practices/standards for contract terms and policies governing the relationship between the client and the staffing supplier.  Such a service delivers a consolidated contract and set of terms to the client. Often times the company providing such services manages the entire contracting process from contract creation, to negotiation, to contract signing.

Consolidated Billing – Service whereby the client receives a single, aggregated invoice for all services billed by the staffing suppliers they work with. 

Reverse Invoicing – The client technically invoices the supplier, as the invoice is actually being produced from data the client creates, approves and sends to the supplier for dispute or approval prior to payment.

Escrow Payments – Payments from the client go through an escrow banking service and are then paid to the suppliers from the escrow service.  Absent such a process, monies owed by the client to the staffing suppliers are paid directly to the Vendor Management company.  The Vendor Management company is then responsible for paying the suppliers.  Refer to the Chimes bankruptcy for further understanding as to why such a service is beneficial.

Service Fee – The fee charged by the Vendor Management company to the staffing suppliers servicing the client.  This fee is most often a percentage of total billings charged and ranges from 1 – 5% in the healthcare staffing industry. 
Example:  Supplier bills client $50/hour and books a 10 hour shift.  Client owes the supplier $500.  The Vendor Management Service Fee is 3% of the $500.  The Vendor Manager is paid $15 and the supplier receives $485.

Supplier Funded – The staffing supplier pays all or a portion of the Service Fees charged by the Vendor Manager.

Client Funded - The client pays all or a potion of the Service Fees charged by the Vendor Manager.

Technology Systems

Implementation – The process of implementing a VMS.  Implementation can mean the installing or being trained on software, collecting data, establishing space for on-site managers, documentation, new policy creation and execution of Vendor Management program.

Training – The process of being trained on the workflow and business process of the VMS either in terms of learning new manual functions or learning how to use the VMS software application.

Client-Server Software – Software that is hosted and often times installed by the client on their servers.  This was how software was initially delivered.  The upside is that the client has full control over the software and it is contained within their walls.  However, the client also has the associated implementation, support and maintenance costs in addition to a significant amount of work to handle any upgrades.

Web-based Software – Software that is hosted by the company supplying the software that the client accesses through the web.  A more current and preferred method of using software.  Client typically has no implementation, hosting, maintenance or support obligations.  Also, software upgrades are seamless and security rights management can make such software just as safe and secure (if not more so) than client-server based software.

Systems Integration/Interfaces – The process of allowing separate software applications to import and export data to each other.

Application Programming Interface (API) – Fancy word for Systems Integration/Interface.  An open API is where a company posts a set of routines, data structures, object classes and protocols provided by libraries and operating system services in order to support the building of applications or interfaces to or from this product.

Time Keeping – System or process for managing and documenting employee or contingent worker time.

Credential Management – System or process for managing the credentials of staff.  For clinical staff, the credential verification, approval and storage process is often a large task if done manually.

Performance Evaluations – Process for evaluating employee or contingent worker performance.  Many hospitals and staffing suppliers have different standards and guidelines for when/how this is done.

Order Requisition – Process of a client communicating open shift and assignment needs to staffing suppliers either manually (phone, fax, email) or through an automated Vendor Management system.

Data Collection/Reporting – Ability to retrieve, read, manage, track and utilize data surrounding the staffing process.

Healthcare staffing suppliers – now is NOT the time to lower your bill rates.

When it comes to pricing, the healthcare staffing industry has it backwards.  I know every business is different and it’s hard to know where to set your price points when creating bill rates for your healthcare professionals.  Especially in this economy.  I also understand that the gap between logic and reality can be light years apart and that you have to do what you have to do to stay in business and make your clients happy.  

Lately, I’ve talked to a lot of staffing suppliers that are lowering their prices due to competition, lower hospital demand and other negative affects on healthcare staffing from the macro economy.  There certainly are some good reasons to offer lower pricing but competition and lower hospital demand are not always the most the appropriate reasons.

Why should you keep your prices the same right now?

