Social Media Wiki

Maybe the Pizza Was Terrible: A Marketing Rant

I receive a bunch of journals in the mail (which I don’t recall ever signing up for) and countless feeds of blogs and more journals everyday. I’m pretty bad at keeping up with all of them. However, every once and a while, I clear out the “Read Later” bin and usually find a few interesting nuggets. One of the mysterious journals that shows up every month is OMMA (The Magazine of Online Media, Marketing, and Advertising). This time around I was catching up on the November issue (read the whole thing online here). Of all the articles in this issue, one stuck with me and the more I thought about it, the more it bothered me. It was entitled “Full Circle” and told the story of how pizza chain Papa John’s used “crowdsourcing” to pick its next “specialty” pizza (read the article here).

I know…remarkably unique concept, right? Here’s what the conversation might have looked like when this idea came to life. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before:

Marketer 1: “Why don’t we have some sort of contest where people tell us what the next pizza should be?”

Marketer 2: “Yes, and they should submit the ideas on Facebook because social media is all the rage.”

Marketer 1: “Of course…what else can we do though?”

Marketer 3: “Well, we should have people vote on which is their favorite.”

Marketer 1: “Yes, why didn’t I think of that? Has anyone done that before?”

Marketer 3: “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

Marketer 2: “Indeed…have the public pick the next version of our product. It’ll be huge. A marketing first…Ad Age will love this…”

Okay, so maybe it didn’t go quite like this, but you get the idea. To their credit, Papa John’s didn’t pick the winner based on the number of votes for each pizza, they determined the winner based on actual sales. 12,000 submissions were made and the company narrowed  that down to 3 finalists (with the help of “celebrity” judges of course). The winner gets $10,000 and a lifetime supply of pizza (sort of). Here’s the big hook in the article:

“In a lucky break for the pizza chain, three distinctly different people emerged as finalists. Two of the contenders had youth, sizzle and sex appeal on their side. The third had good intentions and people sense. Guess which one won.”

Gee…I wonder.

Pause for a moment and consider the finalists and their entries. Read this paragraph carefully, as it’s the most important to determining the winner in my opinion:

“Blair Dial, 29, a blonde marketing pro from the Chicago area, pushed her pizza, ‘The Big Bonanza,’ heavy on bacon and barbecue sauce. Another, 22-year-old volunteer firefighter Kendra Chapman with flaming red hair, hailed from Georgia. Her pizza, ‘Workin’ Fire’ boasted spicy meat and peppers. Then there was Barbara Hyman, 51, a tanned brunette holistic healer from Los Angeles, who immediately pledged to donate $1,000 to the National Wildlife Federation if she won. Her chicken-and-ham pizza was called ‘Cheesy Chicken Cordon Bleu.’”

I know, you’re probably thinking the “blonde marketing pro” took this contest hands down. Ah ha! A twist. She didn’t. I’m sure you’re totally shocked.

The three finalists were given $1,000 for promotion (and you think your budgets are small) and had a month to drum up some noise before the pizza’s hit the real Papa John’s menu. Implied in this, of course, is that the contestants would use social media to promote their pizzas. It wasn’t a requirement, but it’s what all the kids are doing these days. In fact, Papa John’s had this to say after the contest: “We were surprised and excited by the ways the finalists used social media to execute three classic positioning approaches,” says Jim Ensign, Papa John’s vice president of digital marketing.

And so it began, each pizza had a dedicated Facebook page and Papa John’s tracked the number of “Likes” for each. The results of the social media efforts went like this according to the OMMA article:

“Based on social media indicators, the barbecue pizza should have won by a landslide. Dial posted on her pizza’s Facebook page one to three times a day, with games, contests and jokes. By Aug. 12, her site had more than 1,000 ‘likes,’ while her rivals had only about 500 each. On the company site, 1,351 people voted for her pizza by the end of August.

After that came Chapman, the firefighter, who anchored her page with a striking photo of herself. She posted about every other day and at month’s end 1,005 users voted for her pizza on the Papa John site.

Hyman, in contrast, seemed to use Facebook only as a back-up communication tool; in August she posted only three times. But she included her charity’s name in her Facebook title, calling it ‘Papa John’s Cheesy Chicken Cordon Bleu for Gulf Coast Animals.’ Her pizza got 928 votes on the Papa page.”

Now, the Papa John’s people were smart enough to not leave the future of their menu to the whims of the Internet unlike many others have done in the past (I’m looking at you Kraft for your “iSnack 2.0″ debacle). The winner of the contest wasn’t judged by the number of Likes or votes, but rather by which pizza sold the most.

The article goes on to talk in more detail about the tactics that each person used to promote their pizza. “The blonde” and the one with the “flaming red hair” relied on social media almost exclusively, while the “brunette” focused on more offline, traditional approaches (note: why the hair color of each contestant is relevant to the article is never explained).

