St. Louis Missouri (MO) Small Business Social Media Marketing

I love to brag about our clients whenever something really cool happens. In this case, one of our clients, Elayne Forgie, CMC, and owner of Elder Care at Home (www.eldercareathome.com ) has been featured in a 2 part series on Alzheimer’s disease on the AARP website. Great job!!! (No we did not get her this gig, it happened before we came on board, and was just now released, however we sure are marketing the you-know-what our of it on the internet for her!!) Woo hoo! Go Elayne!

If anything like this – newspaper story, local news broadcast etc, happens to you, be sure to forward it to us!!!

Here are the videos: http://www.aarp.org/family/caregiving/articles/makeovers_billy_house.html

Here’s the press release we wrote for her:

Certified Geriatric Care Manager Elayne Forgie Highlighted in AARP Video Series on Alzheimer’s Care

(Southeast Florida, May 2009) Elayne Forgie CMC, a certified geriatric care manager and president of Elder Care at Home was recently featured in a new two-part  elder care video series sponsored by AARP,  that give 14 Tips for In-Home Caregivers who are caring for a loved one with Alzheimer’s Disease.  

Here is the link to the first of the two part series: http://www.aarp.org/family/caregiving/articles/makeovers_billy_house.html

Forgie, an Alzheimer’s and caregiving professional, knows that caring for a loved one with early memory loss or dementia can be both painful to watch and frustrating. The goal for Forgie is to find a way this family can help Billy safely navigate his way around his home, minimize his growing confusion, and stimulate his memory.

After spending a day with family, Forgie offers a series of simple and enjoyable solutions these caregivers can implement to help Billy trigger his short-term memory and conquer everyday tasks.  

In part one of our series, “When Memory Loss Hits Home: Seven Solutions for Billy,” Forgie offers a series of tips for keeping Billy actively involved in his daily life and safe in his home.

On her wedding day, Mary had promised her husband Billy she’d always be there. With the help of these solutions, she can keep that promise she made to her husband.

Elayne Forgie is a professional geriatric care manager, certified by the National Academy of Certified Care Managers. She was a founding Board Member of the Florida Geriatric Care Managers Association, and is the president and founder of the ElderCare Resource Center, ElderCare at Home and AlzheimersTraining.com.

 She is presently serving on the Advocacy Advisory Board for the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America and has been awarded their Excellence in Care Specialist designation.  Elayne is a member of the Case Management Society of America and American Counseling Association.

She is the founder of Healthy Aging Enterprises and The ElderCare Foundation, a not-for-profit corporation that provides 24 hours of emergency respite care in the patient’s home.

Dr. Forgie has been recognized on local, state, and national levels as both a certified geriatric care manager and as president/owner of an Inc. 500 company. She has over 18 years of direct experience focusing on the needs of older adults, caregivers, and family members living with the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, dementia or other cognitive impairments.  She has an impeccable reputation for providing comprehensive care and services and has helped thousands of families across the United States.

Elayne is active in a number of local organizations including Executive Women of the Palm Beaches; Women’s Chamber of Commerce, Alzheimer’s Alliance and is presently working with other local leaders in the establishment of Dementia Specific Standards for service delivery to patients and caregivers affected by Alzheimer’s disease.                                                  ###

Hi all,

Just a quick note to update you on the LTCSocialMark2.0 program.

www.ltcsocialmark.com

You will notice that the website says we are sold out and taking new clients by private referral only. That’s true. If you don’t have access to anyone who can serve as your private referral, please email us for a brief conference call and conversation about getting involved. The reality is- we can sell out of this program any time we like, BUT we WANT to work with people who understand the importance of this kind of marketing now and for their future business strategies.

The pricing has also change, and yet we know that we still aren’t charging as much as the competition does…in fact, we still way under priced based on what I’ve seen in the market place. The new set up fee is a hard budget item to swallow in any economy, so we now allow you to make that investment in 2 payments. (You have to email us for the link, and the conference call set up).

So here’s the drill: If you want us to handle your online presence and really spice things up for you on lead gen, videos, and search engine presence, then I would suggest emailing valerie@theltcexpert.com and getting your conference call set up so that we can discuss your needs, the program, and find out if it’s a good fit for your business model.

Thanks!

