What We Talk About

My concept for the “What we talk about (when we talk about cancer)” site was to promote the idea of the Mass General Cancer Center as the epicenter of a community of care. The result was a new site, launched in 2013, which has driven over 60,000 unique visitors, many of whom who have commented and interacted with the site’s growing list of regular contributors.

This case study outlines some of the key aspects of this project, from identifying the gap/need to be resolved, site planning and development, content creation, and promotion through our other social media channels.

The Gap/Need (What we talk about)

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The Mass General Hospital Cancer Center is one of the most prestigious research and treatment centers in the world, consistently ranked in the top ten in the United States across numerous disease types.

When I started at the Cancer Center, I decided to evaluate perceptions of the institution among visitors to the website. I arranged meetings with the center’s patient and family advisory committee, to discuss users’ perceptions of our online presence.

Despite the Center’s reputation for pre-eminent treatment, it became clear to me during this investigation that it ran the risk of being perceived as so academic and clinical that some patients felt it was rather cold or austere and thus less “caring”. I felt that this potential problem could also lead to a sense of distance between patients and their family members and clinical staff.

I then devised an idea for a community site which would allow patients and their relatives to exchange ideas with other members, both clinical and non-clinical. The topics would be connected to cancer care, but non-clinical in nature, so all visitors could engage with them on an equal footing. This would also then allow the center to present itself as a community of care, rather than a clinical research facility alone.

Planning and Development (What we talk about)

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Initial Wireframe

Initial Wireframe

For the development of the “What we talk about (when we talk about cancer)” community site I led a group including a design agency and a web developer through multiple phases of conceptual sketches for IA, wireframing of design and layout, and functional mock-ups and staging server builds.

I managed an aggressive development timeline, which needed to match an upcoming nationwide marketing campaign across the Cancer Center.

A few months after the initial launch we began working on a phase II release, which allowed us to respond to the analytics we were collecting from our initial traffic.

For example, traffic appeared to drop-off somewhat in the early part of each monthly discussion cycle. This indicated to me that the site was perceived as having less content to engage with when only a few perspectives were visible on the homepage. As a result, I re-conceived the site’s overall architecture to work with our developer so we could create a new multi-channel format for the homepage.

WWTA phase I page in dev

WWTA Phase I in Development

 

Phase II Home Page

Phase II Carousel Development Option

Phase II Masonry Development

Phase II Masonry Development Option

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WWTA Phase II

Content Creation (What we talk about)

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A topic wordcloud, used to help review each topic for my review post

The content on the “What we talk about” community site that I developed works at the border of a traditional blog, with its content created by its contributors; an online magazine, with editorials created by me which draw conclusions from the discussions on each topic; and a forum site, open for all to comment, share and become full contributors themselves.

Creating a community space in which all these differing voices and differing levels of engagement can be accounted for began with me, as editor, establishing an initial list of topics — like “survivor”, “support” and “care” — and of the categories of community member “personas” we were seeking to engage — for example patients, physicians, caregivers, family members, administrators, etc.

I then produced a short list of initial contributors, to ensure the site launched with a balanced amount of content from each of these types of members. Prominent links to a “Participate” submission form then allowed more and more interested visitors to be added to this list (once each had agreed to a set of guidelines which ensured their posting would not violate patient privacy laws, etc).

After I have collected each set of contributions on a topic, and comments have come in from visitors to the site (each with my approval before going live, to avoid hacks or offensive posting), I create a post which collates and reflects on the ways in which the conversation has developed, to encourage further comments from visitors.

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A review piece for the “Survivor” topic conversation

 

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The Everyday Amazing video channel

 

For the phase II release, a year after the initial launch, I added a new channel for video responses we collect from our community event van (part of the Everyday Amazing campaign). Our community now has over 50 regular contributors, and has had over 60,000 unique visitors.

 

Promotion (What we talk about)

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This new “What we talk about (when we talk about cancer)” community site is positioned at the intersection between the Cancer Center’s main website and our traditional social media channels. As such, we approached the promotion of the new site from a number of different perspectives. We developed a promotional strategy that linked “What we talk about” from our Everyday Amazing Campaign microsite, drawing credibility by underlining this integration with the center.

WWTA fb ad

 

I developed a dedicated SM campaign of promoted posts, and paid tweets, with timed release of bursts of these ads encouraging engagement. I used images of several different types of community members (e.g. physician, patient, administrator) to support the central proposition that in this online space everyone has an equal voice.

 

WWTA email blastA third ongoing tactic involved email blasts      from a subscriber mailing list, as the site’s traffic grew.

There were several forms of internal communications too, including flyers in treatment clinics, and large format signage. Physician mailers encouraged them to mention the site as part of their initial conversations with new patients, as an aspect of our supportive care services. The patient on-boarding print materials also included information about the community.

Interest in the site from other bloggers, writers and publishing companies has led to cross-posting and linking from other sites, which has also increased the site’s quality scoring.

 

This promotion has succeeded in bringing over 60,000 unique visitors to the site since launch.