And, to end your torture, the winner was the “brunette holistic healer.” Her pizza sales accounted for 45% of the total (31% for the redhead, 23% for the blonde).

Papa John’s explained why she won this way: “In hindsight, Ensign says Hyman’s site, pitch and pizza had two powerful hooks. One, the Cordon Bleu name was familiar and easy to remember; two, her cause was framed as a way to help animals harmed in the BP oil spill, which had a timely, emotional pull.”

And also this:

“While Facebook contributed somewhat to the success of the winner, it was an even bigger factor as a way for us [to use the contest to] engage people in our entire menu of specialty pizzas,” says Ensign. “Social media will continue to be a growing part of our marketing strategy.”

Okay…now onto the point of this post and an explanation of the title. This entire case should teach you one lesson. In trying to come up with an explanation for why one person won versus another, there are about five different explanations in the article from “emotional pull” to “in-person interactions” to “cause marketing” and everything else in between. What’s missing, however, is the most logical and simplest explanation (and it has nothing to do with hair color).

I’m a big subscriber to the principle of Occam’s Razor. You’ve probably heard it before, but for review, this principle states that the simplest explanation is most likely the correct one. It’s the concept behind the quote: when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.

In my opinion, Papa John’s is looking for zebras here. Why did the “Cheesy Chicken Cordon Bleu” pizza best its rivals? Simple. The other two pizzas sound vile. One featured “spicy meat and peppers” and the other was described as ”heavy on bacon and barbecue sauce.” The “Cordon Bleu” pizza, on the other hand, features a dish that every American has had either in a Hot Pocket or as part the main course at a wedding reception. It’s something we’re familiar with and don’t find objectionable, so sure, I’ll try that pizza if I must…certainly over the “bacon and barbecue sauce” pizza.

As you’re devising your next big marketing plan or struggling to figure out the reason why your last big one was a success or failure, look at the obvious explanations first. Don’t try to impress anyone by using terms like “engagement” or with reams of spreadsheets and stacks of binders. Look for the simplest answer. When you devise a new product or program, ask yourself, “Is anyone REALLY going to do this/buy this?” Get unimpressed with your idea for a second and ask yourself that tough question. If you hesitate, the answer is probably no and it’s time to find a new idea.

So, next time you need to explain why a program worked or didn’t, remember this article and think to yourself: “Maybe the pizza was terrible.”

Introducing Healthy Thinkers: Doing Some Good in Healthcare

I just had a major revelation over the Thanksgiving weekend. I realized that my social network includes many people within the healthcare industry and that those people, if they worked together, could have a dramatic impact on the future of healthcare. Some of these people work for “big pharma” or medical device companies. Others run successful non-profits or have launched healthcare technology startups. Some others provide consulting to the industry and have been responsible for many of the positive changes in healthcare over the years.

At the same time, I realized that there are a lot of people out there that still need a lot of help from the healthcare community. This might be support for an important initiative, the ear of someone who can bring a new idea or product innovation to life, or even help paying for a prescription.  I realized that it would be simple to bring together many of the people that could help fulfill some of these ideas and requests with those that need help. That’s why I created Healthy Thinkers.

The concept is simple. People submit their idea or requests to the community. The community discusses and votes up the best of these. From there, the community uses all of its social connections to make sure the idea or request gets in front of someone who can actually make it happen. It’s a “degrees of separation” concept. Among all the people that will read this post (and hopefully many more who will join the community), we’re probably only a few degrees of separation away from that key person. For example, maybe someone has an innovative idea for how J&J can improve its OneTouch diabetes monitoring products. I would guarantee that someone reading this post right now knows someone on the OneTouch product team. I’ve found out over the years that our healthcare “family” is pretty small.

I was inspired to put Healthy Thinkers together by a few things. First, it was requests that I received to help people out with healthcare-related requests. The first of these was the Diabetes Hands Foundation who asked me to help them spread the word about their Big Blue Test initiative. I did via this blog post and they far exceeded their goal (not just through my efforts to be sure). Right around the same time, someone asked me if I knew anyone at a certain medical device company so that they could contact them to ask for supplies for a mission trip to Africa. I did and this person got what he needed. And within days of that, an acquaintance asked if I knew how to get a discount on her new medication, as it was way too expensive for her. I knew someone from the product team for the brand she was prescribed and that person got my acquaintance enrolled in one of the brand’s assistance programs. It was a bit fortunate that I personally could help facilitate each of these, but I realized that I don’t know everyone and maybe I just got a little lucky.

So, not one to count on luck, my idea is simple: bring together a bunch of people who have connections throughout healthcare with those that need some type of assistance or support and start solving some problems. You see, I think we do an awful lot of talking, so let’s do something instead.

Pharma companies…you want to know how to get involved in social media? Get involved in this community and offer to help where you can. Nothing but positive PR awaits you.