Elasticity.  If you were awake in high school economics class you know elasticity is a fancy word that suggests prices should increase when demand increases and lower when demand decreases.  Many things are elastic in their pricing such as milk, tires, televisions, etc.  However, if you were awake and paying attention in your high school economics class you would know that staffing services are not elastic.  Lowering your prices isn’t going to make hospitals place more orders for your staff and often times, if the hospital is in need of the staff you have, high prices won’t keep them from buying.  It’s about patient care, acuity and staffing ratios.  The need for temporary healthcare staff is often present or absent regardless of price.  Yes, it's true that hospitals are able to hire more staff right now and pay them less than they were a year ago.  Again, however, lowering your prices isn't going to suddenly make the hospital start sending you more requests for staff.  It just means they'll pay less when they do have a need.

You’re sending the wrong message.  Lowering your bill rates right now suggests your prices were too high to begin with.  Further, you'll force your clients to suggest that if you can operate with lower bill rates now – certainly you can do it when the economy picks back up.  Once you’ve sent this message it is quickly received and difficult to recall.  Getting your prices back up to where they should be will be a long, uphill battle that will prove to be even more costly in the long run.

Your costs have increased.  Most likely, you’re like every other staffing supplier and your costs of doing business have increased during these challenging economic times.  Therefore, cutting your prices is a sure way to hurt your business even more.  Hopefully, your clients value your business enough to understand all of this.

It devalues your services.  Are your services any less valuable than they were last year?  If your prices were already a bit too high then the answer might be yes.  However, if your prices were market competitive then don’t send a message to your clients suggesting otherwise.

It's not all about price.  Simply lowering your bill rates because demand is lower or because your competition is doing it places too much focus on price and hurts the healthcare staffing industry as a whole.  Lets face it – you’re not making and delivering widgets here.  We’re talking about staffing healthcare professionals.  Price should not be the primary factor in the decision making process for your hospital clients so don’t let the conversation go there.  Quality, experience, and skill set are much more important factors to consider.  Therefore, if these factors have not changed why should your prices?

When should you consider lowering your prices?

Volume.  If a client is offering you more of their business it can make sense to reduce your bill rates in exchange.  For example, staffing suppliers earning “First Tier” or “First Call” agreements with hospitals often increase, if not double their business.  Another example is receiving guaranteed orders or multiple positions for special projects that hospital is involved with such as implementing electronic medical records or opening a new unit.  Offering lower rates in these instances makes a lot of sense.

New business.  Often times to get your foot in the door at a hospital you may need to provide them with discounted rates on a position or for a specific time period.  If doing so wins you new business this too can make a lot of sense.  Just make sure the agreement regarding the discount isn’t evergreen and has specifics delineating the services to which the discount applies and when it ends.

Better payment terms.  Hospitals may offer to pay you faster or up front in exchange for lower bill rates.  To some healthcare staffing suppliers, receiving your money faster or up front is more beneficial than maintaining your current bill rates.  Therefore, lowering your bill rates in this case can be advantageous.

Add more services.  Instead of lowering your bill rates it might be easier or more cost effective to add more services and keep your current price points.  Perhaps you can offer increased staffing hours, more support, recruit for new modalities, provide additional orientation assistance or an automated order requisition process.  Most likely your company is already set up to deliver on these services and therefore, won’t increase your costs while still allowing you to hold on your bill rates.

Change fees other than your bill rates.  Take a look at your late cancellation, orientation and buy out fees.  Often times healthcare staffing suppliers are able to adjust these prices more easily while still preserving their bill rates.  There's a good chance these things happen less frequently so the impact to your margins won't be as severe. 

Again, every business is different and I understand the pressures that exist right now due to the economy.  However, I also think it’s important to look at your pricing from a logical perspective and not be reactionary to competition and lower demand.  Educate your clients on how the pricing for your business works so they better understand.  Sell your services at the necessary price to keep your business strong and only offer lower bill rates when it makes sense. 

