PearsBook » Online social media

They tweet here and they tweet there, you hear about tweeting everywhere? But what really is this Twitter?

admin — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 23:10:24 +0000

Twitter? Recently, I have seen numbers of discussions and articles elsewhere in print newspapers (e.g. Wall Street Journal, Firms Seek Profit in Twitter´s Chatter, March 25, 2009, by Jessica E. Vascellaro, Business Week, How Companies use Twitter to Bolster Their Brands, September 6, 2008, by Rachael King) or blogs and social networks (LinkedIN, www.rainierdigital.com, etc.) that are talking about Twitter being not just a tool for entertainment and fun but also a business tool.

Apparently it could be a powerful marketing and branding tool for companies. Being a place to disseminate information and news in short 140-characters tweets, once you follow the tweeters who share this info or even short versions of URLs of some interesting articles from the web, it can easily become a very powerful and viral way of marketing messages. Your message must be valued, seen as extremely interesting, sticky and sexy and then it could be re-tweeted fast. Can you find such information about your company or product? Then you should tweet about it to get the message to the masses. How about you and Twitter? Do you tweet? Do you think it is or can be valuable for you? Or is it just a waste of time?

In the next issue: How to integrate Twitter into your marketing strategy? How to be effective using Twitter?

Pharma Companies and Social Media

admin — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 23:09:36 +0000

When getting through blogs and articles in my online social media networking groups there is also a lot of buzz around “social media” themselves. Everyone is writing and speaking about Facebook, tweeting at Twitter, having space in MySpace, linking with others at LinkedIn, Xing, hi5 etc. What do the pharma companies do there?

Have you seen the videos on YouTube by AstraZeneca, GSK or J&J? Are you interacting in any of the Pharma oriented LinkedIn groups like Pharmaceutical Discussion Group, Pharma Connections Worldwide, Professionals in Pharmaceutical and Biotech Industry and others? What are the main benefits for you from these? Can you measure them? Or can you just measure the time they are stealing from your work or even more often private time? Do you think that communication in these media will ever be more attractive for you than going out with your peer from the industry or alumni for a chat over a beer or dinner?

In the next issue: Videos as parts of Marketing Campaigns and Pharma Companies

Do we value the Online Social Media eWord-of-mouth enough?

admin — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 23:07:39 +0000

Online social media provide a platform where within communities people are discussing and commenting on anything you can think of. With regards to health and medication, people also debate products of pharmaceutical companies.

They provide positive or negative testimonials, and share with other online community members or internet users and website readers their life experience with a certain disease and a given drug or drugs, side effects, change in life etc. They do not debate just one drug. The more people participate, the more opinions. The more opinions, the more comments, that’s how community and online forum discussions work.

And of course if you are a pharma company, you can’t monitor and comment on every single mentioning of your product on the web. But you can drive discussions if you decide to lead them and give your patients and communities your own online platform to do so. Some pharma companies have done a few projects in this field already, some present videos on You Tube, some have their own YouTube channels, some have Facebook profiles, some use Twitter.

Do you do anything to participate in online social media already? Or are you just planning to start? Do you think it is just a bubble but basically can not bring anything to you? Or do you believe the web 2.0 tools can create a positive impression of your brand once you go to internet public and address and solve customers’ questions and problems through online media. Do you believe this can even improve brand loyalty?

In the next issue: How to use Social Media to Communicate More Effectively in Pharma Industry? Measuring online social media success in pharma.