Consultants and ad agency people…you want to use your skills to help people directly beyond what you do for clients? Join the community and use your contacts to solve some problems.

Patients, caregivers, non-profits…you need help or advice from some key people in healthcare? Come to the community and tell us how we can help.

Will this work? Well, here’s what I know. One of my favorite sites is Reddit. No one is going to claim for a second that this is a serious community of any kind (hilarious as it may be). Think of it as a much better version of Digg. Recently, I started to notice some people asking for real help on the site and actually getting it. I did a little more research and came across a post called “Reddit’s Astonishing Altruism.” Some of the acts include users paying for a shopping spree for a dying girl, helping track down a murderer, and bringing a family music heirloom to life (read that one for sure). However, I noticed that there two things on this list that Reddit shouldn’t have had to handle, but did: buying a new wheelchair for someone who couldn’t afford one and buying a new type of hearing aid for a young woman who was deaf since she was 7.

My question is why couldn’t our community handle this? For instance, our agency has worked with one of the leading manufacturers of wheelchairs in the world and I personally know someone who works for a leading hearing aid company. Knowing these folks, I’m sure they could have persuaded their companies to donate these items.

Call me idealistic if you want, but I think we can do better. I think we have a responsibility to do this and we can do a lot of good with very little effort. So, here’s your call to action:

Join Healthy Thinkers today. Here’s the link: http://healthythinkers.ideascale.com

  • Register. Sign up and tell us who you are. You can be semi-anonymous if you’d like. If you’re a company that might be able to help, start monitoring this forum for places you can help. If you can’t do this, we’ll find you when we need you.
  • Advocate. Spread the word to as many people in healthcare as you can. We need not only the people who can deliver on these ideas and requests, but also people who are going to submit them. So, don’t just tell the people around your office, share it with friends on Facebook too. Know people in the press? Tell them too.
  • Participate. Start a post, comment on an existing one, and vote.
  • Solve. If you see an idea or request you can help with, step up. Respond or pass it along to a contact who can make it happen.

If you want to spread the word about Healthy Thinkers, here’s some shortcuts. Click Like to share on Facebook. Include a comment so your friends actually notice it in their News Feed.

Or send a tweet about the community:

We’ll be posting success stories as they happen and also updates on big needs that still aren’t fulfilled on the blog for Healthy Thinkers (still a work in progress, so bear with me). Also, the top ideas and requests will automatically be tweeted by the @HealthyThinkers Twitter account, so follow that to see what’s new and hot on the site.

Over the next few days, I’ll be introducing you to some volunteer “Connectors” who are going to help moderate the site, but also have agreed to use some of their extensive connections to make sure these ideas and requests get done. If you’re interested in becoming one, then send me a message.

One final point, Healthy Thinkers is a completely non-profit, non-promotional effort. There is no money to be made, so don’t join up if you’re looking to promote yourself or your company. I’ve already told you what the site is for, so I hope that motivates every one of you to take a look.

Once more, join Healthy Thinkers today. Here’s the link: http://healthythinkers.com

Social Media Is Not for Advertising Pharma Brands

Dose of Digital Mini White Paper

I’m hoping that once and for all this post is going to set people straight and get everyone thinking just a bit more clearly and rationally. Today’s post, like it seems many of my recent posts, focuses on social media. But unlike a lot of posts you’ll read out there, you’re not going to find a giant advocate for the use of social media in pharma and healthcare here. You’ve come to the wrong place if that’s what you’re looking for. I’ve tried to have this discussion before when I wrote Crushing Pharma’s Marketing Dreams and 10 Things I’m Tired of Hearing About Pharma Social Media. Despite those being some of my most read posts, the message didn’t quite sink in for everyone. I’ll explain in a little more detail, but here’s the gist of the message I want you to hear today:

Social media will NEVER be an effective place for you to advertise your pharma brand.

Period. Full stop. End of sentences.

Never.

Not now, not after “the guidelines” from FDA, not when social media is “mainstream.” Never.

Crazy, eh? Keep reading.

A recent study that I read made me realize that I’ve got a little more work to do to get this message out. This was actually a well done study with reasonable conclusions, so I’m not in any way disagreeing with the findings. What I am baffled by is why people, including the authors, are so baffled by the results. You can read the high level details of the study from Accenture here, but the bottom line is this: people don’t get their healthcare information from social media including Facebook. In fact, Facebook was the last place they went online to get healthcare information. Unfortunately, the data in their press release is pretty light, but John Mack of the Pharma Marketing Blog managed to get some more details and created this chart with the details (thanks, John). Of note, the logos here are only examples, not the only site. That is, WebMD wasn’t visited 48% of the time, that’s just an example of the type of sites in the “Medical Website” bucket.

