As healthcare marketing begins to embrace content marketing and social media, one of the biggest challenges is letting go of the impression that your website is at the center of the web.  In preparing a post on how healthcare marketers measure success of content marketing, a pattern emerged, where success was being measured by how many hits the content brought back to the website.  While this is ultimately where you’d like to get your content seen, it’s a misplaced goal and you can be even more effective if you shift your perspective.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="284" caption="The Ptolemaic Web"][/caption]

Back in the second century Ptolemy, published authoritative works that put the earth in the center of the universe, with everything else revolving around earth in perfect concentric circles.  Applying the perspective that your site is at the center of the web, you get a Ptolemaic Web similar to the one illustrated here.  In a Ptolemaic view of the web, the focus is on your site and doing whatever it takes to get the traffic there.  Micro sites get developed to focus on special events or topics, a premium is placed on understanding what your competition’s site is presenting and making sure your site is leading in capability and “cool” factor, and you’re always looking for ways to get industry press or news sites to link back to your website.

The weakness in the Ptolemaic Web, is it’s distance from the user.  Yes you’ve built great interactivity into your site – evaluation programs, self assessments, maybe even a PHR interface, and once you have the user registered, you are pretty sure you’ve got them.  But here’s the challenge – how do users find your content?  SEO?  SEM?  Should I post on Facebook, tweet on twitter?  Drop a video on YouTube, Vimeo?

As it turns out, on the 4ooth anniversary of his telescope, Galileo may have the answer.  He confirmed the earth wasn’t the center of the universe.

That’s right – the earth isn’t at the center, and the order of things isn’t so neat that everything is orbiting in perfect circles – things that are close one day may be far away on another.  So how does this apply to content marketing and social media?

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="The Galilean Web"][/caption]

Your site, is not at the the center.

Content marketing success is a measure of the value of the content (and by extension your brand), the goal is to make your site a destination, not drive click-throughs.

I know it’s subtle, but a visual of the Galilean Web may help.  In the Galilean Web, each user represents a separate and unique “web solar system”, with their launch point being at the center.  Users may have multiple “web solar systems” for each activity on the web – like searching for related health information.  In the example here, search is at the center, with other relevant destinations like blogs, Facebook, YouTube, and networking sites serving as resources.  Social media and communication tools are on a separate orbit, identifying other potential destinations.

Where’s your site?  It’s that dot in the corner.  You’re not in their system – they’re searching for information and content and your site isn’t showing up because there is competing content in multiple locations on the web, and these aggregation sites are more relevant to users and search engines.

So how do you get into this user’s web solar system?

Content.

Place your content where you know your users are.  Not just in one place – get it out there!

Context.

Make it relevant, assure its quality, and update it frequently, and they will reward you by becoming frequent consumers of your content – shifting their social media orbit to be closer to your site.  Over time, they may even make your site a destination in their solar system.  Shift your focus from counting click-throughs to observing how the content is consumed.   Adjust what you’re publishing based on the feedback you’re getting.  You are going to benefit by being seen as a valuable contributor to their information needs.

It’s important to note, they may never visit your site – but it doesn’t matter if they’ve become your brand advocate and choose to get their healthcare services from you because of your content.

At the end of the day, isn’t that your objective?

 For the last 9 summers, I’ve had the pleasure of living with a working broadleaf tobacco farm in my front yard.  Regardless of how you feel about tobacco and its uses (cigar wrappers for this crop), tobacco farming is a fascinating process.  In our house we mark summer milestones by the process, planting in June, mid-summer “topping”, and the late August harvesting, and the fall drying season.

So what does that have to with healthcare marketing?  It struck me as I watched the farm hands “topping” the tobacco (removing the flowers from the plants), cutting away those things that pull energy away from growing what is really important, that there are many parallels to the challenges facing healthcare marketers today.

As healthcare marketing shifts from low engagement, broadly targeted traditional marcomm strategies (traditional PR, print/display, radio,  and television advertising) to highly engaged, highly focused content marketing and social media they have to look at their objectives the same way a broadleaf tobacco farmer does.

Know Your Objectives and How You’ll Get There
Growing tobacco requires that you’ve got the right tools and resources at each step of the process.  For healthcare marketers, content marketing demands that you understand who you’re targeting, how they communicate, and what’s relevant to them before you begin.  Understanding how each communication tool and content resouce supports your objective – then delivering to your audience in the right context is critical to success.

Be Prepared And Adapt To Changing Conditions
Each growing season brings different challenges, to much or too little rain, pests, fungus, and catastophic hail, all conspire to limit crop yeild, so the broadleaf farmer has an arsenal of tools that are used depending upon the conditions presented.  The healthcare marketer needs to do the same – adjust their media mix as consumers move from traditional media to on-line, adding a blog or responding to a social media post, or letting the conversation happen and just listen.  They must continually measure and assess what’s resonating – developing the relationships with the target audience that helps them understand how their message is being received.

Constantly Cultivate - Don’t Let Weeds Compete
It’s long summer, so the farmer constantly turns the soil, preventing weeeds from taking root.  The same is true for content marketing – keep turning the soil by updated with valuable relevant content.  Consistent and reliable delivery is the surest way to grow a reliable loyal audience, and is the best way to combat negative dialogs.  The days of controlling the message are over – don’t let your voice be pushed out of the conversation because your not updating.  Lack of attention will lead to your voice being irrelevant, choked out by the weeds.

Topping Focuses Energy On What Matters Most
By ”topping” the plant, the farmer ensures the plant will focus its efforts on growing leaves and ultimately producing a viable crop.  The healthcare marketer needs to closely examine their communication arsenal – do the traditional broad target, low engagement, very expensive mediums (TV, radio, print, environmental, etc.) support your objectives, or do they pull energy and resources away from them.  “Topping” your marketing strategy may be required.

Don’t Be Afraid To Get Dirty
Broadleaf tobacco farming sometimes requires getting your hands dirty.  A successful content marketing strategy requires engagement, and engagement requires a continuous, interactive approach.  You have to listen as much as you communicate, and sometimes you may not like what you hear – but you need to listen, and more important, respond.  If your willing to wade in and interact, you will be successful.

So there really are a lot of paralells, know your objectives, be adaptable, keep on top of it, focus on what matter most, and don’t be afraid to get dirty.  Good advice for healthcare marketers – but sort of seems universal.

Oh… and how’s this year’s crop look?  Lots of rain.  Too much actually, so yeilds are likely to be down – but there is a lot of summer left and a few dry weeks could change that.