General blog posts

Your Facebook Business Page: Why you NEED to have one

Wayne’s story: “Everyone said I had to do a Facebook page for my business. I figured that would be something Taylor could do when she’s not answering the phones. I know she knows how to snap chat, or whatever that’s called. Frankly, I’m not even sure why I should be paying someone to do this. Nobody really takes social media seriously, right?”

Wrong!

  • 214 million Facebook users in the United States
  • 21.1 million Facebook users are age 65+

Even if you don’t personally care how many followers you have, or use Facebook yourself, your business’s Facebook page should be treated as a legitimate avenue of sales/marketing/customer service (especially for direct-to-consumer companies.)

Much like your website, your Facebook page tells consumers you’re a real company, run by real people, and you are modern and innovative. By increasing your credibility on Facebook, you increase your credibility in real life (and hopefully increase your business!)

Here are some tips to ensure your business’s page and posts appear genuine, trustworthy, and professional.

Your Profile

Your business page profile should be complete, high quality, and up-to-date. A big red flag for a business page is an incomplete “About” section, with no contact information or outdated hours. Make sure you fill out everything entirely, with contact info and a link to your website, so people trust you are real and credible.

Don’t forget about your profile and cover photos. (Better yet, you can even add a cover video.) Your profile is incomplete without them. If your profile picture is blurry, it means your logo or image isn’t at a high enough resolution, and it won’t appear professional. Don’t have a logo? It might be worth consulting a graphic design team to help!

Here’s a quick checklist. Does your profile include:

  • Company logo
  • Cover photo (or video)
  • Website
  • Address
  • Email
  • Phone number
  • About

Inaccurate information is perhaps worse than no information at all. If your contact information has changed, update your profile immediately. If you’ve rebranded recently, make sure your business profile reflects that by adding your new logo, colors, tagline, etc.

Your Posts

Don’t let your page get stale. If your last post was February 2015, what message are you sending people who seek out your business page? That your company is inactive or no longer be in business. Post regularly. (But not too many per day — you don’t want your followers to feel spammed.) A good rule of thumb is 3-5 times per week, but no more than once per day. This keeps your page fresh.

Post Relevant Content

If you want people to trust you, and value your page, produce valuable content. Have a healthy mix of useful, informative or entertaining content mixed in with promotional posts. This will keep your audience engaged. They’ll see you as a knowledgeable resource for helpful information, and not just out to make a quick buck.

Don’t Spam Your Users

People are already wary of what they see online, and nothing screams spam more than typos and bad grammar. Which would you rather click on? “Plz click to see youre new facebook strategy,” or “Click here to discover your new Facebook strategy.” Facebook algorithms filter out suspected spam, and make it harder to reach your users, so you want to stay on the right side of the algorithm.

Avoid “spam speak” and don’t overuse exclamation points or emoticons, particularly in post titles. For example: “Join our group NOW!!! LIMITED SPOTS LEFT!!! 🙂 :)” vs. “There are limited spots left in our group, join today!” The first title makes your post look like spam, but the second is a simple call-to-action. In addition, avoid repetitive posts. Facebook notices if many of your posts are very similar.

Be Genuine

Your Facebook followers are real people and want to feel that they are engaging with real people too! They’re more likely to read your posts if the feel engaged, and feel like they’re having a real conversation.

Check your Links

Have you ever seen an article on Facebook that looks interesting, but when you clicked the link an error message comes up or, worse, sends you to a completely different place? Double check that everything is correct and functioning properly before you post.

Engagement

Respond to your followers!

If a client or potential client called your office and left a message, surely you’d call them back. Similarly, if someone comments on a post or sends you a message, respond to them in a timely manner. Respond negative comments or messages, too. They provide a good customer service recovery opportunity. Studies have shown that reasonable responses to negative comments or reviews can actually raise your business in the eyes of a consumer.

Encourage Reviews

Facebook reviews from users are a great way to legitimize your company. Ask your clients who stop into your business to write a Facebook review.

Show who you are

Prove your account isn’t run by a robot. Share lifestyle pictures or videos of your employees “at work”. Some easy post ideas are: Sharing blogs or new content you’ve created for your website; sharing links to PR on your company or your brand partners. Post links to articles or any media mentions, which confirms that you are indeed a reputable company. Did you recently win an award? People want to know!