Vendor Management Services (VMS) – What’s in a Name? [pt. 5]

Group Purchasing Organizaitons (GPOs) and Hospital Associations (HAs)

Hundreds of hospitals across the country choose to manage and work with their healthcare  staffing suppliers through a GPO or Hospital Association.  GPOs and HAs have assisted hospitals with a variety of services for a number of years.  In recent years, both have moved into providing healthcare Vendor Management staffing services as well.

Summary of Model:
GPOs purchase supplies and other goods for hospitals in bulk.  Because of their large quantity purchases they receive discounts and pass the savings back to their hospital clients.  GPOs began applying this same model to services they offer their hospital clients and typically set rates and contract policies to which all suppliers servicing the hospital must adhere. 

Every state has a Hospital Association that each hospital within the state can choose to be a member of.  Hospitals pay member fees to their HA and typically, the HA advocates for their member hospitals in regard to legislation and government policies.  HAs provide their hospital members with relevant benefits and information.  Many HAs also provide other products and services either directly or through a related, private extension of their organization.  Starting around 2001, some HAs began delivering Vendor Management Services to their member hospitals.

Some GPOs and HAs have their own healthcare VMS technology solution but typically they resell or market a VMS technology solution, or partner with a company that delivers such a product.  GPOs and HAs typically receive a percentage of the savings they deliver to the hospital or apply a service fee to the volume of business that runs through the program.

Services Offered (Related to Healthcare Vendor Management):

• Rate analysis, setting, negotiation
• Policy and contract standardization
• RFP management
• Internal staffing management
• Compliance oversight for staffing suppliers
• Self-scheduling software application management tool

Strengths:

• Significant reduction of spend on outside labor for member hospitals.
• Improved management and tracking of supplier staffing and budgeting.
• Automated process for hospitals managing their external staff.
• Hospitals receive additional benefits of advocacy, discount pricing and other products, services from joining a GPO or HA.

Weaknesses:

• Some of the GPOs and HAs are not in direct control of the products and services they offer and therefore reliant on the success of these partnerships.
• Often times the people in the hospitals using the products and services everyday from the GPO/HA were not involved in the decision making process.  This top down approach can create some animosity and lack of buy in needed to make the program succesful.
• Some GPOs and HAs attempt to deliver services in the same way they do goods and products.  Staffing services involve people and staff and often times GPOs and HAs apply the same business model here as they do with other products and services.  This can cause issues that adversely affect staffing suppliers servicing their hospital clients, especially when discounted or set pricing is implemented.

Opportunities:

• GPOs and HAs have great opportunities to partner with companies offering additional products and services to sell to their members.
• GPOs and HAs have excellent channels with their hospital clients through which they can constantly sell new products and services. 
• GPOs and HAs have the potential to work with other GPOs and HAs to help them offer similar services.

Threats:

• A lawsuit filed against the Arizona Hospital Association by a local staffing agency changed how HAs operate and deliver their services across the country.  Because HAs and GPOs have such a broad reach it’s imperative that their policies and services not violate anti-trust laws.  Many GPOs and HAs set the rates that staffing suppliers can charge causing rate compression that has proven to adversely impact the staffing suppliers and the hospitals they service.  Staffing suppliers can't do business when their margins are overly compressed and hospitals end up not getting the staff they need because the suppliers send their staff to hospitals with more competitive rates.
• The process implemented by a GPO and HA can be multi-layered and complicated because of all the partnerships and different processes.  In addition, some services can actually create more complications for hospitals by creating dual processes for them if they don’t manage all of their staffing.
• The initial service for many GPOs and HAs focused contract negotiation and rate compression.  These organizations must look to find new ways at proving their value as rate compression has proven to have a negative impact in the market to both hospitals and staffing suppliers.

Conclusion:
Many hospitals find and receive a lot of value by choosing a Vendor Management strategy of working with a GPO or HA.  Members receive benefits for their staffing services as well as discount pricing on goods and legislative advocacy. 

However, sometimes the line between products and services gets a little too blurred and having staffing services managed by a company that focuses on this service specifically can be more beneficial. 

It will be interesting to see how GPOs and HAs grow and change their business over the next few years.  There are many challenges they will face in staying relevant but also, several opportunities that could prove very beneficial for them.

