Healthcare Innovation Rule # 6: Get Buzz(ed)
Little propels a startup like great buzz and one of the four things we think crowdfunding and events drive is awareness. Once people are talking about you there is a palpable buzz around your brand. Nowhere was this more prevalent than at MedMo15 the other day where we got over 12.5 million impressions on Twitter alone. This wasn’t an accident, it is carefully engineered. By inviting the right people, giving the right tools and encouraging and training people, amazing things can happen. Over 430 people tweeted about the event over 2000 times. We made it easy by filling the MedStartr Momentum 2015 Program with everyone’s twitter handles, marking everything up with the hashtag, displaying the tweets live at the event, using Twitter for contest voting, and assigning a team member to manage and curate the twitter feed. It also is incredibly helpful to have twitter rockstars like Regina Holliday, Wen Dombrowski, MD, Susannah Fox, and Tiffany Peterson in the room. Livestreaming the event on MedStartr.tv also allowed people around the world to watch and participate, which they did. Check it out in the Buzz slide below or see what we are up to on our favorite buzz metrics site Symplur.
But here is the thing: as a startup, you have at least 7 things that you have to do every day that wait for your limited time and attention. Rolling your own massive awareness campaign takes work. That is why when you have the opportunity to present at an event like MedMo15 you should take it. We had three companies out of 18 not show up or at the last minute ask if they could phone it in. One of the winners, Ashish Patel from CareSet, wasn’t even on the program but I told him to be ready in case there was a no-show. He was, he did, and he stole the show in the PharmaTech competition. He didn’t even have a Pharma facing deck at the time. That is what I mean by “Getting Buzzed”, there are many opportunities. Be Ready and take advantage of them and you will get higher faster!
(2016 Update: CareSet has developed datasets and offerings for the Pharma market and is doing quite well there. Great job!)
