Mediaboss Marketing

Internet Dental Alliance, Inc. (IDA) announces social networking tools and dental marketing strategies designed to find new patients and maximize dental practice marketing success.

(PRWEB) February 23, 2012

Internet Dental Alliance, Inc. (IDA) announces its new dental marketing strategy that allows doctors to meet prospective patients where they gather on the web. Social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter and Yelp are the most popular way for people to ask their friends for recommendations and share information online. In response, IDA created dentist social networking tools that can be easily integrated with any social networking profiles that a dental practice may already have.

The success of social sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Delicious, Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Tumblr, Orkut, WordPress, LiveJournal, TypePad and others means that social networking tools need to be included in every dental practice marketing plan. However, successful social marketing requires maintaining an active presence, which can be overwhelming (or impossible) for busy doctors.

"That's why IDA designs customized dentist social networking strategies that are easy to implement. For example, websites and portals can be completely integrated into a dentist's personal or professional Facebook profile," says Jim Du Molin, dental patient marketing consultant and founder of Internet Dental Alliance, Inc. "Individual Facebook pages can be built for each market segment a doctor wants to target, including geographical locations, and specialties such as dental implants, braces & orthodontics, Invisalign ©, dentures and wisdom teeth."

Each dental website page is designed so that new patient prospects can be strategically sent to the practice’s social networking profile pages for social proof or more information. Twitter feeds and Yelp reviews are good sources for testimonials from existing patient. LinkedIn listings and YouTube playlists are good ways to provide more information about dental specialty areas such as cosmetic dentistry, orthodontics, periodontics or sleep apnea.

"Since most web visitors will have profiles on their own selection of social networking sites, displaying a variety of social networking tools on your dental practice website makes it easy for them to do some dental marketing for you," adds Du Molin. "Referrals are the most powerful kinds of advertising. Patients can spread the word to family and friends by email, or by using their own Facebook pages, blogs or other online networks they’ve joined."

Dental practice lead generation is an important online marketing strategy for increasing dental practice size, so New Patient Portals are designed to invite web visitors to share the information they find with their own online contacts. Each page is embedded with a selection of links, creating social networking and bookmarking opportunities for patients on hundreds of different sites. Since new social sites are constantly appearing on the web, the list is regularly updated to include the newest online destinations.

About Internet Dental Alliance, Inc.

IDA is North America's largest provider of websites for dentists, email patient newsletters and dental directories, and completed development of its unique LeadFire technology in 2012. Internet Dental Alliance provides dental practices with online dental marketing services such as websites and newsletters, find-a-dentist websites, and other dental management advice and resources.

###

Julie Frey
Internet Dental Alliance
888-476-4886
Email Information

View post:
Dental Marketing Strategy: IDA Announces Dentist Social Networking Tools to Engage New Patients

It's a social network for people you haven't met yet, but it's not a dating site. Or so they say.

My welcoming committee on Badoo.

(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET. Faces and names blurred for privacy.)

There's a social network oozing into the U.S. that you probably haven't heard of yet: Badoo. I hadn't.

But this network has, I'm told, 130 million users around the world, with about 6 million in the U.S. How did that happen? And will it play in Peoria? Here's the story, in two parts.

Part 1: The high-minded theory
Badoo is a social site, but it's no Facebook. Where Facebook is the network of your friends (even if you define "friend" loosely), Badoo is a network for friends yet to be.

But neither is Badoo, strictly speaking, a dating service, according to CEO Andrey Andreev and CMO Jessica Powell. Rather, Badoo is designed to connect you to people nearby whom you don't yet know, for whatever purpose you like. As Powell says, it's like the offline world. "There's always the potential for flirting or dating, but along the way you might just make friends, or meet people you want to introduce your friends to."

Like Facebook, Badoo's design encourages people to keep coming back. "With a dating site, if you go there and are successful, you don't come back. In Badoo, you come back," says Powell.

