Hill+Knowlton Strategies

Last week, H+K Strategies held its first D2 event of the year which was also our first sector-specific D2 for the healthcare sector.  Demystifying digital in the healthcare sector provided a wealth of interesting and insightful tips for healthcare communicators to use in the future.

H+K was joined by Kantar Health, Orital Consultancy, H+K Denmark, Kai Gait (former digital commerce marketing manager, GSK)and Google+ each of whom gave presentations highlighting the key challenges, developments and tips for healthcare PRs looking to extend their communications strategy into the digital sphere.

Kantar Health informed our attendees key stats about healthcare consumers. 47% of people write comments about brands, mainly to share or offer advice. Further to this, 70% of people surveyed said they are influenced by ‘social comments’, mainly from other users rather than from the brand. This insight reiterates the importance of social media and the challenges that brands must to respond to, listen to and engage with.

Arve Overland from H+K Denmark talked about Mobile Health. Digital’s move to mobile apps is an area in which the healthcare industry needs to assess whether the platform is right for them. Healthcare app devices generated $718m in 2011, although this figure is impressive, how can PR’s ensure they are creating a good mobile app in a cluttered environment.

1. Does it solve a problem – is there a need?
2. Does it extend product offering onto phone?
3. Does it provide information, reference or education?
4. Does it increase productivity?

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More goodies from our Demystifying Digital client symposium. Speakers Jory Des Jardins, founder of BlogHer and Mascha, founder BeautyGloss.nl (one of the top blogs in the Netherlands), continue their conversation from this earlier post.

All this social media madness comes down to the same vital ingredient for any form of human communication. People. Cast the right talent to the task and you will succeed. Our own David Jones shows you how with his star turn five minutes on stage at Demystifying Digital.

We naturally followed his advice. Can you spot these characters on our own H&K London team? Reconnaissance | Mad Scientist | Communications General | Community Manager

Take an insightful 5 minute spin through today’s top trends effecting communication with H&K’s Kati Sulin. (There has never been a more exciting time to be in PR imho.) For Finnish speakers, there’s lots more from Demystifying Digital on the Helsinki office blog.

Here is a five minute case study from one of the top charities in the UK. Dogs Trust makes great use of all the different tools and platforms — from Twitter to Flickr and more — to connect their brand (and their dogs) with their audience. Alex, their Digital Marketing Officer, bravely did her first ever Pecha Kucha / Ignite presentation at Demystifying Digital to rousing applause. Clearly she also had the cutest visuals of the day.

Next up in our series of Pecha Kucha / Ignite presentations from Demystifying Digital is our own Brendan Hodgson. He reminds us that for every action there is often a reaction. And the speed and impact of digital and social media provides both opportunities and challenges for corporate reputation management and crisis comms. Brendan’s advice: Don’t Panic (just be prepared).

Client feedback is showing that one of the most popular sessions at our Demystifying Digital symposium was the rapid fire Pecha Kucha presentations. Often presented under the O’Reilly Media Ignite branding (as we did at Stream) it is a five minute way to get interesting content across in an energetic manner. We will get them all posted here for you, starting with Mikael Jungner, the Managing Director of the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE, and his look at corporations, pop culture, control and the meaning of Social Media. Nautiskella.

We do quite a few events for clients here at H&K. But the two day D2 conference is the biggest I have ever been involved with. Both for the power of the speakers on the agenda, and the wonderful range of clients and guests attending. I am not really nervous, because we have done so much prep, but I do hope my part goes well. I get to follow the opening keynote from Sir Martin Sorrell. Ok, so maybe I *am* a little nervous.

You should follow #HKD2 and @HK_London to see more content as it gets posted from the event.