Provider List:

(HAs)
Ohio Hospital Association - OHA Solutions
South Carolina Hospital Association Regional Staffing Program
Arizona Hospital Association Registry Program
Hospital Association of Southern California
Kansas City Registry Program
New Jersey Registry Management Program
Chesapeak Registry Managment Program
New Mexico Nurse Registry Program

Montana Hospital Association

(GPOs)
Broadlane
Premier
MedAssets
VHA

If I missed your company name on this list email me and I’ll add it.

Related Posts:

Vendor management services (VMS) Whats in a name [pt-4]
Vendor management services (VMS) Whats in a name [pt-3]
Vendor management services (VMS) Whats in a name [pt-2]
Vendor management services (VMS) Whats in a name [pt-1]

How to slice and dice your competition

That was the name of a panel I sat on a few weeks back for the Software Association of Oregon (SAO).  I don't know that we ever got the "slicing and dicing" part but it was still an interesting discussion.  Below is the audio from the panel. 

For those not wanting to listen here was the premise of the talk and a summary of my position on the topic:

Is one of your company's competitors weakened by the economic downturn? Are their signs of a problem?

• You hear they didn't get a second round of funding.
• They have currently had staff reductions.
• You're not seeing them at trade shows.
• Their marketing engine fizzled.
• Salespeople are calling your firm looking for a new gig.

What do you do?
1. Play the waiting game and watch from afar hoping they spiral downward and out of existence
2. Fuel the fire with an aggressive campaign of your own pointing out the differences between your stable company and this weakened competitor

Is the law of the jungle appropriate or do we take the high road and wait it out?

In this session, you'll hear arguments for both sides. You'll hear from marketing and sales professionals who say, "kick em while they're down" and others who say fate will take its course - no extra help required. What's your perspective? What are the ethical boundaries? When does pouncing the weak make you look bad? How can you ratchet up the attack without hurting your credibility? We'll debate how aggressive marketing and sales people can be in today's climate of relatively stronger/weaker competitors. Do salespeople encourage customers to ask for financial statements? What should companies do (if strong or weak) to defend and/or add to their market positions.

My position and answers were essentially:

• Never badmouth your competition.
• Always focus on the benefits of your products and services.
• Highlight areas that play to your strengths and your competitors weaknesses.
• Use references to speak for you, particularly if one of your references worked with a competitor or considered them and chose you instead.
• Take a leadership position.  Produce material, white papers, blogs, etc. to communicate your message and make you stand out above your competition.

Moderator

Brian McCarthy, Adjunct Professor, Portland State University School of Business Administration + Oregon Executive MBA Program

Speaker Panel
Bill Piwonka, Sr. Director Marketing, EthicsPoint
Bill Booth, Business Development Manager, Babcock and Jenkins
Kevin Cancilla, Director, Corporate & International Marketing, Tripwire
Jason Lander, Founder, Vice President of Product & Business Development, Shiftwise

9 tips for promoting and protecting your brand online [pt. 4]

8.    Measure
Monitoring your brand is an opportunity to learn more about how you and others are projecting your brand and how it’s being perceived.  What's being said?  Is it mostly positive or negative?  What do people like about your company?  What don’t they like?  Are opinions changing over time?  What kind of information are you sending?  Is it positive?  Is it consistent?  Is it on message?

However, more than monitoring, measuring this activity is the key to your success.  Aside from collecting and tracking this information on your own there are some great tools for measuring this stream of collected data such as:

Clicky is a powerful, but simple tool for measuring traffic, conversions, activity, etc. on your web page or blog.  They also have some great tools for measuring Twitter activity.

Google Analytics is perhaps the most popular and most powerful free tool for measuring traffic, conversions, activity, etc. on your web page or blog.  There are some more sophisticated tools out there but this one is great to get started with...and it's free.

Twitter Grader is a tool that grades your Twitter account by the amount of followers you have, the ratio of followers to following, and the reach of those whom you follow, as well as your tweeting “velocity.”  It sounds strange but encourages you to use Twitter more and in different ways.

