The world isn’t what it used to be. Neither is the marketplace. And changes to both are happening at a faster and faster pace. So what do you do when you need to anticipate the future and you don’t have Nostradamus around to help? You shore up your brand’s ability to adapt. Which means getting used to change because nothing’s ever going to be like it used to be.  One reason why can be summed up in two little words: social media. It hasn’t just created a shift, it’s caused an upheaval.

Just check out the facts: social media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web. It’s created a major shift in how we communicate with each other. Facebook reached 100 million users in less than a year. Facebook reached 100 million users in less than a year. Twitter has 140 million users who generate 340 million tweets a day. Social media is credited with everything from boosting brands to toppling governments.

For your brand, the message is obvious. You have to adapt to new ways to connect with your customers. Plus, you need to be where the new technology is to show people that your brand is relevant. Which isn’t as daunting as it sounds because Palio can help you navigate this new world.  We’re right at home in the flux of today’s fast-evolving communications ecosystem. We can show you how to talk to your customers via social media and provide other ideas on how to increase the size of your digital footprint.

At Palio, we’re not just on top of technological innovations, we’re building them. We have a department devoted to digital content creation, including Web and app development, video production, and interactive programs. In fact, all our brand teams “think” digitally, so any one of them is capable of creating a new idea that can take your brand places it’s never been before. Add to that our deep history in healthcare marketing and pharmaceutical advertising – a level of expertise few others can match – and you have an agency that can lead you past what’s happening now, and through what’s ahead, without flinching.

Since you’re already on our site, now is a perfect time to check out some of our other posts to see what we’re thinking. Then, if you want to know more, call Mike Myers at 518.584.8924. He’s not Nostradamus, but he can tell you how your brand will have a brighter future if it links up with Palio.

Paul Johnson, SVP, Account Services, Palio

Although both an agency and its client company are focusing on the same work, they’re looking at it from different angles. The relationship can be fraught with challenges, no matter how professional both sides are, and how much they like each other, simply because the viewpoints can be so different.

At Palio, one of our main goals is to overcome that difference at all times. We work hard never to let our clients’ view slip out of our site. It’s our job to understand and anticipate their needs, while maintaining the flexibility to adjust for the unforeseen obstacles in the relationship. It’s important to consider this situation through our customer’s eyes.

One of the most important of these is time. A sense of time is important in all business, but, it can be seen differently. And, therefore it is always worthwhile to remind yourself how things look from the other side.

From an agency perspective, your clients’ time is paramount. You don’t always know what they’re up against: who’s on the other side of their desk; what they’re handling outside of your particular work stream; what’s going on in their lives. There are usually market needs dictating the timing of your program. They have a boss to answer to, and she will have bosses of her own. Deadlines are usually a result of field force plan-of-action cycles, which don’t necessarily line up with the ever-changing needs of the brand.

However, you need to balance this respect for your clients’ time with a respect for your staff’s time. “Sweatshops” burn their employees out, and pay for it with lower experience levels and high turnover. It’s possible to meet client needs and still have reasonable expectations from your people – and they’ll repay you with longevity, loyalty and creativity.

Remember, most clients appreciate the time that their requests require of the agency. Most clients are not fiendishly dreaming up ways to move around deadlines and cause your agency the havoc of late night and weekend work — deadlines are as much a moving target for them as they are for the agency. You’ll work like crazy to get something done, only to have it pulled or cancelled. You’ll plan carefully against a long-term deadline, only to be thrown into crisis mode when it’s needed weeks ahead of schedule. These are facts of life. Coming to accept that and anticipate it, rather than greet it as a frustrating surprise, goes a long way toward keeping your sanity and your balance — whether you find yourself “agency” or “client.”

Palio is an advertising agency revolutionizing pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing to create experiences that will Never Be Forgotten.

Jon Fisher, Technology Manager, Palio

There’s no denying it: 3D is the new black.

