This morning I was on a healthcare social media panel up in Madison, at Social Media Breakfast. (Wow! Good crowd…Madisonians like to think early.) It was a healthy discussion (pun…sorry) of overcoming the barriers to social media integration in healthcare organizations.

Recently, we’ve done a lot of learning here at Jigsaw about the Affordable Care Act and accountable care organizations. So it occurred to me in the process of putting this presentation together that social media, strategically used, *could* actually help not only improve patient experience but also potentially improve outcomes and facilitate accountable care. I discussed this hypothesis with three leaders on the front lines in the healthcare social media space and was happy to hear that I’m not crazy.

Many thanks to these brilliant three: Dana M. Lewis, Swedish Medical Center and founder of #HCSM; Ed Bennett, University of Maryland Medical System; and Chris Boyer, Long Island Jewish health system. The presentation includes their thoughts on this topic as well as mine, along with current examples of how they are using social media to drive their businesses.

Many thanks to Social Media Breakfast Madison, in partnership with the American College of Healthcare Executives, for having me. Let me know if you have any questions about this information or would like to continue the conversation.

Mmmmmm peanut butter

Our friends at Hunger Task Force here in Milwaukee are encouraging people to have peanut butter drives. At the time I’m writing this, Milwaukee has stepped up in a HUUUUGE way, donating 95,156 jars. Yep. Milwaukee pretty much rocks.

We caught wind of this on Twitter, thanks to Julie Larsen other local organizers of #PBrally, an event at AJ Bombers next Monday, February 25, 5PM-8PM. So we’re collecting jars here at Jigsaw, to take to the event. Join us!

Not only is this obviously a great cause…it is also a super smart strategy for Hunger Task Force…focusing people on one simple, attainable item that is very tangible and loaded with happy associations for most people. “Oh, peanut butter? I love peanut butter. And I can do that.” Sticky…memorable. And therefore brilliant. Super smart nonprofit marketing strategy…50 thumbs up (from all of us here).

Props to Hunger Task Force in every way, for all they do, and to all those like Julie and AJ Bombers who are helping organize the community to respond. We’ll see you at #PBRally!

Great news! We are beyond excited to announce that, after a three-month agency review process, Jigsaw has been chosen as the new marketing and advertising agency for VISIT Milwaukee, the accredited Destination Marketing Organization for the Greater Milwaukee area. We’re partnering with VISIT Milwaukee on marketing communications to attract leisure travelers as well as meetings and conventions to the city.

In the words of Steve Marsho, our fearless leader of account service: “We are very passionate about Milwaukee, and thrilled to be working with VISIT Milwaukee to help show the world all that this city has to offer. Many people don’t realize what a beautiful, fun city we have, and what an easy city it is to enjoy; the number of stories to tell and ways to connect people to Milwaukee is an incredible opportunity.”

In other words: Milwaukee rocks, and we will have a blast helping show it off. We previously worked with VISIT Milwaukee on the launch of the DearMKE website – part of a growing community collaboration that seeks to dispel old perceptions and paint a picture of the many facets of Milwaukee as told through the stories of Milwaukeeans.

“We were very impressed with Jigsaw’s creativity and fresh approach to promoting Milwaukee as well as their ability to connect the dots by using measurable research combined with strategic marketing practices. We’re confident this new partnership will result in effective messaging that successfully targets our core markets,” said Paul Upchurch, VISIT Milwaukee President and CEO.

Truly, this is an honor for us and we will work our butts off to make VISIT Milwaukee – and the rest of Milwaukee – proud.

Photo: Trevor Eiler

Last night, Social Media Club Milwaukee welcomed our friends at Visit Milwaukee to share their social media successes and challenges and highlight their new DearMKE campaign. The discussion was held at the beautiful Historic Best Place at the Pabst Brewery, so it was a nice touch that we got to drink Pabst and Schlitz while discussing the fact that, according to Milwaukee’s Mayor Tom Barrett, “Laverne and Shirley don’t live here anymore.”

Jeannine Sherman, Bill Prange and Carrie Woods made it clear that they are a brand on a mission and everything they do ties back to the Milwaukee brand promise: A vibrant community on a great lake. Textured and real. A naturally beautiful and entertaining city with an easy attitude. Major props for being strategically driven.

Social media nerds love data, too, of course, and Visit Milwaukee didn’t disappoint. They share the results of their popular weekly Visit Milwaukee Facebook features, Where Are We Wednesday and Freaky Food Friday, as well as their quarterly social media promotions aimed at building both social communities and email database, increasing site traffic and ultimately, putting heads in beds. Measuring ROI was listed as a challenge, as it is for so many businesses; because a majority of Milwaukee hotel bookings happen off their website, Visit can measure proven increases in site traffic which can not always be tied directly to bookings. And they acknowledged that conversation and engagement matter, too.