Twitalyzer is a Twitter measurement tool for measuring your Twitter influence.  It tracks your velocity, generosity, and popularity.  Be warned, it's harsh.

9.    Adapt
Now that you’re present, participating, monitoring and measuring it’s time to act on what you know.  What is the market telling you?  Are your prices too high?  Is your product delivering on its promise?  Do people love you more than you ever imagined? 

If the latter – then by all means, carry on.  If, however, the feedback you received is not what you wanted or expected how are you going to correct and change?  If you get all of this data and participate in all of these conversations but do nothing with the information then obviously you have a lot of time on your hands to burn.

In today's business environment you no longer have complete control over your brand.  Fortunately, however, you have tips and tools such as all I have mentioned in this series to help you adjust and improve your products and services, and ultimately your entire brand image.  There are many resources, tools and additional information available on this topic.  Anvil Media is a SEO/SEM company that supplies a wealth of information on the subject.  I encourage you to read and learn more.

Related Posts:

9 tips for promoting and protecting your brand online [pt. 3]
9 tips for promoting and protecting your brand online [pt. 2]
9 tips for promoting and protecting your brand online [pt. 1]

9 tips for promoting and protecting your brand online [pt. 3]

5.    Participate
Joining these sites on the web is just the beginning.  The only way to promote your brand and get value out of these communities is to participate.  I have to admit, it drives me crazy when people connect to me on Facebook, Twitter, etc. but never participate.  No links, no comments, no messages – nothing.  I’ve regularly remove people from my networks simply because they never contribute anything.  I’m not looking for numbers, I’m looking for good content and connections.

When you do participate be authentic.  Even if you're promoting your business or your brand people will respond much better to you if you sound human and not just as if you're promoting company propaganda.  Stick to your message but don't sound like a robot.

In addition to connecting and communicating, some of the best ways I’ve found to participate are – advertise your company services, run promotions, announce new products/services, and post links to relevant topics and helpful websites.

6.    Market, market, market
Showing up and participating with social media doesn’t mean your marketing efforts are complete.  There are several effective methods for further marketing your brand.  Join groups and organization (on and off-line).  Accept speaking engagements whenever you can.  Conduct targeted email campaigns.  Join relevant forums.  Keep the content coming and send it from multiple sources.  The more relevant and useful information you can put out the better.  You certainly don't want to bombard people with too much information but you also want them to know you're there.  

Putting out information and participating in events and speaking engagements puts your content in the hands of others.  These days, you can rely on the fact that the people receiving the information are also participating on-line.  If your message is relevant or provides them with value there is a good chance they will spread this information on-line for you.

Most importantly, no matter what method you chose for distributing information make sure the message you deliver is consistent with the brand you’re trying to promote.

7.    Monitor
Once you're actively participating on line it’s critical that you monitor the activity around your brand.  This means monitoring content you produce and content that gets produced by others.  Sometimes, it can be imperative that you know about or can respond quickly to information being posted about your brand.

There are several ways to do this and you’ve already taken the first step by joining in on the conversation.  Additionally, there are several other tools that assist in these efforts.

Tweetdeck is currently my favorite product for brand monitoring.  If you're a hospital or healthcare staffing supplier I'd strongly recommend using tweetdeck to monitor your brand. Tweetdeck allows you to create groups and save searches on Twitter.  For example, I can save a search for “healthcare staffing” or “healthcare vendor management” or “ShiftWise” and receive alerts anytime anyone on Twitter posts a Tweet with these keywords. These tweets can present new business opportunities, allow you to address complaints or find competitive information.

Twitter Search lets you do something similar to Tweetdeck by conducting searches for keywords.  You can even save or sign up for RSS feeds for the keywords you choose.

Google Alerts allows you to save searches for keywords so that you can receive an email anytime something on the web is posted with that keyword, provided of course that the Google bots know about it.  I find it’s pretty effective.  This tool allows you to monitor your brand as well as your competitor’s brands.

