First, a little housekeeping before we jump into the post. Some of you may have heard (via this post I wrote on my personal blog) that I was leaving Bridge Worldwide and would no longer be writing for Dose of Digital. After that, you then may have heard that I wasn’t leaving Bridge after all, as they did all they could and successfully lured me back (see that post here).

Net result: I’m still writing Dose of Digital, but I’ll also be in a slightly different position here as the newly created Director of Social Media for the agency. I’m pretty excited about it…stay tuned for more updates on some of the really cool blogging we’ll be doing, which will be completely focused on social media across all industries (not just pharma and healthcare). That’ll be coming soon. If you want to be alerted when it’s ready, sign up using the form at the bottom of the post and we’ll send you an email. I’ll also post something on Dose of Digital to let everyone know.

If you hadn’t heard anything about me leaving Bridge and then coming back, then you can pretend like the last two paragraphs didn’t happen.

And now on with the show…

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Since I’ll be focusing even more on social media moving forward, I’ve been thinking more about the medium than usual. In doing this, I’ve realized one thing when it comes to social media: people seem to have more questions than answers.

Some of the questions are big, philosophical ones like: do consumers even want us engaging with them via social media?

Other questions are very business specific like: how in the world are we going to measure the ROI of our Twitter feed?

And some others focus on the tiny details that make us all a little crazy such as: if you used to be able to “Fan” a Page in Facebook and we called people “Fans,” what do we call people who now choose to “Like” our page? Likers? Likes? (I’ll answer that in one of my first posts on the new blog, BTW).

All good questions and somehow they create even more questions as you dig in a little deeper. Point is, just when you think you know it all when it comes to social media, you don’t. And even when you think you at least know all the questions (i.e., you know what you don’t know), something new comes along that changes everything.

I’m sure at this point you’re expecting me to give you the answers to the questions above and a few more. Sorry, I’m not going to do that.

The reality is that there are no simple answers to these questions and many others. Yes, there are some answers and some really good ideas about each, but some questions don’t have any absolutes. I’m going to do my best to answer these questions in the coming weeks and months, but I’ll look to each of you to help. Since there are no absolutes, that means there’s a lot of gray area and a lot of room for interpretation. That’s good and bad, as I plan to demonstrate.

Of course, I just gave you three questions. There are millions more out there about social media that need answers. Some of them have been answered sufficiently in the past, but others still need a little clarity.

So, since we’re talking social media, let’s use it. What questions about social media do you have? They don’t need to relate to pharma or healthcare; they can be general. I’ll take all of these questions and in the coming weeks will do my best to answer every one of them. I’ll probably look to some of you for a bit if this exercise becomes really popular.

How do you submit your question? Simple. You have two options.

Choice 1: Scroll down to the comment form at the end of the post (and all the other comments) and type it in. I’ll answer them all either in the comments or, for bigger issues, as a future blog post. In addition, I’d invite every reader to also give your answers to the questions as well.

Choice 2: Submit your question to the discussion section of the Dose of Digital Page on Facebook. If you want the 530+ Dose of Digital “Facebook Nation” to take a shot at your question and to spark an interesting  and likely contentious debate, then that might be the best option for you. PS: Don’t forget to “Like” the page when you get there.

I’m looking forward to an interesting discussion. If you’ve ever had a question about social media that you wanted answered, here’s your chance.

Fill in this form to be alerted when we start up our new social media blog.

(PS: You’ll only get the one email when we launch, unless you opt in (by checking the box) for some other things.)

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Possibly related posts (auto-generated):

1. A Sneak Preview of My FDA Social Media Hearing Testimony
2. How Pharma Overcomplicates Social Media
3. Pharma and Healthcare Social Media Wiki Live