The technology has leapfrogged quickly from limited-release movies to general use in the cinema, on televisions and now on smartphones. And, the growth shows no signs of slowing. According to research firm In-Stat, total annual shipments of 3D mobile devices will surpass 148 million units in 2015.

With expanding 3D capacity in the consumer space, it’s natural for marketers – including health care marketers – to consider how best to leverage this technology’s capabilities. Emerging possibilities include:

Games for education. While Web-based games exist now, adding 3D technology to the mix greatly expands the depth and possibility of the experience. Games solve a wide range of training and learning challenges, and 3D technology enables users to experience – not just look at – things on the screen. Other technologies allow users to become part of the game experience, enabling them to see themselves on the screen. Imagine the patient using 3D technology to learn physical therapy modalities or gain greater knowledge about a complex procedure.

And the games aren’t just for patients. New 3D technologies provide medical professionals and students the opportunity to practice on 3D video patients using the same interactive techniques and decision-making processes they would use with real patients. The provider sees the patient’s chart, his or her physical presentation, and results from any recent tests. The provider can order tests and treatments, providing a level of interaction once available only via on-the-job training. And the 3D environment taps into the familiarity and ease-of-use of video games, making learning fun and engaging.

Visualization. 3D can unlock details otherwise bound in 2D, leading to better diagnostics, surgical training and even remote robotic surgery. Already, stereoscopic technologies enable minimally invasive methods for complex procedures, reducing healing time, increasing patient throughput, and improving procedure success rates while reducing investment and increasing productivity in medical applications.

Lakewood Ranch Medical Center’s Breast Health Center is one of the first health care providers in the country to offer the Selenia Dimensions 3D Digital Mammography System, which gives radiologists the tools needed to detect breast cancer earlier than with traditional 2D imaging in patients with dense breast tissue.

These visualization technologies go beyond diagnostics and can be used for marketing to patients as well. Indiana’s NorthShore Health Centers attracts maternity patients with 3D/4D ultrasounds that provide a clearer image of the unborn child than traditional ultrasounds.

While 3D may not yet be on every phone, TV or computer screen, it’s rapidly gaining ground and provides marketing, training and communications opportunities. Are your communications efforts ready to take advantage of them?

Palio is an advertising agency revolutionizing pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing to create experiences that will Never Be Forgotten.

Bob Mason, EVP, Managing Director of Brand Strategy, Palio

If you’re relying on in-house public relations or marketing staff to handle your social media interactions, you may want to think again. Social media done right requires dedicated resources and specific knowledge and skills. And, because social media is still a relatively new medium, internal training and development may not be available.

While platforms may evolve, social media will remain a prominent fixture on the business landscape. To successfully navigate the social stratosphere, many organizations are creating the role of social media strategist to support community and brand building.

Last year I wrote about social media strategists and this new job category on Pixels and Pills. A social media strategist will have the skills to guide the organization in exploring new methods for listening to and interacting with customers, analysts, investors, employees. Savvy social media strategists are experienced with the tools and techniques to learn about customer preferences and understand how to interact with the target audience across multiple social media platforms.

What can a social media strategist do for you?

Establish a social media strategy. Is Facebook the right place to reach your target audience? Are they participating in private communities? A social media strategist will identify where you should be by first understanding where your audience is participating and the corporate objectives you are trying to achieve. They will identify influential individuals as well as groups your organization should participate in. They’ll also know how to set up groups, moderate them and build participation.

Monitor the blogosphere. A social media strategist is not only responsible for creating and managing content for the corporate blog, but also monitoring, and when appropriate, responding to comments from readers. Monitoring other bloggers helps acquire competitive information and identify prominent or influential bloggers. Tools such as TweetDeck or TrackUr sort social media mentions by keywords, twitter handles, and hashtags, which is helpful in keeping apprised of blog or other social activity.

Show Up with the Necessary Skills. A strong social media strategist should have a firm grasp of search engine optimization strategies, be able to recommend, implement and manage social network policies and procedures, know how to use a mobile device to simultaneously update multiple social networks, upload videos to Vimeo and YouTube and add photos to Flickr. They also should have solid writing skills to create blog posts and have excellent communication skills to respond in real-time to customers, prospects, other bloggers, etc.

