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Digital Marketing Lessons from 2011′s Top Memes

I love memes. They’re simple. They get one point across. They tend to be amusing.

I also like being “in the know” and there’s typically some backstory to the meme that you need to understand for it to make sense. It’s kind of like an exclusive club for the Internet set of us out there.

What I really like about memes is how you can use them to express a really simple concept.

For those of you who don’t really know what a meme is, here’s the official definition (thanks to Google’s handy “define” feature):

An element of a culture or system of behavior that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by nongenetic means, esp. imitation

So, the key feature of a meme is really it’s ability to be passed along from one person to another. Sometimes it’s a joke and sometimes it’s a movement and something far more serious. However, when I look at a meme, I do something different than most people. I try to look for a lesson. I look for the one thing that I can learn from it. I also look at memes and figure out how I can use them to explain something else and to try to better understand human nature.

I’m weird like that.

This is what I’m doing today. I’m going to use the top memes of 2011 to review everything I witnessed as far as digital marketing trends in 2011. There will be plenty of lessons mixed in along the way. Chances are that you haven’t seen or heard of all of these memes (maybe none of them). You might not get some of the jokes, but I’ll do my best to explain them and I’ll point you to the good folks at Know Your Meme to give you even more detail if you want it.
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Pharma Companies That Have Proved Me Wrong

It takes a big person to admit they’re wrong. This is especially true when it’s me, as I really don’t like doing this. Ever.

Well, here comes one of those rare times where I do admit it. There is one caveat: I’m not totally wrong. Just partially wrong.

You see, almost two and a half years ago I wrote a post called  Ten Digital Marketing Ideas Pharma Companies Will Never Try (But Should). It ‘s actually  the second most read post ever on Dose of Digital (second only to Facebook Pages Just Got Easier for Brands). That means about 8,000 of you will understand why I’m admitting I’m wrong today. In this post, I spelled out, well, 10 digital marketing ideas that I thought pharma companies would never try. (Click to read the rest…)

Healthcare Privacy: Good or Bad? Discuss.

If you happened to be on the Internet, particularly Twitter, a couple weeks ago, you likely noticed the deluge of tweets about SXSW and requests from people to get you to vote for their session. Today, I wanted to share my session and spark a little debate. My session is all about why healthcare privacy will soon disappear and why we’ll all be healthier for it. More on that in a minute.

But first, in case you aren’t aware, SXSW is (now) a huge conference held each year in Austin that features interactive, music, and film portions. The sessions for this conference are in part selected by the votes and comments that the public leaves about them (they count for 30% of the selection criteria). So, you have a chance to dictate what goes on at this conference. Why should you care? Regardless of what industry you are in, I’d strongly recommend considering this conference next year. Last year was the first year that there was a strong contingent of healthcare related sessions and this year there will likely be even more. So, you can go and hear some great healthcare related talks. However, I’d recommend that you go to listen to everything else (assuming you work in healthcare everyday). Why? Well our healthcare industry could use a little outside influence from time to time just to see what’s possible and where we might be headed. If you only look at healthcare all day, you’ll never see “what’s next” until it’s too late.
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Lies, Damn Lies, and Pharma Social Media Statistics

Dose of Digital Mini White Paper

Somewhere along the way, I began to notice that I developed a really low tolerance for the abuse of legitimate research and statistics in an effort to garner a great headline. When I see these headlines, I’m usually among the first to dig into the “research” and figure out the real story. What’s missing? What methods were used? Do the actual conclusions match the headlines? A favorite of mine is the chart at the top of this post (courtesy of the P.A.P. Blog). Not every headline purported to be backed by statistics makes sense even if it appears to on the surface. This one appears to show that increasing the number of lemons imported to the US from Mexico reduces highway fatalities.
(Click to read the rest…)

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