BONUS TIP:

Facebook has a great feature called “Events.” Whenever you have a public event, create an event on Facebook. People who respond that they’re interested in going or are attending receive reminders. And they can share the event with their friends as well.

 

Still feeling a bit lost in the social media sea? We can throw you a life jacket by providing a one-time marketing consultation, or we can paddle your boat by managing your social media and marketing! Laura Mitchell Consulting is a strike team of experts providing agile marketing, growth hacking services and effective awareness strategies to businesses like yours. We specialize in growth techniques including creative press, social media, website design, video production and splashy product launches at conferences.

Why you don’t need a Snapchat account to reach Snapchat users

So you’ve finally figured out how to use Facebook for your business. That’s great! But now your customers are talking about Snapchat. It seems like once you’ve got one social media outlet figured out, another one gains popularity and you need to sign up for yet another app. Fortunately, you can reach your audience of Snapchat users without signing up for another account. Plus, it’s fairly easy and inexpensive in many cases, so why not give it a try?

What is Snapchat

Snapchat is a social media platform that relies on images as a form of conversation. The snapchat logoconversation can be between friends directly, in group messages, or from a brand to a user. The platform is available as an app for most popular smartphones and tablets, but is not accessible from desktop or laptop computers. The main function of the app is the camera, which allows the user to take a photo or video, add text and filters to the image, and then send it as a direct message to any Snapchat user on their friend list. They can also post a photo or video to their “story” which will be visible to all Snapchat users on their friend list.

What Are Geofilters

When a user takes a photo on the Snapchat app, they can add geofilters as an overlay on top of their photo. The geofilter is typically composed of images or graphics/text that are on the outer edges of the photo, so that they don’t block too much of the picture. You don’t need to have any followers for these filters to work. They’re based on geographical location. For example, if you were creating a “National Donut Day” geofilter for your bakery, you’d set the geographical location to be your bakery and the surrounding area.

Why and When to Use Geofilters 

Geofilters are great for lots of different occasions. Events and holidays, even silly ones, are a really fun reason to create a geofilter. In this “National Donut Day” scenario, let’s say that your bakery is hosting an event and having a 2-for-1 donut special. The geofilter would likely contain some clipart of donuts, as well as your business’s name and/or logo. This means that whenever a Snapchat user comes to your bakery’s event, takes a picture, uses the filter and then posts it to their story or sends to their friend list, you are spreading the word about National Donut Day and enticing their friend list to come and buy a donut from your bakery. The best part is that you don’t even need to do the leg work! You might mention in passing to your patrons that you have a geofilter, but if it’s a young crowd, it’s likely that they will find it on their own! Statistics show that “people under the age of 25 use Snapchat for 40 minutes on average every day,” and that on average there are more than 400 million Snapchat stories created every single day. We like to compare these filters to a photobooth. You simply set it up at a location, let people take pictures with it, and they share those pictures with their friends. If your logo is on there, your work is done! Let your audience do the rest.

How to Submit a Geofilter

You can submit a geofilter by first accessing the Snapchat website and following their guidelines on creating a filter. You can create the filter in your own editing software (we love the Adobe Creative Suite!), and then save the filter as a PNG with a transparent background, so that the pictures Snapchat users take will still be visible underneath the geofilter. If you don’t have any design programs, you can simply use the online geofilter builder on the Snapchat website, as they provide high quality clip art and editing capabilities to customize a geofilter to fit your needs. You then choose the dates and times you want the geofilter to be live for, as well as mapping out the physical area that you would like the geofilter to be available in. The map system on Snapchat’s website is extremely intuitive and user friendly, which is a plus! You then pay for the filter, wait for it to be approved via email notification, and then your geofilter is set to go live at the time you specified!

If you’re looking to reach Snapchat users but don’t want to commit to running another social media account, give geofilters a try. Need help with your digital marketing? Contact us for more info.

BONUS: Snapchat for Business FAQs

Q: Do I need a Snapchat account?
A: Nope! You just need to access the Snapchat website online to create a geofilter. You won’t be able to view or use the geofilter without a Snapchat account, but other users will be able to find it on their accounts.