The role of a social media strategist is dynamic. Beyond posting and tweeting, the social media strategist will spend time working with a brand monitoring solution to discover all the places that the company needs to monitor or participate. They’ll also work internally with employees, the sales force and customers to help share insights and strengthen relationships.

In today’s increasingly social world, having a social media strategist on staff is essential. By taking a disciplined approach to social communication, companies can take advantage of social media to ultimately build their brand and business.

Palio is an advertising agency revolutionizing pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing to create experiences that will Never Be Forgotten.

Tiffany Ryan, VP, Account Services, Palio

Communicating expectations up front is critical to setting the path to success. At a minimum, clients expect that their agencies will be smart about their business, strategic in their approach and decisions, and adherent to timelines. Second, they will likely have expectations around the frequency and method of communication, visibility of staff aligned to their business, and engagement by senior management on their brand.

Agency expectations are a direct result of wanting to achieve and exceed the client’s expectations of the relationship. For instance, agencies expect that clients will share and communicate key information that helps them be smart and strategic about their business. This may often include the request for all previous and current brand materials, research reports, and involvement in key meetings and marketing debriefs. Agencies also need to know how the client likes to be communicated with, how often they expect to receive communication, and at what key touch points the client prefers live meetings vs. e-mail or phone follow up.

Foremost, the agency expects that clients will be open and willing to have direct and honest conversations with them – dialogue centered around brand dynamics, agency work, and agency/client team effectiveness. This ongoing dialogue is paramount to a successful, ongoing relationship that works for both parties. Although honest dialogue about what is NOT working within a relationship can be difficult to have, it’s the only way to identify and resolve issues and maintain a strong partnership.

Client/agency relationships cannot be built on a foundation of assumptions. Following any new business win, these expectations must be discussed in detail and agreed to. And as client/agency relationships continue to grow, evolve, and change, it doesn’t hurt to reset expectations along the way and ensure that the foundation both sides are working on is free of assumptions.

Quinn Tetterton, Executive Creative Producer, Palio

Palio is an advertising agency revolutionizing pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing to create experiences that will Never Be Forgotten.

Todd LaRoche, EVP, Managing Director of Creative, Palio

I’ve just gone through our archives and realized that here at Palio, we mention listening quite often in our posts. I was very pleased to confirm this with my little bit of research. It means we’re doing something right, especially as an advertising agency in the field of pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing.

But I also noticed that when we talk about listening, we’re usually mentioning it in passing, as part of a larger goal, as a step in a process.

Listening can, and should, and needs to be, more than that, particularly in social media work. All too often, we relegate it to a baby step on the way to doing “real” things. When clients are nervous about entering the digital social media sphere, we tell them first to start out by listening, and then eventually they’ll work up the courage to really jump in to interactive social media work.

This is, of course, true, but it can lead people to think that listening is just that first baby step, and no more. This couldn’t be further from the truth, and this is the myth I want to dispel.

If you’ve let the listening aspect of your social media work slip to the back burner, now is the time to rectify that. Convene a “listening camp” and spend a few days really focusing on it. Start off by bringing your interns in to teach the first class. We know that’s who you’ve had doing the work of monitoring and listening. Listen hard to what they have to say about what the conversation about your brand is. Not the conversation that YOU have been trying to have. That’s different. You need to know the conversation that’s actually happening apart from you.

1. Are people still complaining about that little product glitch that you wrote off as “handled” three months ago when the official work to address it ended?
2. Is the most specific praise you’re getting from people coming about a product feature that you never really thought much about, and never highlighted very much?
3. And what about your competition? What specific praise and specific complaints are they getting?

Our Hyper Island training experience in June (read more about it here) really helped us think long and hard and critically about what we do – what we should do differently, what we should do more of, and what we should change. We’re all doing our best to make sure that new mindset sticks with us.

