Twitter Tools

I'm going to try to curb my Twitter addiction (TA, anyone?) and provide more balanced information on this blog; however, I hope you'll indulge me one more Twitter post (of course, it won't be the last, but you know what I mean.)

• PR firm Ogilvy has started a blog series on strategies for using Twitter to drive pr, awareness and goals;
• Another firm, Tech Cocktail, has a great resource: Twitter Tools for Community and Communications Professionals;
  
• The Wall Street Journal has an article today on the mainstreaming of Twitter.

Please take a few moments to read these and leave some commments.

Thanks,
Steph

Social Media Guidelines 2.0 and FAQ

It's been a woefully long time since I've posted anything to the blog -- I think web time is a lot like dog time: accelerated by at least 7x! I'm blaming the dead air on my insanely busy schedule this past month. But the good news is that help is on the way. I knew it was time to get back to blogging when I saw the email today announcing updates to the Social Media Guidelines. Since that was my last post, it seemed both synchratic and symmetrical to start again with the updates.

Social Media Guidelines 2.0 and FAQ

Social media is rapidly increasing in importance as a way to interact with various audiences. It's no different than the most basic forms of interpersonal communication, except that it occurs on a far greater scale. The American Heart Association believes that social media is an important platform for communicating with, listening to and connecting with key audiences. AHA staff across the country are already exploring social media. Questions about social media and its application are increasingly common. Until the strategic framework is complete, these guidelines will direct these efforts. These guidelines will evolve over time, as we develop our strategy, as we learn more, and as the environment and offerings change.

Download them here or from the ODrive.

• Social Media GuidelinesSocial Media Frequently Asked Questions
• O:\Association Wide\Social Media

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.