Q: Is it expensive?
A: It depends on a few variables, including the size of the geographical location you map out, as well as how long you want the filter to be live for. In the instance of a small business without a large geographic location, you can expect to pay about $5 for one day.

Q: How will I know if it was effective?
A: After your geofilter has run its course, Snapchat will email you a rundown of the usage statistics, including the amount of users that swiped onto and saw the filter, the number and percentage of users that used the filter, and the amount of people who saw the filter on a user’s story or in a message. This gives you a clear way to gauge the number of impressions your geofilter had!

Snapchat statistics

Negative Online Reviews–And Why They Can Actually Help Your Business

In some ways, posting and managing your corporate social media accounts is pretty straightforward and easy. You know who your potential customers are, what they engage with and what makes them respond. But, despite your best efforts, customers aren’t always going to be happy and sometimes they’ll lash out on social media.

Don’t panic. This can actually be a good thing, as long as you know what to do. Whatever you do, when faced with negative comments, don’t do nothing. Always respond to people who trash-talk your business.

For some business owners, negative comments are the primary reason they don’t want to be on social media. “What if people say unfounded bad things about us?” This reasoning is deeply flawed and can actually hurt your business. The truth is, when someone wants to say something bad about your business, they will say it, whether you provide the forum or not. Allowing folks to tag you on Twitter, or make their disparaging comments on your own Facebook page has two distinct advantages.

1. Improve your business. Ignorance is not a good strategy. Allowing honest feedback, both good and bad, can help you to provide a better product and service.

2. Show you have premium customer service. Recognizing your customers’ comments and providing feedback is a common courtesy. In fact, your customers just want to be heard and validated. You don’t need to respond to a review point by point, but instead let the customer know that we value a top-notch customer experience and we’d sure like to make it right for you. Please give us a call…. Or stop in so we can make this right. This often will suffice for the customer and other customers that read the review will realize that you truly care about your customers.

DO NOT Make it a habit to simply delete negative reviews.

Some businesses try to restrict comments, such as holding Facebook comments in moderation and only approving the positive ones, or even deleting comments that are not fully positive. These are mistakes. Let people complain and give your business the opportunity to shine through.

This can be hard to swallow. Especially if the comments are vitriolic or factually inaccurate. No matter what is being said, you should always respond promptly and courteously. Apologize for the writer’s bad experience. Assure them that you will do whatever it takes to make things right. And you must do so publicly. Even if you continue your correspondence with the individual offline or in private, your initial response must be public. This is key. Your response is not for the commenter alone–it is for everyone. Obviously, there are outliers to this (e.g. profanity), but for the most part it’s just a disgruntled customer who can be turned back into a loyal and loving customer.

Customer research shows definitively that people who see you responding like this have a far better opinion of your business than if the whole thing never occurred at all.

After all, for every person who comments on your Facebook page, there are perhaps hundreds of visitors who do not. These “lurkers” need to see that you are responsive to complaints and that you maintain a professional attitude. “We’re so sorry you had a bad experience. We will do everything we can to make things right.” Follow up with a direct message or a phone call.

Complainers are often surprised when you do this. People seem to feel that their online comments disappear into the vast internet like a drop of water in the ocean. Your response makes them feel like they matter. And often their additional comments in the thread will become much more positive. And best of all, every other visitor sees that you are a responsible business owner who cares about customers.

Responding to these kind of comments is called “service recovery.” Whatever has gone wrong, whether it’s your fault or not, take responsibility for it. Customer research shows definitively that people who see you responding like this have a far better opinion of your business than if the whole thing never occurred at all.

Online complaints and gripes are a gift! Treat it as such. The best thing that happened is that the person took the time to share with you the problem, so you actually have a chance to fix it. All you have to do is respond, hear the customer and make a concerted effort to help resolve the issue.

