UGC and Company Responses

From Larry M.:

This reminds me of a corporate-sponsored site (Dell Ideastorm) that is designed to solicit customer feedback.

On this site, Dell solicits ideas from customers and allows other customers to promote or demote them to show Dell which ones matter most to the entire community.

http://www.ideastorm.com/

From Dan M.:

Dear Adobe is a simple site that allows you to upload a complaint (or compliment) that you have regarding an Adobe Product.

The site was not created by Adobe, but they appear to have taken an interest in the feedback posted on the site, and set up a blog with responses to users’ gripes.

This isn’t quite as sneaky as sending a Tweet back to a user, but it’s a good example of how corporations are responding to user-generated content that is directed at their products.

Dear Adobe
http://www.dearadobe.com/

Responses from Adobe
http://blog.dearadobe.com/2008/12/05/adobe-responds-to-photoshop-gripes/#id-224

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.