Badoo is also a location-based social service. It's designed to help you find people nearby who share your interests, and there's a strong smartphone app. It's pitched as great if you're looking to hang with someone in a new city you're visiting, or connect with people at an event.

Powell told me that about 50 percent of the conversations on the service lead to real-world meetups, and that under 20 percent of the site's usage is around dating. These are both very interesting numbers for an online connection service.

I would say my conversation with Andreev and Powell went well. I was envisioning using Badoo to connect with cool people at crowded events like the Maker Faire, or maybe at industry conferences.

Then our meeting ended, and I tried the service.

Part 2: The low-down reality
The initial impression I got when I signed to the service: man, this is creepy. Immediately after signing on, with no photo or information in my profile, I was told that four women wanted to talk with me, one of whom was 382 miles away. Why? I was a blank box with nothing but an age and a location.

Use Badoo to find nearby people open to talking or meeting.

(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET. Faces and names blurred for privacy.)

Actually, the entire sign-on process tells you a different story than the one the CEO and CMO told me. This is a photo-based dating site. About the only question you need to answer to get active on the service is if you want to meet a girl or a guy (or both) and their age. There is no concept of groups or networks of friends. Even the part where you enter in interests, to match with other users, is relatively obscure.

Then there's the revenue model: the service is free, but only to a point. To be featured on the top of the site's or the app's navigation bar as a nearby contact, you have to buy credits. To activate "super powers" (which allow your messages to go to contacts more quickly, among other things), you either pay with credits or contacts: you can invite other users to Badoo and the service will check your social networks for matches if you authorize it to do so. Other features require payment, too, and you can't do much before you bump into pay-me blocks. Otherwise, you'll feel hemmed in.

A site that's similar in some ways, HowAboutWe, feels more platonic than Badoo. And HowAboutWe has very clear dating mission.

Badoo appears to be all about the hookup. Now, there's nothing wrong with that, and it's a reasonable business to be in. There is, after all, one thing that people will always want, and one way or another, pay for.

And I do respect Powell's assertion that in Silicon Valley we tend to like the sterile, or as she put it, "desexified" product. Humans are needy, messy creatures, so why not build businesses that serve that reality?

The challenge is that if you have a sexy product, there's very little else that can bloom underneath it. Powell disagrees with this and said in an e-mail after we talked, "Dating only represents about 20 percent of how users make use of the site. I think Badoo is successful (far more so than dating sites, which are smaller) because it's not prescriptive. We give you the tools to meet people, then you decide what you want to do....I think most people go with some sort of 'romantic' hope, but along the way, they have all sorts of entertaining, flirty, and fun encounters."

I was also told, "Dating is a popular initial use case, and we expect the U.S. to follow the pattern of our other high-usage countries, where the uses broaden out over time and as the site scales."

My exposure to Badoo has been brief, but to me it seems like a gritty, real connection service, not the ongoing social experiment that I was eager to try before I experienced what it really was. Perhaps Badoo will expand beyond "flirting" in the U.S., but I can't imagine going back to it for anything but that.

Badoo raised $30 million from Russian investor group Finam in 2007. Powell told me the company has an annual run rate of $150 million, from about 1 million paying users every month.

Read the original:
Badoo blazing a new path in social networking?

Home > News > health-news

Washington, Feb 22 : Immunising pregnant women against flu virus seems to ensure the birth of healthy and normal weight babies, says a new study.

The study, a randomized controlled trial involving 340 healthy pregnant women in Bangladesh in the third trimester, looked at the effect of immunization on babies born to vaccinated mothers.

It was part of the Mother's gift project looking at the safety and efficacy of pneumococcal and influenza vaccines in pregnant Bangladesh women, the Canadian Medical Association Journal reports.

"We found that immunization against influenza during pregnancy had a substantial effect on mean birth weight and the proportion of infants who were small for gestational age," writes Mark Steinhoff, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Centre, with coauthors.

"Our data suggest that the prevention of infection with seasonal influenza in pregnant women by vaccination can influence fetal growth," state the authors, according to a Cincinnati statement.