Tweetbeep is similar to Google Alters for Twitter.  It keeps track of conversations that mention you, your products, your company, etc.  You can even keep track of who's tweeting your website or blog, even if they use a shortened URL like bit.ly or tinyurl.com.

Scout Labs reads blog posts and social-networking comments from around the globe and judges them by their words and tone. The sentence “I love Amazon but the Kindle 2 is disappointing” gets properly parsed as a positive comment for Amazon but a negative one for its e-reader. I haven't used this product but I hear good things about it.  

Of course, an “old fashion” Google Search can always help identify places around the web where your brand is being mentioned.  Conducting periodic Google searches on your brand is always a good idea.

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9 tips for promoting and protecting your brand online [pt. 2]

3.    Establish a client feedback channel
Open up a feedback channel directly with your clients, prospects and business partners.  Make it easy for people to contact you via email or phone.  There are few things more annoying than endlessly searching a website for a company’s contact information or making your way through the maze of numbers to push in order to get to a human on the phone.

Creating forums, microsites or using customer feedback tools is a great way to allow your clients to give their input and communicate with them directly, so they know they are being heard.  Without such a platform, clients and business partners may be venting their frustrations about your company elsewhere on the web, in places you have no control over.

Below is a list of a few great tools for establishing client feedback channels.  All of them enable client feedback communities directly within an organization’s website or product.  Customers can submit ideas, suggestions or issues while the community comments and votes on the ideas.  Clients can be instantly notified of comments or when their idea or issue has been resolved.  All of these products are great and have different features to meet different organizational needs.

• QuestionPro-IdeaScale
• User Voice
• CrowdSound
• Get Satisfaction

 

4.    Choose the best social media resources to promote your brand online.
There are all kinds of social media resources to choose from and several staffing suppliers and hospitals are already using social media effectively.  Many tools are over-hyped and some won’t be relevant for your business or the healthcare staffing industry.  Much of your decision should be based on how you want to deliver your message and where you feel you will best reach your target audience.  Here is a list of several sites on which you can successfully promote your brand. 

• LinkedIn is much more than your own personal online resume or a place to find potential employees.  LinkedIn now provides valuable information on companies.  Add your company (if it’s not already listed) so you can define and control the information and so others can find you.  You can also join or start groups on LinkedIn and start or participate in question/answer discussions. 

• Twitter offers many benefits to you as a hospital or healthcare staffing supplier.  Twitter can help you with recruiting, events, brand promotion, information distribution, competitive analysis, product launches, networking and much more.

• Creating a Facebook page is another place to help define and control the message of your company.  Employees, business partners and clients can become “Fans” of your page, create discussions and share information.  You can feed news, articles and press releases directly into your page and create ads to promote your company directly to other targeted members of Facebook. It's also a great place to network and connect to clients and business partners.

• YouTube allows you to post and share videos online.  Video can be a great way to promote your company.  Creating videos can be time consuming and requires some equipment.  However, with a little creativity you can create great content and do so on the cheap with simple tools like a Flip video camera and Camtasia video editing software.


• Flickr is another way to visually promote your company on the web.  Flickr allows you to post pictures, create photo sets and network with others.  Posting pictures of clients, employees, company events, or your office life can go a long way to help add a human face to your business.

• Digg allows you to post and share news articles, press releases, and other web links in an effort to spread positive information about your company and share relevant information with others.

• Delicious allows you to bookmark your favorite sites, news articles, other resources, etc. and share them with your network.

• Medical Mingle is a great example of a professional social networking site specifically for people in the healthcare staffing industry.  Medical Mingle allows you to network with other recruiters, business and healthcare professionals.

• Your website/Blog.  Don’t overlook your own locations on the web as being resources.  Having a website allows you to post information, press releases, articles, white papers and is typically the best place to promote your business and your brand.  There are also several ways to connect with others from your site or blog through contact forms, forums or by any of the several ways mentioned above.  Companies like Jive Software and Google Open Social allow you to create your own social networking platforms directly on your site.  Adding a blog is also a great way to consistently generate content and reach out to your followers.

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