Social Media: is it for your Business?

Social Media is possibly the biggest game changer when it comes to growing businesses within the era of the Millennial. According to socialmedianews.com.au over 15,000,000 Monthly Active Australian Users on Facebook and 9,000,000 Monthly Active users on Instagram, there are more people than ever accessing the ‘social’ side of the internet. Keep in mind this is only in Australia! Social Media is one of if not the most influential platforms to young people and now also older generations too. With over 6 in 10 Australians using Facebook and 1 in 2 of them using it daily. Critically companies must adapt to this as they grow their business within the digital age. Some businesses do this extremely well with collaborations with international social media influencers other brands remain lacklustre, and it ultimately causes their demise. Digital is evolving, using the power of social media to create business awareness is the way forward for 2019.

Still not sold on the idea of Social Media for your company? In 2016 the Western Australian Tourism released a series of Magical Stories that featured in all of the beautiful locations in Western Australia these clips were released over a series of years and are still being used today with the justanotherday.westernaustralia.com website. Now, don’t get me wrong in the beginning this campaign had a few hiccups with some people using the campaign hashtag to spread words of negativity. But, over two years later since the campaign first began Instagram has seen more than 600,000 posts of quality images and videos of people enjoying

Western Australia.

Social Media will never completely be something that is 100% a positive thing, and we have to allow people to share their opinions but often after a little bit of drama dies down the outcome can be significant. This #Justanotherdayinwa campaign is an excellent example because although there was slight controversy in the beginning two years on there is still a variety of people that continue to post content on using this hashtag. The content is also high-quality using Drones, DSLR cameras and are all epic shots featuring Western Australian landscapes. All in all, this is a successful government campaign that has drawn A LOT of attention to Western Australia.

Social Media can be a great tool when used correctly, but often people who use it don’t understand who they are marketing towards. Target Market is one of, if not the most important parts of your social media strategy. Understanding who your target market is to be able to grow your following to in turn increase your business is a huge part of being successful on Social Media. You could have 10,000 followers on social media, but if none of them is your ideal client, then you’ve got a problem because you probably aren’t making any sales for your business When people with only 1,000 followers might be twice as successful as you. One Australian Business that has grown a considerable amount in the last 12 months is Tribe Skin Care which now makes over $90,000 of sales a month with their business

strategy.

Photo: Instagram.com/tribeskincare

That majorly has focused on social media marketing using paid influencer promotion. All from her home office in her house mind you! Tribe Skin Care is a perfect example of understanding who their target market is and being able to develop relationships with influencers who also have followings of these same target market to build authentic business practices.

Photo: Instagram.com/tribeskincare

Social Media has been proven to grow businesses exceptionally quickly as well as developing plans to build businesses. With Social Media such a prevalent part of society it is only right that companies start to adapt to use social media to grow and ultimately see tremendous results with growth and engagement. 

Written by: Lavinia Wehr 

That majorly has focused on social media marketing using paid influencer promotion. All from her home office in her house mind you! Tribe Skin Care is a perfect example of understanding who their target market is and being able to develop relationships with influencers who also have followings of these same target market to build authentic business practices.

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My Health Record- greater than the sum of its errors?

The technology behind My Health Record has been described by international experts as nothing more than “digitised paper”. Harvard Medical School International Healthcare Innovation professor Dr John Halamka claims it uses such out of date technology that crucial patient information may be unable to be ready or shared by computers.

“The My Health record is a noble idea but the standard they chose is from 1995; it uses PDFs, it’s not computable, it is just digitised paper,” he told News Corp Australia.

An ADHA spokesperson defended the software, replying that “Over 100 clinical information systems are accredited to connect to My Health Record and they consume structured data such as SNOMED [Systematised Nomenclature of Medicine] codes on diseases and AMT [Australian Medicines Terminology] codes on medicines. This functionality is driving decision support and other logic in those systems through those computable codes.” 

This criticism comes after My Health Record’s privacy chief quit early last month amid claims the organisation and Health Minister Greg Hunt’s office have not been taking the concerns of internal privacy experts seriously enough.

Whole Ms Hunt and ADHA have refused to comment, Ms Hunt has since joined ANZ Bank.