The women were divided into two groups, one with 170 women who received flu shots and the second who received the pneumococcal vaccine as a control.

Researchers compared the weight of babies born in two periods, one in which there was circulation of an flu virus and one with limited circulation. Babies small for their gestational age are at higher risk of health and other issues over their lives.

During the period with circulating flu virus, the mean birth weight was 3178 grams in the flu vaccine group and seven percent higher than 2978 gram in the control group. The rate of premature births was lower in the influenza vaccine group as well. (IANS)

Share this article at

Yearly Horoscope of 2012 for the Zodiac Sign:

Sagittarius     Scorpio     Libra    Virgo    Leo     Cancer     Gemini     Taurus     Aries     Pisces     Aquarius     Capricon

TOP READ ARTICLES:

Jessie J flaunts Indian designers' gown at Brit Awards
Why is Sacha Baron barred from the Oscar ceremony?
My films create a show, not reality: 'The Artist' director
Another Kardashian girl on the way
With Bieber now, Selena stops flirting
Ray J releases book on infidelity
I didn't kill Jackson, stress did: Conrad Murray
'Bel Ami' to release in India March 16
Barrymore wants a 'timeless' wedding dress
Marilyn Monroe inspires beauty range
Kylie Minogue to sing with sister?
Josh Duhamel to star in 'Scenic Route'
Andre flies to Australia to support sick brother
Charlie Sheen set for TV comeback
Drew Barrymore pregnant?

Read the original post:
Flu shots ensure birth of healthy babies

The entire Netherlands is on a knife's edge this week, holding its breath to see whether a near-mythical ultra ice skating race on frozen canals will become a reality for the first time in 15 years.

Called the Elfstedentocht (Eleven Cities Race), more than 16,000 skaters are expected to brave the canals of northern Friesland province as soon as its organising committee gives the green light that ice conditions are safe.

'The Elfstedentocht is an icon of Dutch skating culture,' said Dutch ice-skating historian Marnix Koolhaas, who has written several books on the subject.

'The race has become a religion,' he told AFP this week.

But the 'Race of Races' is dependent on climatic conditions and to add to its mystique, has been run only 15 times since it began in 1909.

The Society for the Frisian Elf Steden (Eleven Cities), which organises the race told eager journalists at a press conference, broadcast live on national television on Monday -- its first since 1997 -- that conditions 'looked good'.

But chairman Wiebe Wieling added : 'At this point we cannot set a date. It all depends on the weather'.

'Although we have excellent quality ice in northern Friesland, there is a problem area in the south -- the ice is simply too thin,' Wieling said in the northern city of Leeuwarden, the race's start and finishing point.

To stage it, the ice needs to be at least 15cm thick along the entire route to guarantee skaters' safety.

Since Monday an army of Frisian volunteers have been hard at work. Armed with shovels and brooms they have been clearing snow, which hinders ice formation, from the canals on the 200km route.

'This race is so popular that if you ask the Frisians to help, they'll be there,' Wieling told AFP.

'It takes about 10,000 volunteers on race day -- and there are never any problems to find them.'

Elfstedentocht-fever has gripped the country, with several professional Dutch speed skaters already saying they would give the Allround world championships in Moscow a miss if the Elfstedentocht was held on the same dates, 18 or 19 February.

Dutch extreme right Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders has called on Dutch Premier Mark Rutte to declare race day a public holiday 'so everybody could enjoy it'.

In Friesland, hotels are sold out, despite the fact the race may not even take place, Wieling said.

If it does, organisers will give 48-hours notice that it's on.

Skaters leave the start at 5.15am (1515 AEDT) on race day and must return before midnight to receive the coveted Elfstedentocht cross.

The record is held by skate legend Evert van Benthem, who won in 1985 with a time of 6 hours, 47 minutes and retained the title the following year.

Tales of hardship, frozen limbs and frostbite strengthen the race's romance.