[Chart courtesy of Pharma Marketing Blog]

My initial response upon reading this was “of course,” but after looking at the reactions of some industry pundits (like me, I suppose) who couldn’t quite figure out how this could be possible, I realized that I was in the minority. To me, and few others, this should have been a pretty obvious finding, but it wasn’t as obvious to others. You see, social media is THE thing to talk about these days. There are about 957 conferences about pharma social media (with a new one each week that vows it’ll be different from all the others). There are stacks of articles and servers full of articles extolling the virtues of social media in pharma. Stop me if you’ve heard these proclamations about pharma social media:

First, there are the declarations of what it is:

“It’s the future.”

“It’s where your customers spend their time online.”

“It’s a way for you to connect one on one with people.”

“It’s what people are demanding and expecting now.”

“It’s going to change the way we market our products.”

“It’s the biggest change in pharma marketing since [insert tactic like DTC TV here].”

Then the almost indignant exclamations about what you need to be doing with it:

“You’ve got to be on [insert social media platform here].”

“You’ve got to be monitoring everything people are saying about your brand.”

“You’ve got to create a presence so people can talk with you online.”

“You’ve got to develop a social media strategy.”

Any of these sound familiar?

Please stop me.

Once again, today’s message is: Social media will NEVER be an effective place for you to advertise your pharma brand.

Let me explain why. For the sake of the rest of this post, I want you to forget that you are a marketer. Definitely forget that you’re involved in the healthcare industry as well. You’re just you…a regular person. I ask you to do this, so that you can objectively evaluate my argument. More on that in a minute.

Let’s get back to that study from Accenture. It tells us that only 6% of people get their healthcare information on sites like Facebook. The average reaction to this finding that I’ve witnessed is  what I’d call complete disagreement with that finding. However, the disagreement seems to me to be in the wrong direction. You shouldn’t look at that number and be shocked that it’s too low. You should be amazed that it’s that high.

Let’s think about it for a minute. First, where on Facebook are you going to get information that is in any way comprehensive about any healthcare condition? I’m not knocking Facebook, but that’s simply not what it’s good at. It’s likely not ever going to be good at that. It’s not a giant content repository. Instead, it’s supposed to show you where to find content based on what you like and what your friends believe you might like.

“Okay,” you say, “then explain why Pringles has 7 million ‘Fans’. People are going there to connect with the brand.”

Yes, they are and that’s sort of my point. They’re going there to connect with the brand. They connect with Pringles because they want to show some affiliation with the brand and they’re willing to share that with their friends.  The question for you, pharma marketer, is simple: Is anyone going to Facebook to broadcast any affiliation or connection with your brand?

Answer: no.

It’s “no” not because of anything you did, but rather just basic human behavior. Remember when I asked you to forget that you’re a marketer or have anything to do with a pharma company for the sake of this post? Do that now.

Okay. Under what circumstance do you see yourself broadcasting via a status update or Wall post on Facebook that you are taking a specific drug? Would you do that?  Honestly?

Likely the answer is “no” and it should be. This holds true whether it’s a drug for toenail fungus, high blood pressure, birth control, or anything else. Even if it’s a drug that’s associated with a medical condition you’ve openly shared details about on Facebook, you still aren’t likely to broadcast any affiliation with the drug. For example, if you updated everyone on your battle with breast cancer, you likely aren’t going to tell everyone how wonderful one of your chemo drugs is.

The answer is “no” for two simple reasons. First, we as a society are nowhere near willing to divulge our healthcare information publicly. It’s treated almost more securely than our financial information. So, the notion that people are ready or willing to share this doesn’t fit with current behavior. Again, to you, I ask: are you sharing your medical information publicly with anyone? The reason why you aren’t sharing is actually the second reason. You aren’t sharing because there’s no reason to share it. What possible benefit would you receive? Today, the answer is nothing. Compare this to when you share your financial information with Mint, you get detailed analyses, comparisons to others, and money-saving offers. There’s nothing like this in healthcare. When you share how much you like Pringles or give a few sentences worth of a review on a new restaurant, you actually get something from this too. It’s called “social capital.” It’s recognition and appreciation from friends that makes you a valuable source of information to them and everyone wants to be seen as valuable. That “social capital” model doesn’t work when you’re talking about broadcasting your medications on Facebook.

Again, let me summarize: Facebook is not a place for people to discuss medical issues. It never will be. Period.

Another analogy might help. Recently, Jeff Weiner the CEO of Linkedin was asked what the difference was between Linkedin and Facebook. The context was simple: how can Linkedin continue to exist as Facebook gets more massive? His answer to what’s different about the two was as brilliant as it was simple. It was this:

“Keg Stands.”

Yep, keg stands. For those not familiar, that’s where you do a handstand on a keg of beer while drinking as much as you can before either passing out, falling over, or having some internal organ reject said beer. There’s a handy detailed guide on a site called “College Tips.”

