“RT”, for readers not engaged in the Twitter world is short hand for re-tweeting, or sending the post of someone else to your followers. It’s a way for you to agree with the original observation and spread the message while giving credit to original author.

This brings the mesage to your followers and introduces them to someone they may wish to follow. It’s an act of support and friendship that creates relationship all around, and serves as a form of currency in the network.

The new marketing haiku, “You RT me and I’ll RT you” came from Bryan Vartabedian, M.D. @Doctor_V who I recently met at the Digital Pharma West conference in San Francisco.

@Doctor_V - Bryan Vartabedian, M.D. speaking at Digital Pharma West

He was on a panel discussing ways that pharmaceutical companies can reach doctors now that golf junkets are out and drug reps have a hard time getting face time. Bryan gave a more intelligent sounding answer while on stage. But his private conversation RT quote was more profound and representative of the shift that’s going on in marketing. (You can read more profound thoughts on his 33 Charts blog.)

The drug companies can look to Twitter to find some of their marketing answers. They can move to creating a relationship, where there is an exchange with their audience instead of selling.

The traditional one way marketing message doesn’t work well on Twitter. Beverly Macy, the co-author of the upcoming book “The Power of Real-Time Marketing” @PowerRTM likes “the 80/20 rule of Twitter – give 80 percent of the time + ‘get’ or talk about yourself 20 percent of the time”.

TweetDeck is the new black bag for @Doctor_V

This could mean a paradigm shift from moving product to focusing on helping the patient become healthier. From selling to the doctor to helping them do their job.

We heard great examples at the conference of companies creating patient support communities. Could we see a similar support to doctors that would offer practice management tips, assistance in moving to electronic medical records, or working to connect attendees at dinner meeting talks to expand referral networks?

What would be other examples of RT a customer that would work to reach physicians? What else can we learn about marketing from Twitter?

Mark Harmel

harmelphoto.com

@MarkHarmel

I managed to tweet my way into becoming an industry expert in 140 characters or less. After two decades of shooting in medical settings, I can comfortably proclaim to be a healthcare photography expert. But I feel more like a social media student than an expert. In fact it was a homework assignment that sparked my idea for the iPhone app that landed me in the MedAdNews article by Fabio Gratton and Michael Spitz.

Top 10 healthcare social media predictions for 2010 – more than 30 industry experts tweet their perspectives

I first became involved in social media through blogging and explored Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn as ways to share the posts and to learn what was going on the space. The more I explored, the more I saw the early hype about the paradigm shift in communications becoming reality in the new space. I was being drawn into my Twitter stream, both as a way of learning about the new field and because the links, and conversations were so fascinating.

Social media is about making connections. This story started with the real life meeting of Charlie Kimball. He’s an Indy Lights race car driver with Type 1 diabetes that’s a patient of my wife. He tweets under his name @charliekimball and his NovoNordisk sponsor moniker @raceswithinsulin. I follow both versions of Charlie and most of the time he simply shares about going to the track or his exercise routine between races. But back in June of 2009, he made history with “the first branded Pharma tweet”. At first glance it was a routine post about Charlie giving himself an insulin shot, but to those in pharmaceutical advertising it was a watershed.

One of those people is the MedAdNews co-writer, Fabio Gratton @skypen. He’s a close follower of the issues surrounding Charlie’s Tweet who’s been a leader the healthcare ad community working to obtain clarification from the Federal Drug Administration about what can be said by Pharma companies in the social media space. Fabio and I have now met in person and I answered his Twitter question asking for a social media healthcare prediction.

The TCOYD iPhone app prototype

The iPhone app idea came from my recent work with the diabetes education group Taking Control of Your Diabetes. I’m helping to guide their entry into the social media space. We want to build an awareness for their events, keep the participants connected and ideally, healthier by providing continuing diabetes education. Their Twitter stream is now active @TCOYD , their Facebook community is growing, and more projects are in the pipeline. Working with them is extremely rewarding. It allows me to expand beyond my normal photography role and use my diabetes knowledge combined with my experience in healthcare marketing and social media.