'The hell of 1963', a movie released in 2009, tells the story of the toughest race so far, when only 69 of almost 10,000 racers finished in brutal conditions.

In the the Skating Museum in the Frisian town of Hindeloopen, an amputated toe from one of the contestants who got frostbite in 1963 still bears testimony to its extreme nature.

'The tradition began in the 16th century when metal ice skates started to develop,' said skate historian Koolhaas.

'Since this is a water-rich area, skating became an efficient way of transport in winter to quickly link Friesland's cities.

A century later, after the Reformation, which deprived Dutch Protestants of carnival, the ice quickly became 'the place were anything was permitted'.

'On the ice, everybody was equal,' Koolhaas added.

In 1986, crown prince Willem-Alexander, then 18, skated the race.

Exhausted, he collapsed into the arms of his mother Queen Beatrix at the finish line.

See the article here:
Dutch on edge for word on ice race

ROME - Microsoft founder Bill Gates on Thursday called for a "digital revolution" to alleviate world hunger by increasing agricultural productivity through satellites and genetically-engineered seed varieties.

"We have to think hard about how to start taking advantage of the digital revolution that is driving innovation including in farming," the U.S. billionaire philanthropist said in a speech at the UN rural poverty agency IFAD in Rome.

"If you care about the poorest, you care about agriculture. We believe that it's possible for small farmers to double and in some cases even triple their yields in the next 20 years while preserving the land," Gates said.

He gave as one example of innovation the genetic sequencing that allows cassava farmers in Africa to predict how individual seedlings will perform, shortening the time it takes to develop a new variety from 10 years to two.

Another key development is the use of satellite technology developed by defence departments to document data about individual fields, as well as information videos of farmers discussing best practices to help others.

"If we don't do this, we'll have a digital divide in agriculture," he said.

Gates also defended the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the developing world and large-scale farm land investments by foreign states in the developing world Ñ both highly controversial issues in the aid community.

"You should go out and talk to people growing rice and say do they mind that it was created in a laboratory when their child has enough to eat?" he told reporters at a small media roundtable after his speech.

"The change in the way mankind lives over the last several hundred years is based on adoption of innovative practices and we simply haven't done enough for those in the greatest need to bring these things," he said.

On the issue of land investments that are referred to by their critics as "land grabbing," he said: "It's not actually possible to grab the land. People don't put it on boats and take it back to the Middle East.

"If we could have clear guidelines there could be more land deals and overall it could be very beneficial... The truth is the person who is most at risk on a land deal is the person who is putting the money in."

Gates also unveiled $200 million (150 million euros) in new grants from his foundation to finance research on a new type of drought-resistant maize, a vaccine to help livestock farmers and a project for training farmers.

"Investments in agriculture are the best weapons against hunger and poverty," he said, adding that his charitable foundation had committed $2.0 billion for farmers and was working on seven crops and one livestock vaccine.

Gates called for a new system of "public scorecards" for developing countries and UN food agencies that would measure things like agricultural productivity, the ability to feed families and farmer education systems.

"It's something that can be pulled together over the next year," he said.

"When I meet with an African leader, I'd love to have that report card. I have a report card for health... Without the scorecards, the donors tend to fund fad-oriented, short-term things," he told reporters.

The technology pioneer also criticized the work of the UN food agencies in Rome: the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the International Fund for Agriculture and Development (IFAD).

He said the current food and farming aid system was "outdated and somewhat inefficient" with a lot of "duplication."

For these organizations to go digital will take "a lot of time," he said.

Asked about the need for wider reforms of capitalism to help the poor, he said: "How do you get rid of its excesses, including the finance people who are paid these huge salaries, without hurting the beneficial things?"

He added: "I wish those Wall Street traders would have gone... and worked on maize and used their mathematical models to look at phenotype versus genotype.

"It's clearly imperfect but it's the best system we have."

© Copyright (c) AFP

More:
Microsoft founder Bill Gates urges digital revolution against hunger