Webbed Marketing Expands Healthcare Social Media Practice with New Hire and Training

Columbus, Ohio Internet marketing agency announces expansion on healthcare online marketing training, and new hire with healthcare background.

Webbed Marketing, a social media marketing and search engine optimization company based in Columbus, Ohio, is increasing its focus on healthcare social media and SEO, with the addition of Joshua Platt, as a senior account manager, and training presentations for healthcare professionals.

Webbed Marketing COO Amy Marshall leads Webbed Marketing’s VisiOne services, which focus on social media strategy and research for healthcare organizations, and other complex systems. The goal of VisiOne is to identify, investigate and analyze social communication strategies for a business’s online presence.

Marshall will share her SEO and healthcare expertise at Strategic Health Care Communication’s “Top Search Engine Optimization Strategies for 2011” on Thursday, April 7.  The live audio conference will address if your hospital, pharmaceutical company, medical supply company or other healthcare related organization is getting the website traffic it deserves.  The presentation will focus on if businesses are attracting the right audiences to key service line information for their company, which is a vital measure of the success of a site. Marshall will address the latest search engine strategies to drive important audiences to a website.

Webbed Marketing also expands its healthcare expertise with the addition of Platt, who will be joining the team as a senior account manager.  With his extensive background in healthcare marketing, public relations and account management, Platt will be an ideal fit with the agency, especially with his experience serving healthcare clients and his passion for the industry.

“Webbed Marketing is a leader in online marketing,” Platt said.  “The service offerings are a key component of interactive marketing. If customers cannot find a company, product or service provider, it may as well not exist. The growing size and importance of social media is an exciting development, and one I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to be involved with.”

Platt has more than 15 years of experience in journalism, marketing, public relations and business development, with a focus on serving the healthcare industry.  Not only has he been a reporter and producer for local and national newspapers, magazines, TV, radio and web news outlets, but he was also a veteran of two Web start-ups, working for CBS New Media and NBC Internet.  Most recently, Platt worked in corporate marketing, sales promotions and account management/new business development for two of central Ohio’s largest multimedia production firms, where he worked with large healthcare-related organizations.

“I pride myself on my ability to learn about clients’ business strategies, and to balance their needs against Webbed Marketing’s service offerings,” Platt said.  “I have worked with a wide range of clients, including non-profit organizations, small businesses and large corporations across numerous sectors, including technology and healthcare. Now, I’m excited to combine my knowledge of video production with my growing knowledge of online marketing; the integration of video and SEO/SEM is of particular interest to me.”

Platt lives in Westerville, Ohio with his wife and two daughters.  He is a member of the Board of Trustees for the Westerville Public Library and Westerville Library Foundation.  In addition, he is a new, but enthusiastic, recreational cyclist, and will be riding in Pelotonia this year.  He is attempting to complete his first “Century” (100-mile ride), while raising money to combat cancer.

For more information about Platt and Webbed Marketing visit www.webbedmarketing.com.

About Webbed Marketing

Webbed Marketing is a team of experts in the Internet marketing field. Their goal is to grow businesses through the application of Internet resources. The firm specializes in search engine optimization and marketing, as well as viral marketing services, word of mouth and buzz measurement and social media strategies. Visit www.webbedmarketing.com for more information.

The WM Palace

We’ve received a lot of requests lately to see the Webbed Marketing office space (also known as the WM Palace). The latest request was from a business associate and I quote, “I want to see where the WM magic is made.”  That is a good one!

For those of you that know Webbed or have worked with us, we are unique – in a good way.  Webbed Marketing is a virtual company meaning for the most part our employees work from home…or Panera Bread…or any place with free wifi.  Our employees have expressed that they love this benefit. However, as we’ve grown over the last 2 years from 4 to 10+ employees, the need for an official full time space was required. Last summer we found a small and humble office space in Grandview, one of our favorite spots in Columbus and central to our clients.

Our office does not have cube spaces – it’s an open work space environment. And it’s certainly not fancy! (Folks that have been here know what I’m talking about!)  We have the bare necessities like tables, chairs, printer, phone, coffee machine, a small college dorm fridge and a continual supply of snacks for Bill. Our philosophy is to spend money on our clients and not on ourselves.  Simple?  Maybe. Getting good results for our clients and having a good time while doing it is about all we need!