The group was eager to hear more about the recently launched DearMKE campaign, which is very unique among destination marketing organizations. Jigsaw is proud to be a part of this campaign, having created the DearMKE website; many local creative organizations came together to make the DearMKE films and campaign happen, with Jack Turner as Executive Producer and About Face Media producing the films. The recently-released introductory DearMKE film makes us all stand a little taller as Milwaukeeans; we have so much to be proud of. Check it out…and turn it up.

The song is “Love You ‘Til I Die,” recorded in the early ‘70s by Milwaukee musician Bennie Cole. (Thank you, Jeff Sherman.)

If you want more DearMKE, like it on Facebook, follow it on Twitter, and follow the Pinterest board.

Huge thanks to Visit Milwaukee for doing such a stellar job sharing their thoughts and experiences with us, to Best Place at the Pabst for hosting, and to Social Media Club of Milwaukee. Great stuff happening here in the MKE!

On October 3, hundreds of Milwaukee web nerds came out of their darkened offices to take SEO Mozcation, a great SEO meetup hosted by highly-respected Seattle-based software company SEO Moz. The content was a solid mix of tactical/technical tips with genuine strategic context (and the swag, stuffed mushrooms and Heineken weren’t half-bad either).

All of the presentations were good. I may or may not have gone on a mental mozcation briefly during one about stuff like customizing your rel canonical tags…just a skosh over my head, and why I love me some great SEO specialists. I’m just going to comment on a few of the presentations that I found most relevant, personally.

Brittan Bright from iAcquire shared a case study on how her team, BBH and Edelman Digital conspired on behalf of Axe Body Spray to make a bunch of “internet stuff” and make Susan Glenn “a thing.” This made me laugh, because I can hear a creative team saying it inside my head. Interesting, in that the SEO team was a more major player at the creative table than it often is. The days of SEO being an afterthought are, hopefully, behind us.

Luke Summerfield from Savvy Panda, a Milwaukee Joomla web design shop, reminded everyone of the importance of the mobile user (did we need to be reminded of that? I hope not), and shared some useful tips in his high-quality talk, Mobile Search Skyrocketing? Let’s Optimize and Capture. Tips included: responsive design being preferred by Google, keeping mobile page load times under two seconds, using the Google keyword tool to find keyword ideas and statistics specific to mobile, setting up a separate Google Analytics profile for mobile site visitors and the importance of creating a mobile site map. (Also, more about canonical tags, at which point my strategist’s brain went to Fiji.)

In what was, for me, the most thought-provoking presentation of the evening, Jamie Steven, SEO Moz CMO, spoke about Technical Skills for Marketers. He asserted that the Technical Marketer – with both broad, general and deep, specialized knowledge – is the most indispensable. In this vision, an individual marketer should be able to set goals, strategies and forecasts; personally manage databases; wireframe, design and write copy for web communications; write code; implement end-to-end tracking and evaluate results; and automate campaigns for future success. Said Technical Marketer should know how to personally execute SQL, HTML/CSS, JavaScript, HTTP/query strings, Photoshop, Google Analytics, statistics/regression analysis, SEO, content platforms, email platforms, E-commerce tech…

And so, just when I think I may have a halfway decent handle on what’s going on in the digital world…suddenly, I’m a total marketing #fail by these standards. Yet, I like Jamie’s vision. I agree that the more knowledgeable we, as marketers are, about as many of these areas as possible, the better. And that it’s possible to be very, very good at many of these things. One of the most brilliant (former big-agency) strategists I know, for example, has mastered studio photography, Google Adwords and other disciplines so that he can single-handedly execute marketing for a variety of businesses.

But there’s also a reason why true specialists exist, and I do not believe that the solo technical marketer is the answer in MOST cases. In fact, if all marketing/web communications were created by them, the world would be a sea of creative mediocrity. I guarantee you that if one of our designers designs your email, it’s going to look several million times better than if I design it. Do I, as a strategist, need to know Google Analytics. YES. Do I screw around in MailChimp, to understand how it works? YES. Do I need to know how to code? It would be nice. Do I need to know how to use those darn rel canonical tags? Man, I hope not. But the world may come to that.

Rand Fishkin, SEO Moz CEO, also gave a solid presentation on The Big Picture of CRO (conversion rate optimization.) It was great to hear an SEO guy talking about branding and how the big picture marketing variables affect conversion rates just as much as or more than the color of the button.

Tom Snyder from Trivera Interactive gave a great talk about how social media affects SEO. I loved it, because he agreed with me, saying what I preach to clients until they roll their eyes: “Google really, really likes blogs, because it knows that people really, really like blogs.” If you don’t listen to me, listen to Tom. He’s a very smart man. :]

All in all, I give major kudos and thanks both to those Milwaukeeans who organized the voting to bring SEO Mozcation to Milwaukee and to all of the event organizers and presenters. Regardless of whether you aspire to be a true Technical Marketer, it’s always a good idea to step outside of your immediate world and hear what other types of minds are thinking about.

What do you think? Do you aspire to be a Technical Marketer? If you went to this event, what were your takeaways?