1. The Blogging of Health Care January 26, 2007 Kaya Walton Internet Consultant Issue Dynamics Inc. (IDI)

2. SOTI – State of the Internet About 141 million American adults are online. 91% read or send e-mail. 79% research for health or medical info online. 58% visit sites that provide support or info about medical conditions. Source: Pew Internet Project, December 2006

3. SOTB – State of the Blogosphere 55 million blogs 39% of adult Americans online have read a blog. 8% have created a blog. Political blogs are driving blogosphere growth. 1% of blogs cover health issues. Source: Pew Internet Project, December 2006

5. Blogging Affects Issues? 61% of bloggers cite motivating other people to action as reason for blogging. 49% cite providing important information to others. Blogosphere = strongly linked network Source: Pew Internet Project, July 2006

6. Blogosphere Network Top 40 Political Blogs – Coverage of 2004 Elections Source: Intelliseek, The Political Blogosphere and the 2004 U.S. Election: Divided They Blog Political Blogosphere and the 2004 U.S. Election: Divided They Blog

8. So You Want to Start A Blog…

9. Recipe for Blogging Success Accurate, current Information Time, resources and training Readers Mission, goals and objectives Feedback Good Blog Post

10. Mission What is the mission of your company or organization? What will be the mission of your blog? What is your audience? Focus on a specific issue or topic. Dont forget the big picture. How does the blog fit in?

11. Goals What are your communications imperatives? What role will this blog play in your organizational strategy? What are the expectations? What about ROI?

12. Writing for the Web Keep it short. Use the inverted pyramid. Make it easy to scan (short paragraphs, lists, etc.). Quote other bloggers and sources. Use links. Highlight important words.

13. Other Suggestions Coming up with something new to write every week isnt easy. Here are some tips: Be realistic about your publishing schedule. Focus your writing on what you know. Keep track of what others are saying. Have several bloggers publish entries. Include open-ended questions in your blog posts.

14. Dont forget your headlines! Headlines play a unique role on the Internet Appear in lists Appear in search engine results Appear in RSS feeds Tend to be used as links

15. Blogging Policy Questions Do you have established guidelines? Will there be an approval process? Will you be accepting comments? What is the escalation process?

16. Blog Commenting Policy Three types of comment options Decide what is allowed (Terms of Use) What will be deleted? How will users be informed? Will there be an escalation option? Make sure everyone knows

17. Blog Monitoring & Promotions

18. The Value of Blog Monitoring The better you know the landscape of the blogosphere, the more effectively you can monitor and grow the value of your blog.

19. Blog Monitoring Who is driving the discussion? Who supports you? Who is critical? What is being discussed about your topic? Whats important to bloggers?

20. How to monitor the blogosphere Technorati Bloglines Google News Alerts BlogPulse http://www.technorati.com, http://www.bloglines.comhttp://www.technorati.com http://www.bloglines.com

21. Promoting Your Blog Blogosphere Social Internet Your Blog

23. Promoting Your Blog Blog roll Blogger relations Social networks –Flickr, YouTube, Digg, del.icio.us RSS Feeds

24. Other Sites You Can Use Advertising: BlogAds.com Tracking:Technorati.com | BlogPulse.com Launching:LiveJournal, Blogger, BlogSpot, TypePad, Moveable Type Writing:BlogWrite for CEOs Blogwrite.blogs.com Intelligence:BloggerRelations.com

25. For questions and comments: Kaya Walton Internet Consultant Issue Dynamics, Inc. kaya@idi.net (202) 263-2942