Dose of Digital

[UPDATE: Voting is closed. Thanks for your votes.]

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Welcome to the 1st Annual Dosie Awards (#dosie)

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Round 1 Voting

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Voting is open today for the Semi-finals for these categories:

• Best Brand Sponsored Patient Community (Communities created by a pharma or healthcare company for a brand or corporate effort)
• Best Patient Community – Non-Brand Sponsored (Communities created with no direct affiliation to a pharma or healthcare company)

Want to skip ahead? Here are some quick page jumps:

Presented by:

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In case you missed it, yesterday I announced the 1st Annual Dose of Digital Dosie Awards. The post from yesterday will give you some more details, so please check it out. If you already know the details and are ready to vote, then you can vote below. If you want some more background first, then, jump to that section.

Enough already. Let’s get on with the voting.

One thing to call your attention to. You MUST select two choices in each survey. This is to ensure that there’s a little more variation in the voting and makes you think a bit more. Perhaps you’ll discover a program you didn’t know existed.

Every nominee is linked to their site (which will open in a new window), so please check out as many as you can if you don’t know them already. There are two separate ballots here, one for each category. After you submit the first, you can then move onto the second. Make sure you press the submit button as you finish each.

Each ballot includes an opportunity for you to leave comments on why you chose what you did. This is purely optional. If you do leave comments, they may be used at a later time in a post or presentation. If you want your name associated with the comments, then you can leave that information as well. Comments and your personal information are completely optional and not required to vote.

[UPDATE: Voting is closed. Thanks for your votes.]

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Background

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This year’s Dosie Awards will focus on finding the best uses of social media in pharma and healthcare. In the future, the awards will expand to other uses of digital technology in healthcare, but for now, let’s focus on the hottest topic in healthcare marketing: social media.

There are 9 categories for this year’s awards. Good news for those who have a social media program and might want to compete for these awards, there are no entry fees, no complex applications to fill out. Instead, nominees are drawn directly from the Pharma and Healthcare Social Media Wiki. So, if it’s on the Wiki, it’s a nominee.

The Categories

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• Best Brand Sponsored Patient Community (communities created by a pharma or healthcare company for a brand or corporate effort)
• Best Patient Community – Non-Brand Sponsored (Communities created with no direct affiliation to a pharma or healthcare company)
• Best Healthcare Professional Community (Communities exclusive to healthcare professionals)
• Best Facebook Page (All pharma and healthcare Facebook pages and apps whether corporate-sponsored or not)
• Best YouTube Channel (Pharma and healthcare company YouTube pages or videos including corporate and brand specific efforts)
• Best Twitter Feed (Pharma and healthcare companies using Twitter at a corporate or brand level)
• Best Company Blog (Pharma and healthcare company created blogs at the corporate or brand level)
• Best Patient or Caregiver Blog (Blogs created by patients or caregivers, not owned by a pharma or healthcare company)
• Best Industry Observer Blog (Blogs created by industry observers and commentators…like Dose of Digital)

You’ll have a chance to vote for each of these categories over the next week, but today is for Best Brand Sponsored Patient Community and Best Patient Community – Non-Brand Sponsored.

The Rules

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Here’s where it gets complicated…

Picking a winner in each category isn’t going to be easy. There are more than 40 “nominees” just in the Facebook category. It’s tough to have an election with 40 different options. The solution is that there will be two rounds of voting: a semi-final round and a final round. Nominees for the semi-final round include every example listed on the wiki. For the final round, each category will consist of the top five vote getters from the semi-final round. There will then be a final round of voting to determine the winner in each category.

Because there are so many options in this semi-final round, you might have to do a little homework. Your challenge is to select the best from the masses. If you aren’t familiar with many of the programs featured on the Wiki, now’s your chance to brush up (go here: Pharma and Healthcare Social Media Wiki). The more educated you can be on the different programs, the better. Don’t just vote for the one program you’ve heard of (though you’re welcome to do so). Do a little homework and critical evaluation.