Back to Jeff…he went on to explain that Facebook is where you share pictures and stories of things you did that involved beer. Linkedin is not. Linkedin is where you share your professional achievements and talk about serious work “stuff.” Facebook is where you post pictures extolling your college drinking  prowess and your risqué Halloween costume pictures. They each have a purpose and they are both needed. Send your friends to Facebook to find out about you. Send potential employers and clients to Linkedin and hope the two never meet. It would be hard to do both things well with only one platform. Makes sense, right?

So, why are we asking Facebook to be a place for healthcare information?

What’s the Linkedin for healthcare? I’m not totally sure except to say that it’s not Facebook. And whatever that is, that’s where you should be.

One other point about the study from Accenture that I take a bit of issue with are the reasons why people turn to pharma websites for information about medical conditions so infrequently. The number is 11%. Just 11% of the time people go to a pharma company site for information about a medical condition. I don’t take issue with this number (again, I”m actually a bit surprised to hear it’s this high). I have a problem with this statement:

“According to the survey, 69 percent of respondents expect pharmaceutical companies to provide information about the medical condition or illness for which they are taking drugs. To address that expectation, Accenture believes pharmaceutical companies must not only provide the right information, but upgrade their websites to create a more dynamic, interactive experience, demonstrate an understanding of their patients’ needs, provide holistic solutions and clearly reinforce their brand identity in a two-way dialogue.”

I’m bothered a bit by the recommendation, not the 69%. While I think this recommendation is a sound one, and as someone who works at a digital agency that does this sort of work, I don’t think this is really the problem. The number one reason why people don’t go to pharma websites for medical condition information is perfectly simple: they can’t find them.

Simple as that. Here’s the scenario. Someone needs information about high cholesterol because they just found out that their levels are too high. What does that person do to find information about high cholesterol online?

That’s right: Google.

And what happens when you search Google for “high cholesterol” (click here to try it for yourself)? The first three organic (i.e., non-paid) listings are all sites that you would classify into the “Medical Website” category: WebMD, eMedicineHealth.com, and MayoClinic.com. Next question: how many pages of results would someone have to look through before they found a pharma-owned site? Answer: 10. On page 10 of the search results for “high cholesterol” on Google, you’ll find a listing for Zetia.com. Lipitor.com, the site for the world’s top selling drug, which not coincidentally happens to be a treatment for high cholesterol, can be found on page 13 of the results. Crestor.com, the site for another top drug in this category, is on page 16.

So, back to our scenario where someone just searched for “high cholesterol” on Google. Do you think that this person EVER gets to page 10 (or 13 or 16)? No. Never. And when this person needs to research high cholesterol do you think he starts by searching for the condition by saying, “Gosh, I think I really need some Lipitor for this, so I’m going to go there to get information about high cholesterol.” Again, no. Never. That’s just not how people work.

The same thing can be applied to Facebook and other social media sites. When I give you the assignment to research a medical condition, you never head to a site like Facebook to do that research. It’s because of this that I feel confident in my statement: Social media will NEVER be an effective place for you to advertise your pharma brand.

Now, time for a caveat or two. I should clarify that it will never be a place to directly promote your brand in any fashion that resembles broadcast platforms like TV or print. So, a Facebook Fan page for your pharma brand will never be an effective way to drive awareness, trial, or repeat usage. Instead, you need to consider social media as a means to an end. That is, as another tool you have at your disposal. You cannot use it to directly promote your brand (technically, you can, but it won’t work), but you can use it for other purposes.

How about visiting a medical forum like MedHelp and answering questions about your drug? That’s social media, right? It’s not as sexy as Facebook, but most likely it’s going to help more people. The question is whether or not this contradicts my statement that social media will NEVER be an effective place for you to advertise your pharma brand. I don’t think that it does because I don’t really see answering questions in a forum like this as “advertising.” Yes, it will help brand sales over the long run, but it’s different than advertising, which to me always means broadcast with no interaction. (And, yes, there’s a way to do this example without running afoul of FDA rules.)

Let me put it another way…try this assignment (which is an actual one I gave to a team here at Bridge Worldwide recently): develop some social media tactics for any of your brands, but you are not allowed to say the words Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube. Not only can you not say them, but you can’t use them for any of your tactics either. Does that mean that you can’t come up with something that’s social media related? If you answered “yes” to that question, then you’re not thinking about social media. You’re just thinking about advertising. You can use social media to reach your brand objectives (yes, including increasing sales), but you need to think beyond Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. If you find yourself sitting down to come up with ideas and every one of them involves one of these three platforms, get some outside help. If your outside help brings you ideas that only involve these three platforms, get some different help (like by contacting me). I guarantee that you can create social media-based tactics to deliver your brand objectives for ANY brand that are effective and regulatory compliant and do not involve Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter.