Modified image by Tatiana T

Meet Charlie, the Newest Member of the LMC Motley Crew

Sometimes when you meet someone you know immediately that they belong to your tribe. That’s how we felt when we met Charlie Hintz. It just seemed like a perfect fit. His skill set includes web development, WordPress wrangling, graphic design, writing, inbound marketing and more. Just as important, he seemed to be a great addition to our patented LMC-style of witty repartee. And, his creativity flowed through his writing, his design, his music and his humor.

We decided we needed to hire him on the spot.

There is one thing you need to know, however: Charlie is, in his own words, a “collector and curator of the bizarre.” It says so right on his website, CultofWeird.com, where you can learn all about “Mortis the 1967 Cadillac Superior 6×6 Monster Hearse” and “The Curse of the Maynooth Ghost Room.” If this all sounds a little, well, weird, we couldn’t agree more. And we love it.

Charlie is also the sole proprietor of Mental Shed Studios where he designs websites and graphic designs for entertainment media, including horror movie poster design, horror actors, horror films, haunted houses, authors, and more.

So there you have it. Charlie Hintz: writer, web guru, and–how does one say it?–expert ghost hunter. You’ll fit in just right here at LMC. WELCOME CHARLIE!

Choosing Your Corporate Social Media Evangelist: Why Youth Shouldn’t be the Main Qualification

Just because they’re on Snapchat, doesn’t mean they should automatically represent your online brand

Technology seems to be the province of the young. How many times have grandparents relied on grandchildren to fix the computer or show them how to use the remote? When it comes to the latest and greatest, we often look to younger folks for help. And while it may seem true that toddlers are born with an intuitive understanding of the latest in cell phone technology, youth is not an automatic sign of online business competence.

Everyone over the age of 13 seems to have a social media presence these days, but that doesn’t mean they know how to use social media for business. It’s easy to think that someone who receives a hundred “likes” on every post is a social media guru. However, personal use of social media can be very different from business use.

Here are 9 tips for choosing your firm’s social media and online brand evangelist.

1. Comprehends the “Big Picture” of the business

Behind any marketing avenue, there’s always a WHY. Why am I doing this? What are we trying to accomplish. You know that your business needs its Facebook page, but you don’t necessarily know what will it be used for. And if you don’t know, your 22-year-old intern is not going to be able to tell you. Social media is just another way to get brand awareness, solve customer support issues and sell products. It is a bit less formal and more carefree than traditional marketing outlets, but that doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be a business vision behind it.

2. Understands the voice and persona of the company

When it comes to running a social media account for a business, knowledge and experience in marketing or branding is crucial. Social media is all about giving your business a personality and encouraging other users to engage with you. This is not as simple as it sounds. Simply posting a picture with a mundane caption will not get you noticed. Marketing is about knowing what makes your customers tick. What do your customers like, want, and need? The messaging should be clear, with a clear goal behind it. I want people to share this post. I want to inform/educate. I want to promote the product. I want to evoke emotion.

3. Knows who your customers are

I once took charge of a firm’s social media account that had previously been handled by a few post-college students. These kids were personable, bright and intuitive, but they were used to using social media with people their own age. They didn’t understand that when they did social media posts for the company, they needed to cater to older generations. They shied away from doing posts they felt were too “clickbaity,” and they firmly believed that asking people to share posts, or to like them, or to tag people was “lame.” But the majority of the clients for this business didn’t share that belief. The majority of clients were 10, 20 and 30 years older, and though they were on social media, they weren’t being reached or engaged by this firm at all.

4. Has the right personality

The voice and human-like traits of your messaging matters. You can’t change who a person is. More often than not, if someone is shy, or hates parties and people, they won’t be the social media guru you’re seeking. Successful social media posts are often a lot of fun, and you want a person who has passion and energy that will come through in what he/she writes. Most importantly, you want someone who is creative and willing to take measured chances, with quirky or goofy or fun-loving posts. And no, a marketing degree is not necessary.

5. Employs solid problem solving skills and common sense

Social media isn’t just for fun. Your social media pages are also places for your customers to find you to share concerns and sometimes to post negative reviews or complaints. Fear not, this is actually good. Don’t race to hide or block them, because negative reviews and posts can give your company the opportunity to show that you are paying attention to your customers, and are willing to fix problems. It gives you the chance to let them know that you hear what they’re saying, you care about their experience, and you’d like to help. Never respond with anger or defensiveness. Instead, show thanks for the review and your commitment to ensuring the customer has a positive experience. It’s surprising how often this will result in a satisfied reply from the reviewer, and a positive response from readers. It shows that you’re a company that cares about its customers.

