Health Beat keeps up its record of wins for blogs

Spectrum Health’s Health Beat is a perennial award winner, and 2018 is no different. Once again, Health Beat has taken first place in the “Blog” category of PR Daily’s 2018 Content Marketing Awards.

The current Health Beat team approaches the health system’s blog as a brand journalism effort that tells “real stories of real people facing real struggles.” The journalistic bent means the blog mirrors what you might find in a publication: a managing editor, a multimedia manager, two photojournalists and a health care journalist; they supplement the full-time staff with the work of freelancers and fellow Spectrum Health staff.

The team works directly with service lines, accepting story pitches and coordinating resources. The opportunities presented in the posts for readers to connect with Spectrum Health are subtle; the story comes first. Articles are promoted through a variety of channels, including social media and email newsletters that serve a healthy number of subscribers. Posts are always well-written and supported with outstanding visuals.

The site reaches 10 million people each month; reach from social media and other media has far exceeded 100 million people, averaging 700,000 visits to the site each month. Some stories average more than 22 minutes of onscreen time (compared to a site average of just less than four minutes).

Health Beat employs a variety of techniques in each post, including world-class photography, with a main image at the top of the page and a carousel beneath it, allowing readers to scroll through as many photos as the team wants to share. The articles are beautifully and professionally written, attracting several comments, something other corporate blogs struggle to inspire (and that some have given up on altogether).

Congratulations to the team of Cheryl Welch, Jill Seidelman, Chris Clark, Sue Thoms and Taylor Ballek.