And here is the counter point to the social media article

In order to remain fair and balanced, you should see the counter point to the social media article I just posted...this one is titled "The real reason why Pharma hates social marketing"

http://pharmamkting.blogspot.com/2009/01/real-reason-why-pharma-hates-social.html

Seems to me the fear of user generated content that could highlight adverse effects that may HAVE to be reported to the FDA is the major issue. The bureaucracy infrastructure that would have to be put in place to manage this could be more costly that the marketing itself.

Can this content be modreated and managed before being published ?

Would that help with the acceptance of Social Media tools ?

Ritesh

Social Media and Pharma Marketing

This is an interesting article in Adotas published today. Granted the author is from Greater Than One, but the relevance is quite interesting.

http://www.adotas.com/2009/01/pharma-companies-and-social-media-marketing/

Of note, is his statement ; "Over 80% of Internet consumers search online for health information, trusting peer-generated social media content more than pharma company websites and what their physicians say. "

We at HealthEd need to really get to grips with this phenomena and how we can educate and advise patients using these community and social tools.

User generated content can be monitored and moderated. Community story telling, using video will become more common place in the next 2 years.

BK Facebook app

Burger King is offering a free Whopper to any Facebook users who are willing to sacrifice ten friends. (This means removing them from your friend list.) Burger King will then notify you, via Facebook, how to claim your Whopper. Deal ends January 15.

Note that after friends have been sacrificed, it's still possible to re-friend them.

http://www.whoppersacrifice.com/

Interesting..can't believe people will go through all that for one burger, but it seems as if almost 18K already have based on the numbers on the site.

Read more about it in this AdWeek article.

FYI, BK also produced the Subservient Chicken and Angry Gram apps.


NOTE: Looks like the Whopper FB app was the thing that was sacrificed.