A few housekeeping notes:

• There are no entry fees or nomination forms. If it’s on the Wiki as of the March update, it’s a nominee.
• Voting is open to everyone. You don’t need a Twitter account or anything like that. You just need to know how to select a checkbox. This isn’t a contest among marketing people or just “patients,” everyone is invite and encouraged to vote.
• Voting for 2 or 3 new categories will be open each day over the next week or so (see schedule below).
• You can only vote once per category. Some categories may allow or require you to select more than one choice. Make sure you select the right number. It makes you think a bit more beyond your favorite program.
• Share, share, share. To make the voting results as robust as possible, we need a lot of voters. Tweet, update your status, write a blog post, even use good old-fashioned email to spread the word to others. Here are some tips on how to get a little social.
• Lobby for your favorites, but do so responsibly. It’s all right to encourage people to vote for your favorites, but don’t try to stack the vote or bring in a bunch of “dummy” voters who don’t really care about this stuff. We’ve got some fancy tech stuff happening over here to prevent this (plus you’ll look really bad when you get exposed). Don’t become a case study.

The Winners

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Oh yes…winners. When are they announced? The winners will be announced live during the upcoming BDI conference “Social Communications & Healthcare: Case Studies & Roundtables.” The conference is on May 11 from 8:30 AM until 1:00 PM at The Graduate Center of The City University of New York in midtown Manhattan, New York City. BDI is not directly involved in these awards, but have been kind enough to give me a live audience and venue to announce the winners. If you want to be there in person, you can register here: http://bit.ly/aMAlR4. Use promo code “Dosies” and you can get in for just $155. [UPDATE: BDI is offering free admission to the conference for each of the 5 finalists in the Best Patient or Caregiver Blog category.] The winners will be announced at the conference and then released online immediately after my presentation.

Winners, don’t expect a big trophy for this…the recognition and admiration of your colleagues will have to do this time (plus a really cool badge you can embed on your site).

The Voting Schedule

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[UPDATE: Voting is closed. Thanks for your votes.]

Official voting starts tomorrow. Here’s the complete schedule.

The Semi-final Rounds

• Round 1: Wednesday, March 31: Best Brand Community, Best Non-Brand Community
• Round 2: Thursday, April 1: Best HCP Community, Best YouTube Channel, Best Pharma/Healthcare Company Blog
• Round 3: Friday, April 2: Best Patient or Caregiver Blog, Best Industry Observer Blog
• Round 4: Monday, April 5: Best Facebook Page, Best Twitter Account

• UPDATE, 9 AM, April 5: Tuesday, April 6: Noon 5 PM, Eastern Daylight Time: Deadline to cast your vote in each category in the semi-finals [voting has been extended to ensure the final category is open for voting long enough]

Don’t worry if you miss a day, the voting  in each category will remain open as indicated below. For example, you’ll be able to vote for Best Industry Observer Blog until Tuesday, April 6. You won’t have to vote on that category on Friday, April 2.

The Final Round

• Wednesday, April 7: Final Round Voting for every category
• Wednesday, April 14: Noon, Eastern Daylight Time: Final Round voting is closed

A post will go out on each of these days with the online ballots, so be sure to check back according to the schedule. If you want to get an email reminder that new voting categories are open, just sign up using the form at the end of this post. You’ll get an email when a new category is open.

Getting Social

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So, you’re site is a nominee. Congratulations! If you want to spread the word, you can do so using the badge below.

Copy and paste the code below to embed the logo on your site:

<form><a href="http://www.doseofdigital.com/2010/03/round-1-voting-dose-of-digital-dosie-awards/" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.doseofdigital.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/DoD_Dosie_Award_Pro-small.png"/></a><p><strong><h2><span style="color: #333399;"><center><a title="The 1st Annual Dose of Digital Dosie Awards in Pharma and Healthcare" href="http://www.doseofdigital.com/2010/03/round-1-voting-dose-of-digital-dosie-awards/" target="_self">Vote Now!</a></strong></center></h2></span></form>

Or you can just copy the image below, save it, and embed it somewhere on your own.

This is what you’ll be adding:

Vote Now!

[UPDATE: Voting is closed. Thanks for your votes.]

