Recovery Month's New Media Newsletter for January

January

Taking Charge of Health on Tumblr: HumanaVitality Short and sweet has been the trend in digital media. Beginning with the advent of Twitter in 2006, organizations and people have learned how to share vital information while keeping the character count low. Tumblr, a microblogging platform founded in 2007, has followed that trend, encouraging short-form blogging by allowing users to post videos and photos. To date, there are almost 40 billion posts featuring everything from text and quotes to photos, links, and music. HumanaVitality, the wellness rewards program for health insurance company Humana, joined the ranks when it launched the HumanaVitality Tumblr this fall. HumanaVitality aimed to capitalize on Tumblrís consumer audience, using original content to drive engagement back to its Pinterest page. The flexibility of the Tumblr platform allowed HumanaVitality to customize a fully branded page and include widgets, such as redirect links, social sharing buttons, recent tweets, and tagged posts. For visual content, HumanaVitality partnered with the Meal Makeover Moms, two registered dietitians who have a blog dedicated to healthy eating to share unique and varied recipes. HumanaVitality has also used Tumblr to share recaps of recent events, such as the HumanaVitality Recipe Refresh Challenge and accompanying Twitter chat about healthy eating during the holiday season. If you think Tumblr might be a good platform for your organization to share more photos and multimedia content, here are a few simple steps to get started: Set up and customize. Signing up for Tumblr is fast and free. Once you create a profile, be sure to spend some time selecting and customizing a theme for your organization. Post. There are seven types of posts you can share on Tumblrótext, photo, quote, link, chat, audio, or videoóso be sure to update regularly and vary your posts. Engage. Once you have mastered the basics of maintenance, you can begin increasing your following by connecting with other Tumblr users by liking, reblogging, or following. TIPS OF THE MONTH Visual content has been the breakout trend on social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest in 2012. Users are far more likely to engage with brands and communities that have taken steps to better incorporate multimedia content. Below are tips on how to leverage the power of visual social media for your organization. Find additional information and ideas in this infographic, courtesy of Entrepreneur. Show, don't tell. Attention spans are shortening, so use multimedia content whenever you can to set your content apart.   Crowdsource content. Creating original content can become expensive, so consider tapping into your fans by asking them to develop and share images for you.   Add back the words. A picture is worth a thousand words, but a short caption or description can add significant value to an image. Remember to incorporate tags and URLs to share the source of the original.   Mix it up. Share various types of content on different social media platforms. Consider overlaying text on an Instagram photo or including quality images in your next blog post.