Insights

BraveMatters and SAMHSA collaborate on substance abuse prevention

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s Center for the Application of Prevention Technologies (CAPT) Southwest Resource Team is collaborating with BraveMatters, a Norman-based strategic communications firm, to host a series of webinars for state and tribal organizations on planning, implementing, and evaluating comprehensive social communications programs to prevent substance abuse.

“We’re hoping to deepen the capacity of the states and tribes to understand social communications and utilize social media tools, in concert with other initiatives, to listen to and interact with their target audiences online and help prevent substance abuse in their communities,” said Wanda West, Training Coordinator for SAMSHA’s CAPT Southwest Resource Team.

Participating organizations from nine states and five tribes served by the CAPT’s Southwest Resource Team were invited to attend the three-part series. The first session provided an introduction to social media concepts and technologies, including usage statistics and best-practices for using different social channels. The second session prepared practitioners to profile audiences and conduct audits of online conversations. During this session, participants were provided with planning templates designed to help them to develop a cohesive, strategic framework for their social media campaigns. The final session introduced various techniques for monitoring and measuring their social media channels.

“People are increasingly influenced by the opinions of others that they trust online. In a digital world, that’s something that can be easily monitored and measured, but also misused. It’s not difficult to join a conversation, but building a strategy to utilize many of these new digital technologies to influence change is challenging. It requires as much listening as it does talking,” Peter Wyro, BraveMatters President, said. “People are increasingly distrustful of anyone trying to sell them a product or even an idea. Our program is designed to help our clients understand, and incorporate the voice of their constituents in the message to build trust, deepen relationships, and improve results.”

The goals of substance abuse prevention programs are to reduce the incidence of substance abuse and related behavioral health problems in communities. Social media channels can be used to engage and educate communities and create awareness and public support for policies and programs that offer help.

Blake McCammon, Social Business Strategist at BraveMatters, said, “We developed a program that helps member organizations connect with advocates through social channels in their communities to broaden the conversation.”

About SAMHSA
SAMHSA’s Center for the Application of Prevention Technologies is a national substance abuse prevention training and technical assistant system dedicated to strengthening prevention systems and the nation’s behavioral health workforce. http://captus.samhsa.gov/

About BraveMatters
BraveMatters is an integrated marketing firm that helps provide clarity in a world faced with complicated alternatives. The firm provides branding, customer acquisition, public relations, and social business solutions. Centrally based in Norman, OK, BraveMatters serves clients throughout the U.S. www.bravematters.com

By |News|1 Comment
Read More

What’s wrong with your funnel?

For every customer, there is a journey that leads a purchasing decision. A customer recognizes wants and needs, becomes aware of brands, seeks out recommendations, and compares features and so forth. You’ve seen this model before; if not, visualize a funnel with a sequence of stages that describe how a buyer advances through the process of evaluating competing offerings until a single surviving brand is rewarded by a satisfying purchase, “cha-ching.”

If you’re visualizing a way of looking at the buying process for the first time, the funnel is a good place to start. It provides a framework that helps link marketing strategies to customer objectives and helps advance the user from one stage to the next. If you’re syncing marketing objectives to customer experiences, you’re already avoiding the first obsolete convention, distributing dollars to different kinds of media.

By |Blog, Branding, Social Marketing, Strategy|0 Comments
Read More

The Power of Social Sentiment

It may be hard to put a dollar amount on what social sentiment is worth to your company, but it is one of the most valuable tools your company can harness. Whether your organization is already aware of its social sentiment, or it hasn’t yet begun to monitor it, companies should take heed to the power of sentiment.  A customer’s perception and attitude towards a company has a tremendous impact on the success of the business in the realm of social capital.

By |Blog, Social Marketing|10 Comments
Read More

BraveMatters Adds Marketing Director and Social Business Strategist

BraveMatters announced two exciting new hires to their growing company this week by hiring Steven Newlon @StevenNewlon as their new Director of Marketing and Blake McCammon @rblake as a Strategic Planner for Social Business.

By |Blog, News|0 Comments
Read More

Better Brave Matter

We’ve recently updated our identity, but the change is intended to be more transformative than simply updating our corporate logo.

The first and best place to start is the name. Everyone asks about the name. “What’s Brave-Matters all about?” Well, what’s first and most important is that it invites you to ask. It’s memorable and despite the obvious perception of self-importance, the intent was to respect the very serious nature of making big, important business decisions. There’s nothing brave about making choices that lead to the same momentum and the same results. And there are no paths that are without risk. Every path offers pros and cons and risk that require judgment, leadership and courage.

By |Blog, Branding, Design, Strategy|0 Comments
Read More