Carebuzz offers CogniFit!

Get brain fit with Carebuzz!  This is an exciting time. Carebuzz will begin to sell top quality products and services that help aging seniors stay home safely and remain independent and productive.

Our first partner is CogniFit, a brain fitness and training company offering online programs, like Personal Coach and Senior Driver. CogniFit invited me to personally use the product so that I can have a first hand experience of their programs. Great idea! I jumped on this opportunity.. what could it hurt? During my assessment, I thought.. why not share these results with my blog readers! You can follow along as my brain (hopefully) improves over time! And then you could make the decision or assess if this is something that might help you or your aging relative.

I do know how important it is to say fit. I exercise regularly (5 times weekly) and now that I am 58, it is important for me to exercise my brain too! So, here we go:

Personal Coach Program Benefits

Improve your well being and slow down cognitive decline (now who would resist this?)
* Improve your memory
* Think faster, stay sharp and focused
* Absorb more data and process it faster

January 21, 2010 - Personal Coach Assessment Test Results (part I)

drum roll please… actually I am very pleased.. well, almost…

CogniFit tests the following areas: (and more will be added later, so return often to read my progress)

Time Estimation - ability to estimate the duration of an event without the assistance of timers - My Result: Excellent

Awareness - ability to evaluate cognitive functioning, realization, perception or knowledge - My Result: Excellent

Response Time - ability to perceive a simple stimulus and respond to it - My Result: Excellent

Naming - ability to recall and retrieve a word - My Result: Higher than Normal

Working Memory - the span of information that can be manipulated while performing a task - My Result: Higher than Normal

Eye-hand coordination - degree to which the hand and eye are synchronized - My Result: Higher than Normal

Spatial Perception - ability to perceive how things are arranged in space and investigate their relation to the environment - My Result: Higher than Normal

Shifting - ability to redirect your attention from one channel of information to another - My Result: Below Normal (hey, we can’t be perfect)

I will report back to you on January 24 for part 2 assessment.

I plan to start the Senior Driver’s Program in a couple of days… I hope they don’t take the keys!

Where are you spending your marketing money?

In the past, most senior care and health care companies have been spending marketing dollars on yellow page ads, print ads, and direct mail pieces. For the new year, 2010, ask.. is this a good place to spend my hard earned money? Inevitably, the results are inconsistent and ineffective.

We will look at other options that’s gaining attention.

Here is one that most senior care providers must continue with and that is local community networking & marketing to health care professionals in the aging industry. Why? Because you will reach the influencers of those purchasing senior care services. Who are the influencers?

Family Caregivers

Physicians

Nurses

Social Service Agencies

Geriatric Case Managers

Pharmacists

Hospital Case Managers

Rehabilitation Centers

Physical Therapists

Investment Advisors

Elder Care Attorneys

..the list grows but you get the idea! But how is the best way to reach these influencers? Face-to-face meetings is one way. Is it efficient and the best use of your time and marketing dollars? Probably not. Instead why not build a database of email addresses and send them a newsletter or whitepaper that’s useful. So, what would that look like? Think about it. What is useful to your organization? How can you help your staff become more effective? Through questions like these.. you will find answers. But you want to make that marketing piece so appealing that your readers will refer to it over and over again. If they do that, surely you’ll be remembered in time of need!

For example, think about creating a useful document that contains local resources. How many senior providers and caregivers could use a local resource guide that’s easily accessible?

We’ll continue this conversation in a day or two, so please come back for more creative and effective marketing ideas.

The growing rise of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter creates another “marketing” need to teach or consult companies “how to” leverage social media for business purposes. I ask myself, are these sites really valuable for companies?

It’s interesting to study and observe the shift from local, face-to-face marketing to a global online social media communication style. Carebuzz works in the senior care industry and since our first website WorkingCaregiver.com, it’s been fun to watch this shift of building online relationships.

I read an article on INQUISITR titled Is Social Media Useful or just Ego-Boost? The author brought up a valid point about LinkedIn. “Of the various social media sites, the one I’ve seen used the most for non-marketing business uses is LinkedIn. While there are many people who see little to no value to the site, I’ve witnessed companies using the site for recruiting, locating service providers, and seeking business advice. I was hired at The Industry Standard based on working LinkedIn, and yet it’s the one social media site that always seems to be ignored or dismissed. It has the highest CPM rate for advertising of any social media site, and probably will be one left standing in the end.” I have a difficult time finding my way to LInkedIn even though we have a profile there.

As for Facebook and Twitter, I have found it more useful to us here at Carebuzz.  The article on INQUISITR continues to read, “Both can be used to build brand awareness, as well as pitch journalists, announce news in a less formal manner, and reach out to a different audience. Some people have had success with leveraging their contacts on the sites for jobs and partnerships, but the majority of the users seem to use the sites for their intent: socializing.”

If that’s the case, “socializing” for business beats the heck out of formal business networking.. for me anyway.

CareBuzz can help you reach baby boomers and seniors in your local market. We develop and deliver targeted content for the aging care industry.

It’s all about customer service on Twitter.. not so much selling… although Twitter is a great forum to push out marketing content.  Here is a video (see below) on Alaska Airlines’ strategy on Twitter. For them it’s not just selling and advertising their airlines, travel discounts and places to go on vacations.. Alaska Airlines wants to focus on customers.

Focusing on customers - what they want - what is important to them. Listen and watch this video on how coordinating a Tweetup for Alaska Airlines’ customers created a digital word of mouth that got people talking and appreciating the airlines even more.  In this exclusive interview with SimpliFlying.com, Elliot Pesut of Alaska Airlines details their Twitter strategy, and talks about the recent Tweetup they had in Seattle.

So, next time you are thinking through a Twitter strategy, you might consider a TweetUp that focuses on your customer.. having fun, learning something new or simply seeing you, the vendor/supplier as a real person… it’s about being transparent.

TweetUps - What’s it all about?

How to Organize a TweetUp

Organizing the Tweetup: DO

1. Utilize your Twitter network as a way to drum up support, help and ideas.

2. Actually visit the venue.

3. Plan for more people to show up than you think.

4. Ensure a few core people/speakers are at the event.

5. Use Email.

Thank you,  Stuart Foster - an independent social media/marketing consultant. Read his full story on How to Organize a Successful TweetUp on Mashable.

Carebuzz and Working Caregiver would like to know how you folks use social media. Click Here to take survey We hear stories that the median age on Twitter is 45. I wonder if that is true because I just read on a Pew Internet study, published October, 2009 that the median age is 31 - see that study posted here on Twitter and Status Updating .. but I have a hard time believing that too.

Since we will never know and not sure which study to believe, Carebuzz just published this very short survey. We are curious about how people really use social media, for what purpose and how can we help improve our online strategy - would you please help us out? Thank you.

The Carebuzz Survey Click Here to take survey