Social Media Wiki

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…)

Pick Two — Healthcare Digital Marketing Challenge

You can’t have it all in life. You certainly can’t have it all when it comes to your digital marketing. It all comes down to choices. If you want one thing, you might have to sacrifice another. Oftentimes, this is because these choices seem to be mutually exclusive. A perfect example of this is illustrated in the triangle above (often referred to as the “Project Triangle“). For any given project, you can have any of the two characteristics seen at the points of the triangle, but you can’t get all three. For example, if you want it good and you need it fast, then expect for it to cost more because you’ll need to pay for additional help. You can have something fast and it can be cheap, but don’t expect it to be good.

These Pick Two triangles have become a bit of a meme on the Internet popping up in multiple places often with pretty humorous choices (I find myself on reddit to kill time fairly often). So, I thought I’d use this concept to illustrate some of the challenges I see today in healthcare digital marketing. More importantly, I’d like to bring us all a dose of reality when it comes to our marketing efforts. You can’t have it all. Frequently, that’s what companies want and what clients demand. So, consider this post a little reminder of what’s possible in most cases. Sure…sometimes it’s possible to have all three, but I don’t see it very often. Maybe that’s because it’s impossible or because there isn’t enough innovative thinking being applied to the problem (hint: consider looking outside of pharma sometimes). You be the judge.
(Click to read the rest…)

Social Media Supplement, Issue 4 – More Facebook Insights

This issue includes several interesting studies surrounding Facebook’s News Feed as well as Likes for brands, as well as e-commerce. On to this week’s news!  Did we miss something?  Feel free to DM me during the week and we’ll review submissions for the next post! Click here to catch up on past issues.

Facebook News Feed Results Cracked

In an experiment by The Daily Beast believes it has cracked the code as to how the Facebook News Feed works.  Some of this is common knowledge, but there are a few outcomes that are intriguing such as the bias it has on new members to Facebook. We had a post about this a while back right here on Dose of Digital: Why Your Facebook Page Doesn’t Exist.

Do Photos of People Improve ECommerce Conversion?

Great examples of A|B testing.  People verses Images verses Text… who helps close on the call to action best?  Have you played with where the model’s eyes are looking before?  I thought the test with Sunsilk was fascinating but it makes sense.

Ads Drive the Most “Likes” for Brands on Facebook

eMarketer reports that 75% of people that liked a brand on Facebook because of an ad or another form of direct outreach.  Surprisingly, invitations and referrals from friends took second place at 59%.  While still a substantial number, I would have thought that the old “people trust their friends more than brands” train of thought would have applied here.  I suppose sometimes people just need a that direct nudge.

Also in the study, was reasons for unsubscribing from a brand, which 36% of responders had done. Top reasons cited include losing interest in the brand, frequency (or lack thereof) of updates and uninteresting content.

Microsoft Launches its own Games on Demand Online Market

Gamers be glad.  Microsoft is creating a hub for downloading digital copies of games.  This will include oldies but goodies as well as new releases.  The market will launch with over 100 titles in its library.

Amazon Offers Free Web Services

Potential cloud computing users can try before they buy now with Amazon’s Web Services.  You can learn more about this free usage tier here: http://aws.amazon.com/free/

Netflix Web Video Streaming Through the Roof [Chart]

Number of subscribers streaming videos more than doubled year to year.  As the article points out, Netflix successfully shifted from just a DVD rental company to one of the most lucrative web video companies in the world.

Digital Alert and Reco: FDA Warns Novartis Over Facebook Sharing

[UPDATE, Sept. 29, 2010: Our recommendations and guidance have changed since we made this post. Check out this latest post for the update.]

Last week, the FDA issued a Warning Letter for the website for their drug, Tasigna. The main issue in the violation was content that was shared via social media. The Tasigna site had Facebook sharing buttons that, like other sites, automatically generate content for sharing. The content of this content is what the FDA cited. This content is drawn from META description tags on the website. These tags are invisible to visitors, but are used by search engines.

The FDA argues that the content in these META tags should include fair balance (risks, side effects, warnings, etc.) since they had the drug name and indication. The FDA did not have an issue with Facebook sharing in of itself, but rather the content that the site generates automatically, which cannot be changed by the user.

This is a potentially serious issue for all pharma marketers, but one that isn’t as bad as it seems on the surface. Several team members and I here at Bridge Worldwide prepared a response document that details the issues raised in the FDA Warning Letter and also our recommendations on how to deal with the issues FDA brings up in the letter.

You can download a copy of the document here:

(UPDATED: 9/29: Please download our updated recommendations here: Digital Alert-Bridge Worldwide-Social Sharing in Regulated Industries (798 downloads)

We welcome your comments and please feel free to share with your colleagues. As always, if you find it useful, please send out a tweet or Like this post so that others get a chance to see it too.

Some other good commentaries on this issue can be found here:

FDA demonstrates their ignorance of social media with letter to Novartis — Rich Meyer

Digitas Health Facebook Regulatory Alert — Digitas Health

Implications of FDA’s Warning Letter to Novartis Regarding Facebook Share Widget – John Mack

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