6. Understands the difference between professional and personal posts

It’s easy to simply trust spell check or autocorrect when typing online posts. But what if the typo is spelled correctly? Think there vs their vs. they’re, or the horrendous apostrophe malfunction. Everyone makes spelling and grammar mistakes, and a seasoned writer knows the importance of proofreading every single post before it goes live. Someone who only has experience with their personal social media platforms may not be used to the diligence required to ensure that your business maintains a professional reputation online.

7. Gets which social media channels to use, and when

All social media is not created equal. Some platforms cater to the young, while others find boomers to be the highest demographic. Some are designed for customer support and news, others for business networking, while others could be for personal sharing. It’s important to evaluate which platforms to devote your time to and why. For example, if I were promoting an aging-related product designed for the 65+ population, I’d probably spend more time on Facebook and forget channels such as Snapchat, Instagram and Pinterest. If I were a manufacturing company with a B2B sales focus, I might do more educational blogging, directed splash emails, and networking/sharing on LinkedIn. Find your customers and go to where they are.

8. Can identify goals and reasonable ROI, especially for sponsored posts

The advertising side of social media is something that many people have never even considered when their experience is limited to personal posting. There is a whole world of tracking analytics, engagement measurement, and learning the value of boosting or sponsoring posts. A newbie to the world of corporate social media for business could have a hard time tracking metrics and deciding what is working. It would be a crap shoot to invest money into sponsored posts without a realistic expectation of desired results.

9. Makes thoughtful judgement calls before clicking “post”

Some things are innate and others come with experience. Using good judgement on behalf of a professional organization takes a little bit of both. There are times when an organization will want to take sides on a controversial issue. But these occasions are few–and must always come with management approval. In most cases, the last thing you want to do as a business is alienate a portion of your market by posting something in support of one side of a controversial topic. I still remember a college intern who had prepared a wonderful post, wonderful except that in the photo was a person wearing a T-shirt favoring one of the candidates in a recent highly charged political election. (You might remember the one.) The content of the post wasn’t political in any other way, but with one careless post, the firm could have ended up making a political statement it hadn’t intended, and alienating a large percentage of its clients. Even when it comes to sharing something humorous but in questionable taste, it often takes real-world experience to know what is and isn’t okay to post. Don’t let a rookie learn that lesson from experience while in control of your business’s social media account.

So next time you look to that young intern to decipher your digital online strategy, make sure he/she fits the overall bill to represent your brand correctly and effectively.

Net Neutrality for the Information SuperHighway: Might Want to Change Lanes

You may have heard that something called “Net Neutrality” was recently repealed by the Federal Communications Commission. What does that even mean? Why does it matter? Will it really affect me? Let’s break it down.

The internet is like a series of tubes, according to the late senator Ted Stevens (R–Alaska). And, supposing that these tubes carry water like pipes, net neutrality is the idea that my water is as important as your water and nobody’s water gets to have priority over anyone else’s water. Got it?

Okay, forget tubes, but stay with me on pipes.

Think about your internet service provider (ISP). Whether it’s a phone carrier such as Verizon or AT&T, or a cable company, such as Comcast or Charter, you pay them to be connected to the wider internet. You might pay them a little or a lot, based in part on the size of the pipe they’re connecting you with. A wide pipe can carry more data than a narrow one. But here’s the thing: Your ISP doesn’t care what data is going through your pipe. Whether it’s Netflix or HBO GO, email or Pinterest or YouTube, it’s just data in the pipe like any other data. That’s Net Neutrality.

Net neutrality: all data is created equal.

Think of our antitrust laws. They were created to prevent monopolies from dominating industries, price-gouging consumers, and preventing small players from entering the market. Net Neutrality is just like antitrust protection, except for your access to the world wide web.

Internet service providers have been pushing to repeal Net Neutrality for years. Now Congress has repealed it. So now, what’s likely to happen next as a result?