The team has even named the individual rooms! The “main” meeting room is where the team meets once a week for our official account review meeting. Then there is the “guacamole room” (it’s green) where we host our small client meetings. Last is the “mullet room” which means “the party in the back room”. It’s not really the party room but looks like it! Each of the team members brought something of meaning to hang on the walls. Interesting all by itself. Items range from a Godfather poster to an Aerosmith Japanese concert t-shirt to Blue Moon posters!

Yes, we are simple but we choose not to spend money on our office space and pass that cost onto our clients.  So maybe when we finally get around to putting some professional things on the walls and sprucing the place up, we’ll have an open house. But until then, appreciate the space for its purpose and we’ll meet you at Marshall’s down the street!

- Amy Marshall

Tags: columbus, culture, palace, webbed marketing, WM

How To Use Social Media To Drive Your Destination Business

Amy Marshall presents on How To Use Social Media To Drive Your Destination Business at Hocking Hills in Ohio

Tags: social media, travel

Webbed Marketing Webinar: How Social Media Has Affected the News

Do you know the Twitter Handles for your local news affiliates? Did you
even know that most major television, radio and print news outlets post
breaking news stories on Twitter and other social media networks? We
now live in an age of news on demand. Waiting for the evening news or
morning paper to find out what might be affecting your business is a
thing of the past. Join representatives from Webbed Marketing’s Social
Media Strategy team to learn how you can navigate the social media sea
and find the information that is important to your business.

Tags: amy marshall, nbc, news, social media, twitter, webbed marketing, webinar

Work Hard, Play Hard

One of the Webbed Marketing mottos is “work hard, play hard”. Cliché, I know, but very true. One way the entire team likes to “play” is to give back to the community when we can. For example, one of our company benefits is on your birthday, you can choose to have Webbed Marketing donate $100 to your charity of choice or you can take the day and volunteer somewhere.

On Monday afternoon of last week, the entire Webbed Marketing team volunteered at the Mid-Ohio Foodbank downtown on Mound St. It allowed us to come together, help out an instrumental community organization and have a little fun! The Mid-Ohio Foodbank works with grocers, food companies, Ohio farmers, the USDA, and community partners to obtain food and distribute it to more than 500 food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, after-school programs, and senior housing sites across central and eastern Ohio. If you’ve never had the opportunity to participate and volunteer, I highly recommend making it a 2009 goal for yourself. The folks at the Mid-Ohio Foodbank deserve a ton credit for having everything organized and down to a system. We had to go through “intense” training before being released in the warehouse to work. I learned all about labels, FDA laws and expiration dates.  I won’t mention who (Bill), but some were questioning if a bag of chips really ever expires!

Even though this post has absolutely nothing to do with Internet Marketing, I wanted to share how our team gets re-energized to serve our customers better. And as Chief Reality Officer at Webbed Marketing, this is number one for me. I’m very proud to be a part of this team.

Check out some of our photos from this great experience.

–Amy Marshall

Tags: charity, food bank, webbed marketing

National Popular Vote Had a Whole New Meaning in the 2008 Presidential Election

At Webbed Marketing, we like numbers – all kinds of stats, metrics, comparisons – anything showing detailed results.  A year ago, we developed a “scorecard” to help measure online presence for our clients. The scorecard is made up of 30 different metrics illustrating the visibility of a site/page in the search engines (SEO) and the visibility of a “brand” in online conversations (social media outlets).  It’s our Webbed-O-Meter 2.0 online buzz measurement tool on steroids.

It was only natural that we evaluated final scorecards for the 2008 Presidential Election final candidates: Barack Obama and John McCain. (We look at numbers only – no personal political opinions found here.) After closely analyzing all 30 metrics from links to the site to mentions on MySpace and in blogs, there was a trend. Barack Obama led every metric by at least 15% for an overall average of 40%+ over McCain. Even our own Webbed-O-Meter tool measured an 80 for Obama and a 67 for McCain (out of a total score of 100).

It’s a fact that Obama’s Facebook page is still the most popular profile with 3,010,722 supporters while McCain only attracted 618,189 supporters.

Could we have predicted the outcome of the election based on the pure volume of the online conversations about the election and its candidates?  Can we draw a correlation to the percentage of buzz Obama received above McCain to the percentage of the popular vote Obama gained? 

Probably not since we are not measuring the tone (negative or positive) of the online communications; however; the results certainly illustrate the impact the Internet had in the 2008 Presidential election and will have in all future elections.

- Amy Marshall

Tags: barack obama, buzz, john mccain, online buzz, webbed o meter