Since I launched the Pharma and Healthcare Social Media Wiki more than a year ago, the list has grown to more than 550 total entries. More than 330 of these come directly from pharma and heatlhcare companies. One thing the Wiki has done is helped the countless people who are asking questions like: “Does anyone know of any pharma companies that use Facebook?” Now they’ve got a bunch of examples all in one place. So, thank you all for your contributions to the Wiki.

However, a list of this size (44 Facebook examples alone) begs one big question: which are the best? Who has the best Facebook page? The best YouTube channel? Which patient community is the finest example of social media in healthcare?

It’s time to answer these questions and a few more.

Initially, I thought about simply picking the best examples on my own and then putting this list and some rationale into one big blog post. Then, I realized that wouldn’t be too “social” of me, so the rules have changed. You get to pick the best.

Welcome to the 1st Annual Dosie Awards (#dosie)

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Presented by:

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Get it? Dose of Digital? Dosie?

Good.

[Cool logo, right? If you want to add it to your site (and be listed as a supporter on the Awards homepage), check out the instructions below.]

This year’s Dosie Awards will focus on finding the best uses of social media in pharma and healthcare. In the future, the awards will expand to other uses of digital technology in healthcare, but for now, let’s focus on the hottest topic in healthcare marketing: social media.

There are 9 categories for this year’s awards. Good news for those who have a social media program and might want to compete for these awards, there are no entry fees, no complex applications to fill out. Instead, nominees are drawn directly from the Pharma and Healthcare Social Media Wiki. So, if it’s on the Wiki, it’s a nominee.

The Categories

-

• Best Brand Sponsored Patient Community (communities created by a pharma or healthcare company for a brand or corporate effort)
• Best Patient Community – Non-Brand Sponsored (Communities created with no direct affiliation to a pharma or healthcare company)
• Best Healthcare Professional Community (Communities exclusive to healthcare professionals)
• Best Facebook Page (All pharma and healthcare Facebook pages and apps whether corporate-sponsored or not)
• Best YouTube Channel (Pharma and healthcare company YouTube pages or videos including corporate and brand specific efforts)
• Best Twitter Feed (Pharma and healthcare companies using Twitter at a corporate or brand level)
• Best Company Blog (Pharma and healthcare company created blogs at the corporate or brand level)
• Best Patient or Caregiver Blog (Blogs created by patients or caregivers, not owned by a pharma or healthcare company)
• Best Industry Observer Blog (Blogs created by industry observers and commentators…like Dose of Digital)

You’ll have a chance to vote for each of these categories over the next week.

The Rules

-

Here’s where it gets complicated…

Picking a winner in each category isn’t going to be easy. Like I said before, there are more than 40 “nominees” just in the Facebook category. It’s tough to have an election with 40 different options. The solution is that there will be two rounds of voting: a semi-final round and a final round. Nominees for the semi-final round include every example listed on the wiki. For the final round, each category will consist of the top five vote getters from the semi-final round. There will then be a final round of voting to determine the winner in each category.

Because there are so many options in this semi-final round, you might have to do a little homework. Your challenge is to select the best from the masses. If you aren’t familiar with many of the programs featured on the Wiki, now’s your chance to brush up (go here: Pharma and Healthcare Social Media Wiki). The more educated you can be on the different programs, the better. Don’t just vote for the one program you’ve heard of (though you’re welcome to do so). Do a little homework and critical evaluation.

Here’s where it gets complicated…

• There are no entry fees or nomination forms. If it’s on the Wiki as of the March update, it’s a nominee.
• Voting is open to everyone. You don’t need a Twitter account or anything like that. You just need to know how to select a checkbox. This isn’t a contest among marketing people or just “patients,” everyone is invite and encouraged to vote.
• Voting for 2 or 3 new categories will be open each day over the next week or so (see schedule below).
• You can only vote once per category. Some categories may allow or require you to select more than one choice. Make sure you select the right number. It makes you think a bit more beyond your favorite program.
• Share, share, share. To make the voting results as robust as possible, we need a lot of voters. Tweet, update your status, write a blog post, even use good old-fashioned email to spread the word to others. Here are some tips on how to get a little social.
• Lobby for your favorites, but do so responsibly. It’s all right to encourage people to vote for your favorites, but don’t try to stack the vote or bring in a bunch of “dummy” voters who don’t really care about this stuff. We’ve got some fancy tech stuff happening over here to prevent this (plus you’ll look really bad when you get exposed). Don’t become a case study.