Let’s say you get your Internet through Comcast. Like any other company, Comcast wants to make money. They reach out to HBO and say something like, “That’s a nice streaming video service you got there. It would be a shame if anything happened to it.” Next thing you know, HBO is paying Comcast in something akin to a protection racket. As long as they pay, their video services gets prioritized–delivered extra quick–as opposed to other data in your pipe. When you try to watch Netflix, the video is choppy, lots of buffering, virtually unwatchable. But HBO Go is smooth as silk. So which do you watch? Obviously HBO, and you ditch Netflix, stop paying for it. With Net Neutrality revoked, corporations can buy their fast lane access and, even if their service isn’t better, they can choke off competitors. And it is now totally legal.

But it gets even worse when you think of free enterprise and new market players. Imagine that I created a new startup video streaming service in competition with Netflix and HBO Go. Let’s say mine is way better and faster, a really innovative approach. But, I’m dead in the water before I even can start. I don’t have the deep pockets to pay to prioritize my data. Remember, in the free market, the basis of the American economy, competition is good. It means my technology will spur these big organizations to keep up. Maybe they’d become better on their own, or maybe they’d license or acquire my technology. However, with Net Neutrality revoked, now I can’t even pay to get in the game, so they don’t have to worry about competition, and have no reason to improve. Talk about stifling innovation.

And it doesn’t just affect tech companies. Without Net Neutrality, small businesses may start having a harder time reaching their clients, because their websites will be hard for consumers to find or load. Small startups won’t be able to pay what it takes to be “searchable”. In the past 15 years, early stage companies with small budgets have been able to use social media and digital marketing to compete. This no longer is a guaranteed option with the repeal of Net Neutrality.

Now imagine that your ISP blocks certain content entirely. Without Net Neutrality, they can, and they don’t have to have a reason. A political ISP could block certain news sites from even showing up altogether if it doesn’t agree with their politics, whatever side they favor. Whether you’re finding a job, getting news or connecting with friends, using the internet is simply is a way of life. So, that’s fine – if your ISP blocks sites you care you about, you can just choose a different ISP. Hmm… the problem is that many Americans don’t have much choice. ISPs have a near monopoly in any given market. Thirty-seven percent of us have only two broadband ISPs to choose from. And 28% of us have only one choice. The internet has become a mandatory utility like water and electricity, except the repeal of Net Neutrality pretends it’s not.

And if you think ISPs won’t engage in these kinds of practices, think again. Why have they lobbied so hard to repeal Net Neutrality if they have no intention of violating these rules now they’re gone? In fact, history shows they’ve tried doing it in the past, but were stopped by Net Neutrality protections. Just this year, AT&T was caught limiting access to FaceTime, making it available only to users who’d paid for special shared data plans. Verizon began practices which it called “network testing” that noticeably slowed access to Netflix and YouTube. It has since begun plans to throttle access to all streaming video unless users upgrade to a more expensive plan.

Well, it’s done. Net Neutrality has been repealed, but there are many lawsuits ahead, including those coming from consumer groups and several state attorneys general. Meanwhile, it looks like we’re going to see what giant telecom and cable companies do when left to their own devices.

This Season, We’re Celebrating You

We’ve been spending time crafting the perfect holiday messages from you to your customers over the last couple of weeks. But there’s one message that’s especially dear to our hearts: Our holiday greetings from us to you, our customers, our clients, our friends.

It’s especially true this year. We’ve never had a more talented, inspiring and diverse set of partners than we do today. We learn a lot about your various industries and your roles in them. But we learn more than that–we learn about you and what kind of people you are.

We’ve been both awed by your talent and uplifted by your passion. And your sense of humor is an endless source of laughter in the LMC office.

It is for these reasons that we earnestly wish you a very happy, safe, and joyous holiday. However you’re celebrating this year, we’re celebrating you.

Your LMC Team

And Just Like That, There Were 6….LMC Brings on Master Meme-r Margee

When Margee Mauney first came into LMC for an interview, we knew we had to have her join the LMC team. Immediately. We hired her on the spot. She is a recent graduate from Marquette University’s College of Communication with a degree in Public Relations and fresh from an internship at an award-winning college media agency. We know she will be a strong creative asset. She also minored in French, which gives her a certain “je ne sais quoi.” Her educational background is in graphic design, marketing, social media and writing, but she has a craving for anything creative.