As a demonstration of this (and to thank you for reading this far), feel free to leave a comment with the product (or just the category if you want a bit of anonymity), the objective you’re trying to attain, and a quick insight about your key customers and I’ll give you an idea. Who’s up for the challenge?

11 Reasons Why You Need to Get a LIKE (Button)

Dose of Digital Mini White Paper

It’s no mystery that I’m a big fan of enabling sharing on your websites and all of your other content. Let’s get that on the table right now. I’ve recently written about why sharing is a great “baby step” into the social media maelstrom. Our company even worked with ShareThis, one of the leading sharing platforms, to develop new functionality for their sharing tools that allows companies in regulated industries to better control what is shared from their sites.

So, today I want to show you why sharing, specifically sharing on Facebook, is so important and I’ll also show you the best ways to utilize the Facebook sharing tools on your site. They are simple to implement, but there some finer points that will make them work even harder for you. We’ll look at the reasons why you should be doing this, the reasons why you shouldn’t (along with my rebuttal), and finally, things you probably didn’t know (about the Like button). Here goes.

The Reasons Why

In summary:

  1. People expect to be able to share
  2. Exposure to potentially 500 million people (for free)
  3. A new way to connect with potential customers

There’s a good reason why I think you need to enable sharing…actually, there are a few reasons. First and foremost, people expect you to make sharing simple for them. And by simple, I mean including sharing buttons on your site. They shouldn’t have to rely on an extension in their browser or worse, copying and pasting your URL. Sharing buttons are very familiar to people now, they expect them to be there, and they know how to use them. ShareThis, for example, has its buttons placed on more than 900,000 sites, which are seen by 400 million people a month. Sharing is common practice, so get with it.

The next big reason is pretty obvious…exposure. It’s no secret that there are 500 million Facebook users out there (plenty more stats here). And, yes, you have the potential to reach every single one of them…for free. Of course, chances are that your content won’t get shared with everyone on Facebook (in fact I’ll guarantee it won’t), but you don’t need everyone. In fact, here’s a different way to look at it. By adding Facebook sharing tools to your site, it has cost you exactly $0. Even if only one person shares one thing, it’s probably still worth the effort. But likely many more than one will share something and a number of people will see what they share. Cost? Still $0.

But now you’re saying something like, “Yes. That’s wonderful, but I really am not trying to reach a bunch of teenage girls. Isn’t that who’s using Facebook?” I thought we moved past this, but apparently not because I still hear it. Again, your cost is $0 to do what I’m recommending, so it almost doesn’t matter how many of your target audience uses Facebook, but let’s play it out. Let’s focus on age for a second. Did you know that there are currently 18,560,740 women between the ages of 50-64 who live in the United States that use Facebook? Cool stat, eh? Pretty precise too. Well, go and see for yourself. Facebook has a handy tool that’s part of their ad creation platform that lets you target your ads and see how many people you’ll reach. You can find it here. So, enough about that. Your audience is on Facebook.

Finally, by using the Facebook Like button, you’re creating a new way to connect with some of the biggest advocates for your brand and content. Did you know that if someone Likes your page besides showing up on that person’s Wall and in their friends’ News Feeds, that you can publish updates to their Facebook News Feed? You probably didn’t…most people don’t. Good news, I’m going to show you how to do this in a minute. This becomes a way to send messages to people who are likely your biggest advocates. If they shared something of yours once, they might just do it again…and again. “Likers” turn out to be some of the most engaged people on Facebook. A recent study done by Facebook showed the following:

“People who click the Facebook Like button are more engaged, active and connected than the average Facebook user. The average “liker” has 2.4x the amount of friends than that of a typical Facebook user. They are also more interested in exploring content they discover on Facebook — they click on 5.3x more links to external sites than the typical Facebook user.”

And, adding the Like button seems to have a big impact on some sites. Facebook cited the following stats:

“Many publishers are reporting increases in traffic since adding social plugins, including ABC News (+190%), Gawker (+200%), TypePad (+200%), Sporting News (+500%), and  NBA.com (#2 referral source). Publishers have also told us that people on their sites are more engaged and stay longer when their real identity and real friends are driving the experience through social plugins. For example, on NHL.com, Facebook visitors are reading 92% more articles, spending 85% more time on-site, viewing 86% more videos, and generating 36% more visits than visitors other sites.”

I bet you’d like these kinds of numbers.

The Reasons Why Not

In summary:

  1. Regulatory concerns and issues
  2. A lack of shareable content
  3. No expertise to implement or manage

Let me start by saying that I don’t accept any of these reasons, so here’s why.

