Healthcare Social Media Post 3

Healia is another interesting health based community. This one is owned by Meredith, one of the largest publishing companies in the world with a database of over 85 million Americans. Meredith owns a host of magazine titles and something like 15 TV stations, so they definitely have the power to drive traffic.

Healia offers comprehensive vetted healthcare information, though on a decidedly smaller scale than WebMD. What they seem to have done is select some of the more common health conditions, especially those related to women, as Meredith is a decidedly female-centered publisher. And being female-centered makes a lot of sense in healthcare, because women are far more likely to take an active role in their health than men.

Essentially, much of Healia is organized like a health search engine, but with destinational aspects as well. Meredith didn't build it, they bought it, and are in the process of integrating it into their over 25 website properties across the web. They also offer webmasters the opportunity to include Healia modules in their content.



Its the communities.healia.com side that has gotten social media attention. Healia's social side is organized in two ways -- into Communities and People/Profiles. The communities section does exactly what it says on the tin -- it is a connected environment where people join the discussion by condition, concern, or goal and participate in forums. The People side looks like a more staid and tasteful MySpace, where people build profiles and meet each other by interests.



Users earn points for participating, chiefly by providing ideas, comments and advice to user submitted questions. So far at least they are primarily "recognition" rather than "reward" points, though they have a small scale free subscriptions program in their current beta to encourage activity. How the points system will evolve is not telegraphed on the site at this time. I suspect there will be marketing aspects to that evolution, like free product, etc. But I don't know.

I think Healia has solid prospects and believe it can be particularly viable if they focus on women, just as the other Meredith properties do. I think a female centric health community has a lot of legs, and if anyone has insights on the particular needs and interests of women, it's Meredith.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.