My final project in my New Media Marketing class at UCLA Extension will be to describe what the app might do. It’s more of a thought experiment now with good artwork (thanks to help from PhotoShopDude, Micheal Standlee) where the intent is to pull together all of the social media streams we create at TCOYD into one place on the iPhone, and soon – the iPad. Once their streams are in place we will look into building the app.

The app could initially work like the New York Times app that breaks out the news into the section headings of politics, sports, business, and more. Further developments could turn it into a diabetes management tool and there could even be a way to use the app interactively at the live events.

Any suggestions on how it might be programed? Who do you know that could make the app? Can I build it myself with a little help?

Mark Harmel

harmelphoto.com

@MarkHarmel

My interest in social innovation prompted me to notice a new fundraising development being used to help the victims of the Haitian earthquake. Mobile giving has played a huge role in massing many small donations to the relief cause. A promotion by the NFL Playoffs over the weekend produced stunning results. The current total reported now on Thursday morning is over $25 million dollars.

Now I gave money the old fashioned way. An email from the Red Cross arrived yesterday morning and I visited their website to make a donation. I’m sure that plenty of other donations came in through this method as well. I was surprised that this new mobile method sprung up seemingly over night. Wondering about when the cell phone system was established I found a plan that was set up after Hurricane Katrina by the Wireless Foundation in September of 2006. Called Text 2HELP, this system partnered with the American Red Cross.

The current system (via MSNBC) of mobile giving effort was organized by the mGive Foundation, as well as the Mobile Giving Foundation, which are coordinating with wireless carriers. In the Red Cross’ case, phone users can text the word “HAITI” to 90999 to donate $10,” and when prompted, hit “YES” to confirm the donation.

The mGive Foundation tried the system in a Washington Nationals baseball game two years ago to generate funds for the Diabetes Care Complex, but the idea didn’t work well then, and the method only raised $190,000 in 2008 for the Red Cross to help with Hurricane Ike.

The text to donate system was set-up after Hurricane Katrina

The difference this time has been credited to the endorsements from Secretary of State Clinton and the White House blog.

The text to donate system has been so effective at both generating funds for the rescue as well as mobilizing the community. Supporters donate, then turn around and spread the word to friends in their social networks. This cycle of giving and sharing sets up a system of social proof that will encourage others to do the same. People often want to help in disasters like Haiti and look for a tangible way to assist. The cell phone texting method is a quick and easy way to move their sympathy into action.

It’ll be interesting to see the studies of this system that will come out in the following months. I’m sure that other charitable groups and foundations are looking into the system now. Will, or should this be saved for the big disasters. Would you like to use this for everyday giving as well?

What do you think about this way of giving? Have you seen this method being used before or is this just the first massive use of the method? How would you like to see text to donate be used in the future?

For a collection of groups that are helping in the rescue and other ways to give – a page has been organized at the NPR site. You can go there for news updates and for links to the other relief groups.

Mark Harmel

harmelphoto.com

@markharmel

Writing a blog is about being in conversation with your community instead of standing on a hilltop screaming “look at me”.

One of the best conversations I’ve found so far on the use of social media is appearing at the creativity_unbound blog that is produced by Edward Boches, Chief Creative Officer and Chief Social Media Officer of Mullen. Boches is a leader in exploring how social media can transform marketing and advertising. His blog is worthwhile reading for his views, but also for the conversation he creates.

The conversation is the main attraction there, but he gives the added value of rewarding his contributors by hosting the commentluv plug-in on his blog that adds a link and headline of the contributors latest blog post. Recently when I had something to add about a post on how Pepsi was moving millions of their ad dollars into the social media space, you can see how the little heart symbol indicates a link to my recent blog post. This allows readers that find my comment interesting an easy way to come over to this blog to visit.

Make your posts attract more comments

I decided that this was a good idea and added commentluv to my blog as well. To explore how the plug-in works add a comment to this post (don’t worry about being profound) and include your blog address.