Okay, I’ll be the first to admit, it’s not all roses with this Facebook sharing. If done incorrectly, it can open you to legal and regulatory issues especially in regulated industries like healthcare and pharma. The simple rule to remember is that the content that you are enabling people to share must be compliant with regulatory rules if you also are providing the means for sharing. That is, if you put the sharing buttons on your site, then make sure what gets shared when someone pushes the button follows the rules. What’s legal depends on the industry, but for pharma, that means that you can’t have together the drug name and the indication (what it does) or any claims of how the product works. If you did, you would need to provide all that “mouse type” fair balance information, which you can’t fit into a piece of shared Facebook content.

With the Like button you can easily control this by using what are called Open Graph tags. These tags are added to the coding of your site and are specific to every piece of content that will have a button associated with it. You can set the title, URL, description, image, and many other parameters all to ensure that you’re in compliance with whatever rules you have to follow. You can download my white paper on sharing tools in regulated industries to read more about Open Graph tags and how they work. It’s in the context of ShareThis, but it’s the same idea for the Facebook Like button (Download here: Digital Alert-Bridge Worldwide-Social Sharing in Regulated Industries [PDF]).

Bottom line, since you can control what of your content is shared, you don’t have to worry about regulatory issues. And, no, you are not responsible for the comments people might add to the content that is shared. In summary:

The next issue you might have is worrying whether or not you have any content that is shareable. This is two different issues in my mind. First, you are correct. Some of the content you have isn’t going to be readily shared or Liked by people. For instance, as I’ve said many times, you’re going to have a problem if you’re asking people to have something like this show up on their Facebook Wall.

However, they might want to share a part of the page or maybe they do want to announce that they really like their erectile dysfunction medication. Don’t judge. In other words, let them decide if it’s shareable or not. Put the button there and let people figure it out for themselves. For the record, Viagra.com has been shared as a Wall post or status update on Facebook 779 times, plus 590 comments have been made on those shares  plus 199 Likes on these posts or updates. Grand total: 1,567.  Bet you didn’t know that one, Pfizer. Stay tuned for where I got those numbers.

You likely do have a lot of content that could be shared. Maybe a compelling video or a really good bit of informative text that educates people about a condition. Perhaps a really solid patient success story. If you look through your site and see nothing that is shareable, then you know your first job. Start making more and better content.

The last of the Why Not objections is all about not having the expertise to implement the Like button. Sure, the full implementation instructions look pretty complicated, but for anyone with even cursory programming knowledge, it’s extremely easy. It’s supposed to be. If you already have added a sharing platform like ShareThis to your site, then you have the capability to add the Like button as well. Your web developer (or you) should be able to do it in minutes. Just remember to add the Open Graph tags if you want to control what is shared. If you don’t, the buttons will still work, but Facebook will pick which content is shared from by using your page data. If you want to see what from a page will be shared, just try out this link.

Things You Probably Didn’t Know

There are quite a few things, so here’s a list of what you’ll find in this section. You can skim through to find the explanation for the particular “did you know” that you’re interested in.

Did you know…

  • …what happens when you press “Like”?
  • …what including a comment with a Like means?
  • …that there is an alternative for the word “Like”?
  • …there are three different types of Like buttons and that you can have multiple Like buttons on one page?
  • …every piece of content that is Liked has a Page on Facebook?
  • …that you can publish to the News Feeds of people who like your content?
  • …that the number shown next to the Like button isn’t actually the number of people who have liked that item?
  • …that you can create a Like button for a Facebook Page (like your brand Fan page) that you can use anywhere?

Okay, let’s get down to business. How do you use the Like button and what can it do for you? For starters, there are actually two different Facebook sharing buttons: Like and Share. Like is newer and is supposed to replace the Share button. They basically serve the same function, but have some slight differences that aren’t critical for the purpose of this post. The differences and how to use them could be a post in of itself, but I’m not going to go into that much detail. Let’s focus on the Like button as a great place to start.

What happens when you “Like” and why comments matter

The Like button allows people to “casually” show their affinity to something at different levels. That is, when you press the Like button on a site, you could simply leave it at that. However, you also have the option to add a comment. Try it out for yourself (this is to Like this post, which you can unlike right away and it won’t show up on Facebook if you don’t really Like this). [NOTE: If you don't see the button, you need to view the post in your browser. Click to do this.]

You’ll notice that after you press the Like button, after a second or so, another box pops up that allows you to leave a comment (or Unlike). Like this:

If someone only presses the Like button and doesn’t leave a comment, what shows up in their feed looks like this:

Chances are that this will go unnoticed if it finds its way into my friends’ New Feeds. However, if I leave a comment (look right next to my name), the content becomes much more prominent:

That will get noticed.

Facebook’s rationale for doing it this way is simple. By just clicking Like and doing nothing more, you’re simply indicating that you like/approve/have some interest in/connect with/enjoy/etc. the bit of content. It’s not really important to you, but of interest for sure, so it doesn’t get much prominence on Facebook. However, if you take the time to leave a comment, then that must mean that you are a bit more passionate about the item, so therefore, the prominence on Facebook matches this.

