Cord Blood Registry & Social Media

Cord Blood Registry & Social Media

Today’s blog will focus on a narrow sliver of the social media world, The Cord Blood Registry. I will discuss the social media strategy they have employed, its features, and apparent strategies. Before getting into these more complex elements, it would be best to first provide a primer as to what the Cord Blood Registry is.

The CBR (as I will refer to it) is a private company that generates revenue by storing stem cells derived from the umbilical cord that is frequently discarded following the birth of a baby. These stem cells may become valuable for treatment later in life should the child have a disease, cancer, or organ failure issues. Since these cells have not yet been proven to actually save anyone, the product they’re selling is largely peace of mind to mothers and fathers that they have done everything in their power to protect their families. Presumably, treatments that employ stem cells, once developed, will be compatible with the stored stem cells that can be thawed out at a later point. At that point, the CBR will become a legitimate medical service. It is unclear when that point in medical history will occur, but they do seem to be sincere in their efforts to save people with their technology.

Regardless of your viewpoint on the future of this technology, it becomes immediately clear how important promoting their services on a logical and emotional level will be. The emotional component is the most important, because the exact future treatments this service can be used with are not entirely clear. So the business must truly engage with potential new parents in a way that fits closely with their hopes and fears. Specifically: hypothetical situations that create fear. Both fear of the “mad scientist” behind the product and fear for their child in hypothetical medical issues in the future.

The CBR has engaged potential customers and new parents through both Facebook and Twitter. However, their Facebook page is the more effective tool of the two in terms of fit with their business. The CBR offers a fairly static service: Storage. So the “news” the company would want to release is few and far between. In fact, the less news from CBR the better for parents, because the product needs to be considered safe. No news is essentially good news when it comes to storing stem cells for 20-50 years. Once the service is sold, there is not much room for upselling, unless perhaps they can eventually DNA sequence your children. So the type of news that CBR chooses to release is largely related to A) Stem cell technologies (which indirectly show future benefits from CBR) and B) diseases, afflictions, conditions that present future hazards (increase perceived probability customers will have need to use frozen cells from CBR). Twitter serves to distribute this type of news to their followers.

Facebook on the other hand offer greater benefits. The Facebook page for CBR offers much of the same information as their Twitter feed, but it also has information posted by users. In fact users often post stories before the Associate Marketing Manager of Social Media (Erika Gessin) can post them to the CBR wall. When CBR posts information directly, it often leads to reinforcing conversation among its users with each other. This two way communication has significant advantages to CBR. The three main benefits are evident. First, users/fans become information agents, notifying CBR of events relevant to their business. Even the Social Media Manager cannot be fully omnipotent to events that impact CBR around the world. Users can benefit the company by providing eyes and ears to important issues to young parents. Second, a forum is created for discussing stem cell storage issues. By creating such a forum, it avoids its creation elsewhere. You cannot control whether people talk about your brand, but you can ensure that it takes place in a place you can actively monitor it. Third, since you have access to the conversations taking place, you can also have back and forth communication with social media users. When product misconceptions exist, you can correct the issue. If new fears spread about stem cells, you can act to calm those concerns. Moreover, you will hear about and be able to get out ahead of stories before serious issues arise. Rapid response capabilities are quite valuable. Each of these three advantages are present on the CBR Facebook page wall by examining both the CBR additions and user posts. For a firm of its size, it appears Social Media is particularly effective for this business.

Applying the Elaboration Likelihood Model to the CBR business explains exactly why Social Media was so effective for their business model. ELM divides message processing into Central Route and Peripheral Route processing. Messages apply Cognitive (reason, logic, facts) or Affective (emotions, fears, desires) tactics. The product/service CBR has is one that is high involvement (keeping your family alive) and affective (dangers are unquantifiable, safety, security, uncertainty). Social Media is predominantly central route due to the direct interaction required to connect with and post anything. But the message style is often (but not exclusively) affective in nature. Unfortunately, its difficult to “prove” that Facebook is more Affective than Cognitive, but for the moment I will rely on my reader’s experiences with Facebook and assume that you agree. Putting all the pieces together, we have a product that uniquely fits the interaction level (Central Route) and communication style (Affective) of the medium. And the postings that CBR and users make on Facebook reinforce this affinity.