The agency has since announced citizens will be able to opt out of My Health Record at any time and permanently delete their records.

Previously, if an individual had not opted out by the given deadline, it couldn’t later be deleted- only made ‘unavailable’.

This decision comes in response to widespread criticism and concerns from citizens regarding the privacy of their data.

Mr Hunt has defended the scheme, arguing it offers greater benefits to citizens than the sum of these challenges.

“If you are a mum, you will be able to have access to the vaccination records of your children,” Mr Hunt told the Nine Network.

“If you have got older parents and you don’t know what medicines they have been on, and they are in an extreme moment in a hospital, the emergency department will be able to protect them and ensure they are not taking something for which they have an allergy.

“It is common sense and something that six million Australians have adopted. It will give all Australians access to their medical records, which should be a basic right.”

Still interested? Stay tuned for information on upcoming conferences and summits by following us on Facebook @ Akolade Aust 

Written by: Claire Dowler

Claire is the manager of Akolade’s government and digital portfolio. She’s passionate about emerging digital trends, particularly in the public sector. In her spare time she enjoys picking up heavy things and putting them back down again and animals are her favourite kind of people. 

Follow me on LinkedIn for information regarding future Akolade events as well as future blog posts @ Claire Dowler

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It takes a village to support people living with dementia

A dementia-friendly community is a place where people living with dementia are supported to live a high quality of life with meaning, purpose and value.  - Dementia Australia

In Australia there are currently 430,000 people living with dementia. 70% of people with dementia are living in the community. This number is going to continue to rise, so what can be done beyond simply providing services?

In the Northern Beaches of Sydney we have established the Northern Beaches Dementia Alliance and wider working group who will govern and facilitate the local dementia friendly community project. Although our goals are inclusiveness and social change in the community for people living with dementia, we have designed the project as a collaborative education opportunity for providers as well as the community.

Our Alliance and working party includes a variety of local organisations, businesses, community services and groups. We have also recruited local aged care service providers, people living dementia and their carers. As a result of the project, there is a number of benefits to various stakeholders including people living with dementia and their carers, local community members, services providers.

By educating the community and creating social and physical environments that are inclusive, safe and supportive for people living with dementia; we aim to improve quality of life. Physical environments that are dementia friendly have the potential to reduce preventable falls and unnecessary hospitalisations. Supportive and dementia friendly social environments will potentially reduce the impact of caring for someone living with dementia and decrease early admissions into residential aged care facilities. By improving the social and physical environments, we will also see a reduction in the costs associated with dementia care and unnecessary services.

A large focus of the project is education with the goal to improve awareness and reduce the stigma associated with dementia. Dementia-friendly education will be aimed at students, local community members, local businesses and aged care services providers and will cover principles to guide individuals and organisations. Through participation in this project education or consultations, the Northern Beaches Community has the opportunity to experience community cohesion in support of people living with dementia. In addition organisations will work collaboratively alongside people living with dementia and their carers to improve their business practice and be publicly recognised as dementia-friendly.

Throughout the process of design, implementation and evaluation of the project activities, service providers will be immersed in and engaged with the local community, people living with dementia and their carers. As a result , provider knowledge of dementia will be enhanced. Additionally provider understanding of holistic needs and wants of someone living with dementia (outside of the clinical context) will be enhanced and inspire new and creative models of care. As providers engage with the community in a meaningful and collaborative context, their ability to anticipate the needs and wants of future generations will be enhanced. Resultantly we hope to see improvements in strategic planning and innovation to meet these needs and wants.

This represents a drop in the ocean, ripple to start the wave of social action. As more communities stand with their members who are living with dementia we will see greater benefits for the wider society.

For more information, contact Ilsa Bird, Northern Beaches Dementia Friendly Community Project Manager, Your Side

Still interested? Stay tuned for information on upcoming conferences and summits by following us on Facebook @ Akolade Aust 

Written by: Ilsa Bird

Ilsa is an advocate for person-centred care, wellness and reablement in community care. Ilsa initiated the Dementia Friendly Communities project in the Northern Beaches of Sydney. The goal of this project is to improve community awareness of dementia through education and increase opportunities for social inclusion for people living with dementia in the community.

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