In the spring of 2011, I sat down with the Head of Corporate Communications for Siemens Health Care and his team to talk about the power of global influencers in creating conversation and thought leadership for this major mover in healthcare.
Those conversations resulted in HealthWorks Collective, the third of the blogger-based communities that Social Media Today built with Siemens’ guidance and support. (Along with The Energy Collective and Sustainable Cities Collective.)
In the spring of 2011, I sat down with the Head of Corporate Communications for Siemens Health Care and his team to talk about the power of global influencers in creating conversation and thought leadership for this major mover in healthcare.
Those conversations resulted in HealthWorks Collective, the third of the blogger-based communities that Social Media Today built with Siemens’ guidance and support. (Along with The Energy Collective and Sustainable Cities Collective.)
We started with our best-practice methodology of researching and hand-selecting B2B bloggers whose content and networks were both sizable and authoritative (this before the days of Little Bird and other influencer identification tools). We began with around 30 bloggers whose expertise spanned from healthcare technology to patient rights to hospital administration.
The mix worked: we were able to create a site that brought over 233,000 visitors to the site in its first full year. We hosted live webinar conversations with over a thousand registrants, and we built up social channels across Twitter and Pinterest. We created a series of videos with high-level Siemens executives and leading influencers. And we included original and thoughtful content around the important issues of the day, like the Affordable Care Act.
But our business model at SMT changed as we increasingly focused on our core site, Social Media Today, and as Siemens, our sponsor, moved on from its support after three wonderful years.
Today, it’s my pleasure to announce that HealthWorks Collective has been bought by Healthcare Dive, a leading publication for hospital administrators and healthcare leaders based in Washington. We’re delighted that this conversation, begun with some of the smartest people in the healthcare business around the world, can continue with new energy and leadership.
Sean Griffey, CEO and Co-Founder of Healthcare Dive, says:
“We are thrilled to be an active part of the HealthWorks Collective community. At Healthcare Dive, our mission is to empower leaders with information that helps them make better decisions and ultimately transform the future of the industry. There is no better way to do that than by helping healthcare executives leverage the shared insights and experiences of their peers. We look forward to playing a part in continuing the growth and evolution of this unique group.”
It’s been a long, wonderful journey, and it is with a great deal of confidence that I leave this valued community in the capable hands of Sean and his team at Healthcare Dive. Onward and upward.