The Winners

-

Oh yes…winners. When are they announced? The winners will be announced live during the upcoming BDI conference “Social Communications & Healthcare: Case Studies & Roundtables.” The conference is on May 11 from 8:30 AM until 1:00 PM at The Graduate Center of The City University of New York in midtown Manhattan, New York City. BDI is not directly involved in these awards, but have been kind enough to give me a live audience and venue to announce the winners. If you want to be there in person, you can register here: http://bit.ly/aMAlR4. Use promo code “Dosies” and you can get in for just $155. [UPDATE: BDI is offering free admission to the conference for each of the 5 finalists in the Best Patient or Caregiver Blog category.] The winners will be announced at the conference and then released online immediately after my presentation.

Winners, don’t expect a big trophy for this…the recognition and admiration of your colleagues will have to do this time (plus a really cool badge you can embed on your site).

The Voting Schedule

-

[UPDATE: Voting is closed. Thanks for your votes.]

Here’s the complete schedule.

The Semi-final Rounds

• Round 1: Wednesday, March 31: Best Brand Community, Best Non-Brand Community
• Round 2: Thursday, April 1: Best HCP Community, Best YouTube Channel, Best Pharma/Healthcare Company Blog
• Round 3: Friday, April 2: Best Patient or Caregiver Blog, Best Industry Observer Blog
• Round 4: Monday, April 5: Best Facebook Page, Best Twitter Account

• UPDATE, 9 AM, April 5: Tuesday, April 6: Noon 5 PM, Eastern Daylight Time: Deadline to cast your vote in each category in the semi-finals

Don’t worry if you miss a day, the voting in each category will remain open as indicated below. For example, you’ll be able to vote for Best Industry Observer Blog until Tuesday, April 6. You won’t have to vote on that category on Friday, April 2.

The Final Round

• Wednesday, April 7: Final Round Voting for every category
• Wednesday, April 14: Noon, Eastern Daylight Time: Final Round voting is closed

A post will go out on each of these days with the online ballots, so be sure to check back according to the schedule. If you want to get an email reminder that new voting categories are open, just sign up using the form at the end of this post. You’ll get an email when a new category is open. Alternatively, you can become a Fan of Dose of Digital on Facebook and we’ll post an update when each round is open for voting.

Getting Social

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Let’s spread the word about this contest…

If you’re ready to talk about The Dosie Awards on Twitter, please use the hashtag: #dosie. That’ll help us all see the chatter and there will also be a feed of all Dosie related comments on the Dosie Awards page of this blog (coming soon).

If you want to spread the word about the Dosie Awards, please send a tweet, update your LinkedIn or Facebook status, and/or whatever your preferred means of sharing is. You can just copy and paste this: “First Annual Pharma and Healthcare Dose of Digital Dosie Awards in Social Media. http://bit.ly/aLPJap #dosie. (via @jonmrich)”

So, you’re site is a nominee. Congratulations! If you want to spread the word, you can do so using the badge below. Copy and paste the code below to embed the logo on your site:

<form><a href="http://www.doseofdigital.com/2010/03/introducing-1st-annual-dosie-awards-pharma-healthcare/" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.doseofdigital.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/DoD_Dosie_Award_Pro-small.png"/></a><p><strong><h2><span style="color: #333399;"><center><a title="The 1st Annual Dose of Digital Dosie Awards in Pharma and Healthcare" href="http://www.doseofdigital.com/2010/03/introducing-1st-annual-dosie-awards-pharma-healthcare/" target="_self">Vote Now!</a></strong></center></h2></span></form>

Or you can just copy the image below, save it, and embed it somewhere on your own.

After you add the image, contact me and let me know where you embedded it and where I can get your logo.

This is what you’ll be adding:

Thanks. We’re looking forward to a great competition and to get some insights into what the best of the best are doing and how they’re doing it. Stay tuned.