At LMC you’ll find her writing social media posts, creating shareable photo and video memes, designing marketing collateral, copywriting and managing websites. And snacking. She is an avid snacker. And she doesn’t even share. (We’re working on that).

Outside of the marketing realm, Margee is passionate about health and wellness and teaches yoga to children and adults. You can also find her baking healthy (and not-so-healthy) treats, singing and dancing with her talented musical family, and binge watching shows on Netflix (Grey’s Anatomy and Friends are always winners).

So now that know a little more bit about Margee, have you met the rest of the LMC team?

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InnovAGERS Blog Series

The LMC InnovAGERS is a blog series which highlights companies and individuals who are innovating in the aging, healthcare and caregiving industry.

For over a decade, we have been warned of the impending aging tsunami, along with a notable rising cost in healthcare. We simply do not have the brick and mortar, nor do we have the physical caregivers, to manually take care of this rising demographic. As with any disruptive demographic, we know enabling technologies will assist in cost-savings, patient empowerment and allowing professionals and family to better care for the recipients.

We wanted to take a moment and spotlight the changes that have happened over the past decade, to what’s happening now in order to make our lives better, more comfortable and healthier, as we age. What are the barriers we have overcome? What challenges are we still facing? How will technology play a role? Buckle up as we chat with healthcare and aging experts, and the game-changing innovators as we explore the fascinating intersection of technology and aging.

How to Become an InnovAGER

If you are making a difference in the aging, health care or caregiving industry, we want to feature your organization. Apply to become an InnovAGER now by filling out our survey: Apply to be an InnovAGER. If you are selected, we will interview you and feature you in an upcoming InnovAGERS blog. At the end of the blog series, our readers will select one winner to receive a free hour of LMC consulting. Application deadline is December 23, 2017.

About LMC

Laura Mitchell Consulting is a full-service shop, with expertise in healthcare, aging, technology, and business development. We help entrepreneurs in every stage, from business plan creation, to go-to-market planning to capital raise strategies. Our in-depth knowledge of the connected aging and healthcare space helps us to consult with you on company strategy, marketing directions, strategic partnerships and your competitive landscape.

We can build, write and design your website, develop a social media plan and build a branding presence. Our LMC team even has a lead software developer on staff to help you with integrations or to build out your platform.

For more information about LMC, visit our website at www.lmcllc.us.

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Straight From the Future: Laura Mitchell Speaks at Moraine Park Technical College

Laura Mitchell Consulting founder Laura Mitchell gave a talk for nursing students at Moraine Park Technical College. The subject of her presentation was “Disruptive Technologies in Aging and Healthcare.” Both LMC and Moraine Park are located in West Bend, a city of 30,000 people in Southeastern Wisconsin.

Laura discussed the disruptive demographic of the “aging tsunami,” caused by baby boomers reaching retirement age, exacerbated by the rising cost of health care. That’s where monitoring technologies can help. Laura is the co-founder and VP of Business Development for GrandCare Systems, which produces a product that can help seniors continue living in their homes, by facilitating remote patient monitoring, providing secure video chat and medication management.

It was the last day of the nursing students’ first semester of study at Moraine Park Tech. “It’s encouraging how receptive and inspired these future clinical providers were with the presence of telehealth and telemedicine technologies,” Laura said. “Especially considering that technology will play a large role in the delivery of personalized, predictive and proactive care.”

These young, engaged students are a new generation of clinical caregivers. They aren’t afraid of technology. They expect it. Their older counterparts can often seem more cautious and less accepting of advanced technologies. When shown GrandCare, the Moraine Park Tech students immediately began to get excited and brainstorm implementation strategies.

Laura, who speaks all over the country on connected health, digital caregiving and aging, doesn’t usually get the luxury of working with organizations in her own back yard. “I love that we’re engaging local people and local organizations,” she said. “Innovation doesn’t need to happen only in Silicon Valley. We can obviously benefit greatly from technology interventions, especially here in the Midwest.”