One way we can get that started is by looking at listening in a brand new light.

Palio is an advertising agency revolutionizing pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing to create experiences that will Never Be Forgotten.

Maureen Wendell, VP, Account Director, Palio

Respecting the budget is one of the essential tenets of any good client/agency relationship, especially in advertising. Actually, it’s one of the basics of any good relationship, as anyone who has a wife/husband/child/parent/roommate knows! In a good pairing – of any kind – both parties have a similar focus: trying to get the most goodness out of the limited budget as possible without undue strife. Of course, though, we’ve all been in situations that weren’t ideal, where:

1. One party ignores the budget until their growing desires drive them to its limits
2. One party takes the budget seriously and the other doesn’t
3. The budget becomes the central focus of activity, not the work and the creativity it’s meant to be supporting

All too often, there really is no “bad guy.” These situations are almost always clashes between well-meaning parties on both sides. Nobody really wants to go into debt, or not be able to afford what you both want. The overall goals truly do match: it’s just that the ways of getting to them haven’t been agreed on, and in some cases, one plan may be better than the other. As in most cases, problems arise through miscommmunication. Occasionally, the budget is over-discussed (as in the third scenario above) or it’s too rarely discussed and the element of surprise disappoints everyone. But more often, the money situation isn’t agreed on thoroughly and to the satisfaction of both parties at the very beginning, and on a regular basis from there on.

One easy way to make sure this happens is to set aside a short period of time once a month for a conversation that is dedicated just to the budget. That way, it doesn’t take the place of good creative discussion, brainstorming, or activity updates. It’s a separate talk that everyone knows to expect regularly. This can go a long way toward making budgeting smooth, easy and drama-free.

And doing it on a regular basis is necessary. Just like having “The Talk” with your pre-teen kids, once and done does not cut it – you need to keep the lines of communication open. In the budgeting world, estimates are just that – timing, scope, and prices of supplies can change; unforeseen complications arise; emergencies happen that need to be addressed out of the previously sacrosanct allotted funds. In short, life happens, and a conversation in January, no matter how well-meaning and well-remembered, is unlikely to be a 100% accurate representation of how the budget situation will look in December.

So before you find yourself faced with those uncomfortable discussions at the end of the year, full of phrases like “what do you mean” and “I thought we agreed that” and “but what about” – get these monthly chats on your calendar right now. An ounce of prevention really is worth a pound of cure.

Palio is an advertising agency revolutionizing pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing to create experiences that will Never Be Forgotten.

Carl Turner, VP, Research Analytics Director, Palio

They say everything you need to know is learned in kindergarten. A common mantra heard in my childhood was “sharing is caring.” Whether that’s information or a prized possession, sharing demonstrates passion, caring or empathy for others. Sharing is deeply embedded in human nature and is evident in the digital information age.

Understanding why people share can help advertising agencies who are revolutionizing pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing design content that is most likely to be passed among as many of the appropriate people as possible.

While the desire to share hasn’t changed much over time, how information is imparted certainly has – especially with the explosion of social media. Today there is more content, a plethora of sources, a greater number of people communicating with more frequency and exchanging information more quickly than ever before.

The New York Times Customer Insight Group surveyed 2,500 medium/heavy online sharers to understand why people share and the motivational forces behind letting someone in on what you know. What they found: Sharing helps people do their jobs, process information more deeply, increases memory retention and creates a bond – a deeper connection – to the information. It also helps them feel valuable. According to the study, 94 percent of respondents carefully consider how the information they share will be useful to the recipient.

Sharing is also a way of defining yourself to others. Whether you’re updating your Facebook status with political rants or posting success baking meatloaf cupcakes, you’re giving the world details for your personal dossier. More than half the people in the survey (68 percent) said they share to give people a better sense of who they are and what they care about. They also share because it is a way to support causes or issues they care about.

Other key motivators are to stay connected, feel a sense of community, discuss similar interests and keep in touch with people they might not keep in touch with otherwise. Sixty-nine percent said they share information because it helps them feel involved in the world.

