Social Media Interim Guidelines

I probably knew at some point that National Center had developed guidelines to help us handle the exploding social media sphere. But I guess I forgot because they seemed news to me when I stumbled across them today.

Here's where you can find them on the S drive if you are so inclined:

S:\Affiliate\Communications\ScoMed

These are interim guidelines from March so I've asked a few contacts at National Center to let me know if there are new ones available or in development. I'll keep you posted.

Ice Cream helps fight stroke!

Say whaaaat?
Take a look at this site to learn how a seemingly simple and child-like game focused on ice cream can have some hefty health benefits for stroke survivors.


You know the drill -- leave a comment with your thoughts.

Founder's Affiliate Tweet

Here's an example of a Tweet sent out from the Founder's Affiliate that I thought could be useful in a number of ways...including...(gasp!) traditional media.

NY Dept of Health just said more than 750K New Yorkers are in danger of heart attack or stroke due to high blood pressure--esp black nyers.

See how it appears on TweetDeck below (it's the second one down in the far left column):

What are your creative ideas for using such stats within our own markets? Leave a comment here or yammer/im/tweet me...just don't email me! :)

Broken Hart Bords

Meet Jacob Brockhoff, an 11 year-old skateboarder from Bradenton, Florida, who hopes to someday go pro.

In the meantime, he's garnered national media attention for his unique fundraising efforts on behalf of the AHA. Jacob was born with Tetralogy of the Fallot, a heart defect that includes a large hole in the heart and narrowing of a valve partially blocking blood flow to the lungs. Instead of spinning away the summer on his board, he ended up on his back -- he had a second heart surgery in June.

According to current edition of the AHA's The Happy Heart Herald, Jacob turned his frustration onto his board. "If I can't ride 'em, then I'll design 'em," he told his parents. He created a business plan to design a special line of skateboards and t-shirts to raise money for the AHA and American Heart Heroes program for children with heart disease.

What a cool kid! As you can see by the video below, he's happy, healthy and totally gnarly, dude. (I'm so showing my age. That was cool in the '80s...who knows what they say now? Phat?)

Heart of Diabetes

Some folks at National Center are beginning to make more use of social media tools like YouTube.

The following is a video of Randy Jackson discussing the relationship between diabetes and CVD. The video is part of a promotional campaign for IknowDiabetes.org.



The part I'm most fascinated by is this: I found out about the video via social media. Kim Jennings, web marketing manager, posted a message on Yammer about the video, asking people to view it, rate it, digg* it, add it to your Facebook profile and share it with others. Sure, I may have received an official AHA communication about the video at some point but because it popped up on yammer (I view it through the desktop app), I could click the link, view it and quickly share it. That's the beauty of this stuff.

*What's digg? Glad you asked. The answer is here.

Having a Heart Attack

Here's another film -- this one animated -- attempting to capture the experience of a heart attack.

It starts out seemingly innocently enough but don't be fooled, it's every bit as graphic as the last one (minus the vomit!). I wasn't able to embed this one but you can still view it at StolenDreams.com.

Blah, Blah, Twitter, Blah

Yes, in fact, I do actually know that I sound like a broken record. But you know what they say about key messages -- it takes constant repetition for your audience to get it. So I'll just keep twittering on and on about Twitter (and Social Media) until I have your full attention.

You're coming along, whether you like it or not!

The latest installment of Twitter-mania comes in the form of a special section in the latest edition of Business Week. Look closely at the screen shot below and you'll see that it's this week's Top Story (blue box).


The special report includes the following stories:

• How Companies Use Twitter to Bolster Their Brands
  
• Getting Intimate (with Customers) on Twitter
• Brands That Tweet
• AMC's Mad Men: Running Amok on Twitter

Read them in order -- the last two stories aren't as meaty. Brands thatTweet is just that: a list of brands you'll find on Twitter; Mad Men is a good case study of good marketing gone bad.

Happy reading.