To learn how to add the plug-in to your site, read on past the Mashable-like headline:

2 WordPress plug-ins to that you need to increase comments on your blog.

If you haven’t discovered Mashable yet, it’s the social media website I go to learn how to deal with the backend of my blog. If you are really interested in the technical end of blogging, this is a place to explore. I personally only want to know enough about the back end to keep the site running, but I’m happy to share what I know.

Go into the administration section of your blog, select plug-ins>addd new and type in commentluv. Hit search plugins. Select install and you’re in business. You will also want to add Akismet or some other spam blocking filter to keep out the junk comments. I also moderate my comments so that I have to approve anything that appears on the site. My rule is anything that adds to the conversation runs.

What other social media sites do you like for either building a community or learning to make your site work? Add a comment and watch commentluv do it’s magic.

MarkHarmel
harmelphoto.com
@MarkHarmel

Update: The “Lemonade” movie premiered in Boston last night (Nov. 30th) and reports are coming in. The first is from the Boston Business Journal. The second from the Adrants blog. Edward Boches weighs in on “The sweetness of lemons”. Philip Johnson writes in Adweek about the ad industry rallying around one of their own.

New Hampshire Public Radio’s “Word of Mouth” interviews Erik

The Christian Science Monitor has a feature on how Erik Proulx job loss led him to make Lemonade.

The latest update (12/29/2009) is a segment on the CBS Evening News.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

I confess. I’m a Twitterer. I can blame it on this blog.

Once I started blogging I wondered if I was cultivating a tree that would one day simply fall in the woods without being heard. So I looked for ways to share my pictures and the behind the scenes stories. That prompted me to explore the world social marketing. Which led me to the Please Feed the Animals and the movie “Lemonade”.

The beginning is a bit mysterious. I started by following some writers for Ad Age which somehow led to following the Twitter stream of Erik Proulx. He’s a laid-off  advertising copywriter that created a support blog for the recently unemployed advertising professionals called Please Feed the Animals.

Detail of make-up brushes (still from the video)

Erik’s Twitter stream mentioned that he was looking for good stories about life after being laid-off. He was collecting recollections about the initial trauma and the opportunities that were created by their new time and freedom. How ad people turned lemons into lemonade would become his documentary film.

When I discovered that Erik was filming in Los Angeles, I tweeted back, asking if I could help. My original thought was that I would shoot some stills that could be used to promote the film. But I had acquired a Canon 5D MKII camera – a hybrid still/high definition video camera and have been playing with the video capability. So shooting some video was also a possibility.

Kurtis Glade became a documentary filmmaker (still from the video)

Erik had progressed from shooting with his own little video camera to enlisting a top director and production team. But there were some scenes that needed to be shot before the production crew arrived in Los Angeles. I was enlisted to shoot a story was about a surfing camp that teaches kids and teens with Cystic Fibrosis how to surf as a form of therapy. Next there was a manicure session in a salon with a writer “that lost his job and changed his gender.”

I was on my own shooting the surf camp and did a 50/50mix of stills and video. When director, Marc Colucci arrived, he wanted more video than stills for the manicure session with David Cohen.

The video shooting continued the next day where I ended up shooting second video camera during the more formal studio interview shoot. My role was to look for details and go for second angle close-ups of hands and faces that could be used to add variety and editing options. These video snips were mixed in with the interviews captured with a Red camera.

Jeanne Schad became a coach (still from the video)

The resulting Lemonade film has generated a great deal of internet buzz. Promoted through Twitter and Facebook, the trailer now has over a 100,000 viewers and the final edit is close to completion.

You can follow the Twitter streams of the people mentioned by using their Twitter ID.

Erik Proulx  @eproulx,  David Cohen @identityTBD, Kurtis Glade @kurtisglade, Jeanne Schad @jeanneschad

There is much more to share about the Cystic Fibrosis surf camp that I’ll save for another post.

Mark Harmel

harmelphoto.com
@MarkHarmel