The study identified six sharing personality archetypes:

Altruists – These folks want to be helpful and appreciated for their usefulness. Think of the girlfriend who sends you links to WebMD after you mention going to get your thyroid tested.

Careerists – Do you participate in LinkedIn Groups? Forward interesting business articles to your colleagues? Spend hours researching and reporting on CRM systems? A careerist makes a job of sharing and being “in the know.”

Hipsters – If sharing is part of who you are – too cool/busy/mobile for email, but not too busy to frequently update your status, send out tweets and are already drinking the Google+ kool-aid, you’re probably a hipster.

Boomerangs – This type knows that you are what you post and invests in sharing edgy, provocative content. When their content doesn’t get re-shared, they know they missed their mark.

Connectors – Need a plumber or an engineer fluent in Japanese? Every network has someone who can connect you to the information or resources you require.

Selectives – They know their audience and only share information they deem relevant. If you want to engage a selective, help them understand the WIIFM.

It’s important to keep in mind that people want to share with other individuals – not just your brand. Being a facilitator that drives online conversations requires understanding the motivations of why people share, especially as consumer touch points have increased and taken advocacy to the next level.

People who share want to be relevant, helpful, considerate, informative, creative, cutting edge and popular. To help them, keep your messages simple, appeal to their sense of humor, and embrace a sense of urgency.

Palio is an advertising agency revolutionizing pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing to create experiences that will Never Be Forgotten.

Jeremy Lichtenberger, Senior Brand Planner, Palio

Everything old is new again: Reaching influencers – long the Holy Grail for advertising agencies and pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing organizations like Palio  – has gotten some 2.0 polish in the online world.

Today, there a host of products and services that let marketers track and measure influence online. But that begs the question: Is it really all that different from offline influence? And, if so, why does it matter?

Although real-world and social influence can often be different things, the driving idea is the same:  A small number of individuals can often have an important effect on the opinions, beliefs and consumption habits of others. It’s something most marketers are trying to understand better – word-of-mouth and social media marketing.

So what is social influence? Carol Leaman: CEO of PostRank Inc., a company that monitors social engagement across the Web, defines an influencer as someone whose opinion or information has an impact on someone else’s thought process or action.

That influence can be rooted in many things, from topic-area expertise to age, long-term relationships or simply being “loud” and getting attention – good or bad – online.

Why does social influence matter? Although the easy answer is the right one – knowing who influencers are and how they can be motivated helps health care marketing efforts – there are subtleties to consider as well:

Those 50,000 followers on Twitter? That might not be influence. Network size alone doesn’t tell the story. The key to determining influence lies in the actions people take such as retweets, likes or sign-ups.

It’s a new metric for marketing spend. How much a person spends during their lifetime as a customer is a common marketing metric for determining marketing levels. Since influence can be measured, network value can also be factored in to see how much business a customer might be able to refer to you through their network.

Social influence and real-world influence are different animals. Marketers who want to track their brands’ influencers would do well to track both online and offline metrics. Online, social media has democratized influence – there are more people shaping groups with their opinions. However, online influencers, while capable of driving low-intensity actions such as a retweet, or pressing a like button, cannot always drive high-intensity activities. Offline influencers, on the other hand, tend to be smaller in number but capable of driving higher-intensity activities.

“Masspersonal” is a new mode of communication, and it matters to marketers. Social media creates a new category of contact between the traditional categories of personal and mass communication. Traditionally, a brand needed an intermediary – a media channel – to communicate with fans and customers. Now? Everyone’s a broadcaster. Tools like Twitter allow for mass individual communication via the same channel, and create a more personal experience, even if the message isn’t personalized.

In the new model of marketing customers have a voice. Because of the viral nature of social networks, businesses need to harness that power, listen to feedback and empower customer evangelists. By using the Web effectively, marketers can foster a greater presence in online conversations and give rise to social influence.

Palio is an advertising agency revolutionizing pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing to create experiences that will Never Be Forgotten.