Sally, Chris and I will be posting more thoughts about NCHCMM soon, but I wanted to highlight a few points from John Whyte’s closing plenary. He’s the chief medical expert at Discovery Health Channel (you can read his blog here) and had some great insights about actually reaching the public with public health and social marketing messaging.

Three key points:

- Social Media/the Internet is important and growing, but broadcast media (television) is by far where people spend most of their leisure time.

- Stories actually make an impact. Nothing engages people like a story, and harnessing this power can advance a public health message more than a water-tight, perfectly crafted traditional marketing campaign. Consider using primetime television as a vehicle for your message.

- Empower, educate, and entertain.

We’ve been discussing the power of emotional, story-based social marketing with clients for years, and so it was nice to have this perspective succinctly backed up by Dr. Whyte. To underline this point, here’s an oldie-but-goodie Banyan favorite that drives home the need for social marketing and public health messaging to engage and entertain:

It is the easiest thing in the world for me to go to Twitter and, within 140 characters, announce that I have just been abducted  by aliens and that they come in peace to save our world, (only if I’m installed as Supreme Being, by the way).  But since I posted this declaration in a social media space I don’t have to explain the alien’s plans; share how they got here or where they are from; show why I’m the only one who can see them – I don’t have to be responsible for anything pertaining to what I’ve said.  That’s the down-side of one way communication.  Now, I really don’t think many people would take my claim very seriously, (since I’m prone to delusions of grandeur, or so says my Psychologist), but if I was a Congressman, Senator, radio talk show host, religious leader, or TV pundit – you know, people we all used to respect and whose opinions we valued – and I used social media to talk about fear instead of solutions or ideologies instead of ideas, I could probably influence a lot of people in our nation to become afraid, angry, unfocused, and hopeless – without being responsible for explaining myself or looking at how these type of statements do more harm than good.

I guess my point is, when it comes to social media, go ahead and embrace it, use it, love it – just don’t believe everything you read. Not everyone is as reasonable, balanced and well intentioned as you or I.  And don’t forget – look to the sky, the time is nigh upon us, which is why I’m having my crown fitted tomorrow.  Why wait ‘til the last minute?

This being my first professional mission, I went in slowly, kept my distance and made sure not to give myself away.  I knew these women would see right through me if I tried to become one of them, so I had to lay low and observe from a safe distance.  I stealthily dropped in to their domain.

To say this was unfamiliar territory, would be a major understatement.  The bright pink walls burnt my eyes, the constant gossip rang in my ears and that smell, I always thought it was a myth, but there it is, pickle juice.  I had hit the jackpot – what I need to know could be found here.

It took a little searching, I hit a few dead ends, but finally found the group I was looking for, “Smoking Mommies.”  I was stunned.  Here was a group of women, many obviously with child, puffing down on every size, brand and type of cigarette available (and a few puffing on a leafy substance not available at the mini-mart.)  The agency was sure to find all of this interesting.  I pulled out my little camera and snapped away, my audio recorder running, gathering everything they were saying.  It was at that moment I remembered I was no James Bond.  This was real life.

As I stared dumbfounded at my computer screen, my fingers running across the track pad, clicking through blog post after blog post, then numerous discussion pages and even the personal profile pages of many of the expectant mothers, I gained a further understanding of why I was sent to target these women through these social media networks.  These women were everywhere,  openly discussing a topic that, before my lurking mission, I had thought was a restricted to a small, isolated group.  How naive of me.

Findings in hand, we here at Banyan presented this information to the National Cancer Institute.  My first mission was a success.  The target had been acquired, now it was time for phase two, developing a plan of attack.

This “Social Media Lurking,” as we have come to call it, is an integral part in shaping the delivery of a social media message, what channels the message is sent over and who will find the message within these various channels.  Since that first mission, I have honed my skills, much like my mentor, 007.  We’ve put together quite an array of gadgets, allowing us to infiltrate our targeted groups even further and squeeze every last bit of information out of them that we need.

As the information becomes declassified, I’ll let everyone know about Phase 2.  But for now, just know that we’re out there…lurking about.

Also, Sean Connery is my favorite Bond.

This is an interesting moment surely, and powerful, symbolic acknowledgement by the US Government of the significance of these tools in this sort of conflict. Can’t help but think of Radio Free Europe.