Valerie VanBooven

I found  a great article about marketing/the internet/making it all come together. Here are the highlights below. The original article by Adam Singer is located on his blog: http://thefuturebuzz.com/2009/05/18/its-about-ideas/Internet

• Marketing isn’t directly about technology, rather it’s about ideas that set it on fire.
• The best communicators stay at the edge of technology and embrace change
•  What I’m getting at is that no marketer can thrive long-term without staying at the edge, as fluency in tools is imperative to be able to think in terms of strategy and come up with good ideas.  
• Proper on-site SEO is vital for search traffic, but it is creative and/or useful ideas that forge links, connections and authority in the engines.
• Blogs are incredibly powerful communications tools that are simple to implement, but worthless without great content.
• Building subscribers is more than enticing people to opt-in, it’s about building that relationship over time and developing trust.
• Creating profiles on social media platforms takes 5 minutes, really anyone can do this – but again just like blogs, they mean nothing without something interesting behind them and an ROI in mind.
• AdWords and PPC are easy to implement, but without a creative approach and strategy behind them the results will be mediocre at best.  Like the board game Orthello, Internet advertising takes a minute to learn, a lifetime to master.
• You don’t need a social media expert, you need a good marketer (the modern day definition of a marketing professional includes an understanding of all media).  Good marketing always finds a way to spread.  The right ideas replicate themselves in the petri dish of the web.
• I’m not downplaying the fact that you need to be fluent in manipulating web communications tools, (or that the tools aren’t amazing, because they are) you absolutely do – but the real value here is not just understanding, it is creative application. 
•  Ideas will emerge as the truly valuable asset, as execution itself gets simpler and knowledge becomes widespread.  This is a good thing, as more understanding means less time spent explaining/educating and more time working at a high level.  Also, the value of what we do will just continue to go up as more are educated.
• You have to get ahead of the curve to be effective here, come up with successful ideas and know what to apply when and where.  The best way to get there requires more than reading about others doing it, rather you will learn the most by experimenting as part of your natural process and embracing change as it happens, not fighting or fearing it.

If you haven’t embraced social media marketing as an effective relationship builder online and lead generator, you will find yourself behind the rest of your competition within the next few minutes.

IF you wait 6 months to get things started, you will be 12 months behind the rest of the senior service providers in your area. I encourage each and every one of you to make the most of your online presence. Don’t wait.

If you are independent (not a franchise owner) you have the power to change your website, and your marketing strategy immediately.

If you are a franchise owner branding correctly is important, but lack of control over your own website doesn’t mean you can’t engage in social media marketing online. You can and you should.

If your corporate office isn’t willing to embrace the change in the marketing landscape and help their franchise owners by updating the functionality of their websites (just for starters), then ask yourself this question:

Are they more interested in selling a franchise or developing meaningful relationships and fostering individual franchise location growth??? An interesting question for many of you I’m sure.

Here’s your free tip of the day:

Giving away something for free (your “call to action”) is one of the most important aspects of marketing for any business, including elder care, home care, and senior service providers. Without out a great call to action, you are wasting online pay-per-click money (if that’s your method of choice), and wasting your websites ability to generate leads for you.

What should you be giving away for free?

Depends on your budget. Mor often I am seeing home care agencies giving away 4-12 hours of free care provided the client signs up for 4-12 hours of care (buy one get one free). Adult day care centers give away a half day “try us you’ll like us” coupon.

Others are giving away free videos, free reports, free DVDs, free audio CDs, and more. Gone are the days of the simple print brochure. If you want to stand out in your marketplace you MUST be using technology to you advantage. It’s a must for those who plan to survive.

Here an article that explains some more:

http://www.searchengineguide.com/stoney-degeyter/make-money-giving-things-away-for-free.php

Over the past ten years or so the Internet has busted the doors of “free stuff” wide open. More and more we are able to get cool things for absolutely no charge. Blogging platforms such as wordpress are free. Wordpress addons are free. Many iPhone apps are free. Blogs and newspapers provide free content online. You can download TV shows and songs for free (legally or not.) And you can connect with your friends for free via IM, MySpace, facebook, twitter, and a host of other free social networking platforms. I could go on.

The era of “there’s no such thing as a free ride” is coming to an end. So many things are free now days I often wonder how anybody makes money anymore, especially competitors trying to sell what someone else gives away.

But free works. This has been true long before the web was invented.

Great post on the use of social media to drive attendance to ANY event. So, if you are looking for a great turn out at your next appearance, senior fair, open house, job fair, caregiver workshop or elder care community education event, READ THIS!

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Last week, when a discussion on LinkedIn essentially posed this question — “Social Media: All Hat, No Cattle?” — Texas author and blogger Stephen Manning was poised with a fresh-off-the-presses example of social media’s effectiveness.

Manning’s case study? A just-completed conference for writers hosted by DFW Writers’ Workshop, a non-profit association in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area. 

A DFWWW board member and past president, Manning serves as the association’s volunteer webmaster and resident social media strategist. A history buff, Manning has authored two books on World War II-related topics. By day, he’s webmaster for Cook Children’s Health Care System.

Manning says social media were directly responsible for helping DFWWW significantly outperform attendance goals and achieve profitably in the second year of its conference.

Read the full article here:

http://touchpointcity.wordpress.com/2009/05/13/driving-event-attendance-with-social-media/