Pick your favorite button

For the record, there are three different versions of the Like button (click any of them to Like this post).

A few things you should notice. First, yes, you can have multiple Like buttons on a single page. And, yes, you can even have them for different pieces of content. For example, click the Like on this one to Like the Pharma and Healthcare Social Media Wiki.

Don’t like “Like”?

For those paying attention, you notice that in the above example “Like” has been replaced by “Recommend.” This is one of your options with the Like button. You can pick whichever verb works for you. Recommend might be more appropriate for some content (like healthcare), but it is less familar to people, which might make them less likely to click on it. The good news is that you can test it. You can add both or use Recommend one week and Like the following and see which did better. Alternatively, you can add a “ref” attribute to the code for the button so that you can track which works best it in your website analytics program (here’s how). For example, I added unique “ref” attributes to the three different versions of the Like button above to see which will perform the best (I’ll let you know).

The secret pages of Facebook

So, as you can see, you have a lot of different options for the Like button. You know what happens when someone does click it, but you might not know what you can do as the content owner. I mentioned earlier that you can publish updates to the News Feeds of anyone who has like a piece of your content. Theoretically, your update could be about anything and not necessarily about the content they liked. I wouldn’t recommend this. Stick with what the content was about. Perhaps share when you update the page or if you have other related content that these people might like. In other words, don’t abuse it. Here’s how it works:

Every piece of content that has even a single Like also has a page on Facebook. That’s right. There are hundreds of millions of pages out there that correspond to a single piece of content. For example, every blog post on this site has its own page on Facebook. These are created automatically when someone clicks your Like button for the first time. You can add some administrator information to the Open Graph tags for each piece of content with a Like button, so that you can be the admin of these pages in the same way that you admin any other page you create on Facebook.

Bet you didn’t know that. After you have the button installed, the admin needs to Like the page and then you’ll see something new next to the button.

If you click that Admin Page link, then you’ll be taken to the page that was created for the piece of content [click to enlarge].

You’ll notice the message on top:

“This is the administration interface for your webpage at http://www.doseofdigital.com/healthcare-pharma-social-media-wiki/. You can see Insights and publish to the users that have liked your webpage. Only the administrators of the webpage can view this interface, other users are sent to the webpage.”

In other words, no need to panic, this page doesn’t exist to the world. No one can see it except for the admin. Think of it like a backend publishing tool. What this allows me to do is publish an update that appears in the News Feeds of anyone who has Liked this page from my blog. You can see one of the updates I published that explained that I was updating the page soon and looking for more entries for the wiki. It’s completely relevant to the page that people Liked and makes sense as an update. Again, don’t take advantage of this by spamming people.

This works the same as if you published something to your brand’s Facebook Wall. It would also go to the News Feed of anyone who Liked your page (previously known as being a Fan). Whether or not your Fans see it in their feeds is another story (read about it here: “Why Your Facebook Page Doesn’t Exist“).

The Like count dirty little secret

A few more things about the Like button that you probably didn’t know. First, the number you see with the button, isn’t actually the number of people who have Liked that piece of content (even though that’s what it says next to the button). It’s actually a combination of the number of Likes, shares, and comments on those Likes and shares, and Likes of the Likes, shares or comments. In other words, any activity related to that piece of content. It inflates the number of Likes quite a bit. Earlier I mentioned, Viagra.com has been shared as a Wall post or status update on Facebook 779 times, plus 590 comments have been made on those shares  and 199 Likes on these posts or updates. Grand total: 1,567. Keep in mind, Viagra.com has never been “Liked” before since there’s no Like button their site. Of course, anyone could put a Like button for Viagra on their site, which is what this one is (CLICK AT YOUR OWN RISK…I’m not kidding. You will announce to the social media world that you like Viagra.com):

As you can see, the number of people who Like Viagra.com, which actually should be zero (unless some of you clicked this), is far from it because Facebook adds up all those interactions and comes up with 1,567. It makes your numbers look a bit higher than what they really are. How did I figure this out? Well, you can use the Facebook Insights API (if you’re really smart) or you can cheat (like I did) and use this handy tool from Inside Facebook that calculates it all for you.

Like my page too

Like buttons aren’t reserved only for pieces of content. Recent changes to Facebook allow you to create a like button for a Facebook Page (like your brand “Fan” page), which can be used anywhere.

Click away to Like the Dose of Digital Page on Facebook.

All you need is the right code. You can get it here. For the URL, just put in the URL for your Facebook page (in my example: http://www.facebook.com/doseofdigital). Again, your developer should know how to do this, but if you’re stuck, contact me and I’ll try to help you out. Of course, you can also contact me if you’d like our agency, Bridge Worldwide, to do it all for you. It’s what we do.

Now you know everything about making the Like button work for you. You probably really like Like right now, so go ahead and Like it officially:

Older Posts »