Entries Tagged 'Blogging' ↓

Originally Posted by Carly & Art on Flickr

A lot of my clients at RTCRM are pharma companies, so I read quite a few Pharma blogs. They are constantly complaining about the lack of Web 2.0 and social Web elements in Pharma marketing. For example this article from World of DTC Marketing touches on many issues that I encounter when working with clients, but never gets to the true issues that we and our clients are dealing with.

Has this blogger and every other Pharma Marketing blogger never heard about FDA regulations? That’s why Pharma can’t move beyond Web 1.0 — they don’t have the technical & legal processes in place to deal with Adverse Event reporting. They are also extremely, and somewhat understandably, risk adverse. The major issue with Pharma marketing is that the lawyers run the show and too few organizations are educating them or working with them to craft processes to mitigate risk.

Another major issue is risk. Getting truly engaged in the social Web can help put a “human” face on a Pharma company if it’s done well, but it opens companies up to more risk and different kinds of risks than they may be used to dealing with. The other question is should they focus their social Web efforts on consumers or healthcare professionals? Direct to consumer (DTC) advertising is something that pharma companies debate the merits of and a lot of consumers think it’s a bad thing. Pharma is making some really interesting inroads to the social Web with healthcare professionals via sites like Sermo.

One last, very ignored issue, is patient privacy. There is a lot of question about how pharma companies getting involved in social media may be a conflict with HIPPA and other privacy regulations. Zack Rodman wrote two detailed posts about privacy issues on the RTCRM blog. These begin to detail how complicated an issue this can be for pharma companies and pharma marketers.

Believe me, I’d like to see more of my clients move incorporate social computing into their marketing plans, but I want them to do it the right way. Set some organizational foundations, test the waters, and determine if there’s a decent ROI before jumping in head first and having an expensive disaster to clean up.

Please, pharma bloggers, find a new drum beat. How about some constructive suggestions instead of just complaints?

Technorati Tags: pharma marketing, DTC marketing, social media marketing, social media, pharma

(x-posted from RTCRM Blog)

Photo Credit: Andy Piper Used via Creative Commons Attribution Copyright

Depending on your point of view blogging is either the greatest thing to happen to marketing in the history of modern marketing, or the most over-hyped channel in history. Like most everything, it’s really somewhere in between. Blogging is honestly a great tool, if you use it well. Fame and fortune are hard to come by via blogging, but building a reputation — that’s a bit easier.

There are two main avenues to go about building your reputation via blogging:

1. Writing a blog
2. Commenting on other blogs

Since most people are familiar with the power of writing a blog — let’s talk about option number two. When I’m working with clients, they are often surprised that I don’t start out recommending that they write a blog. To me this is like trying to run a marathon when you’ve never even laced up your running shoes. It doesn’t matter if you are trying to build up your individual professional reputation or build awareness of your company in B2B or B2C markets. This works for all of them, but there are slightly different approaches. It often doesn’t occur to someone that leaving a comment on a blog can work not only at an individual level, but also have positive (or negative) effects at a B2B and B2C level.

Best Practices for Blog Commenting

Regardless of the reason you are commenting on a blog, if you are doing it for professional reasons there are a few best practices to keep in mind.

Technorati Tags: blogs, blogging, comments, commenting, wom

1. Add value to the conversation. Forget about marketing and be a human being and respond to what you just read. If you are in a regulated industry like Pharma, you need to use some common sense here. Be aware and be very clear if you are speaking for yourself or your company.
2. Utilize the URL or “Website” field. This is where you mention your website. Almost all blogs have a place for commenters to leave their website. If you say something interesting, people will click to learn more about you. If you don’t have your own blog then link to your LinkedIn.com profile, or other appropriate location
3. Use a consistent and appropriate name. Blog comments can appear in search results. Make sure you use your full professional name.

It’s really that simple. Picking the right blogs to comment on to achieve business and marketing goals is a bit more challenging. There’s more science to that to ensure that the blogs have the right type of content, reach and engagement levels, and will allow you to truly build relationships over time. But, a little common sense can also go a long way.

Measuring Success

The last element of this technique I want to quickly cover in this post is measurement. The basics are really quite simple.

1. Website Analytics: If you are linking to your website or blog from your comments, simply check your analytics program to see if people are clicking through.
2. Responses: Are people responding to your comments and continuing the conversation based on what you said? That’s a great outcome.
3. References: Are the bloggers you are engaging with seeking you out in different arenas or referencing things you’ve said in comments in later blog posts? It’s a softer outcome than click-through rates, but it’s a highly desirable outcome.

Here’s one final tip. If you want an easy way to keep track of all those comments you’ve been leaving, you can use a service like coComment. It will track all the conversations you participate in and aggregate them for you.

So get out there and join in the conversation!

I want to be able to actually pay attention t most of what’s been going on at the conference, so I can’t really “live blog.” But — I am using twitter to capture quick thoughts about what’s going on. If you want to see my “in the moment” thoughts about WeMedia 2008, check out http://twitter.com/carlenlea.

Back to paying attention.

Oh and my horoscope today is dead on:

You are pulled in two directions today as the Sagittarius Moon encourages you to think big. But your natural instinct is to maintain a logical approach, so you are hesitant to get caught up in the excitement of the day. Keep in mind that by limiting your overall expenditure of time and money, you can actually accomplish more than you realize. - Tarot Horscopes

Technorati Tags: wemedia08, twitter, live blogging

(x-posted from RTCRM blog)

The December comScore data for the United States was released recently and has set bloggers all a buzz. Most seem to crying out about how online social networks are slowing down, because growth on several of the largest networking sites has slowed and MySpace’s numbers have dropped a bit. I’d like to offer a different perspective.

The slow down in growth on the largest social networking sites is not the death knoll of the whole concept of social networking sites. It is, however, a wake up call to reality. The issue isn’t really that these sites are slowing down, it’s that more targeted niche sites are heating up. MySpace’s numbers boomed when the press discovered it and everyone, including your mother, decided to check it out. The level of growth that site saw could never be supported. As the media is fickle and always looking for the next big thing to write about, it quickly moved on to Facebook. Once again many people, including your mother, moved on to Facebook.

But what the press doesn’t really talk about, and the comScore numbers don’t reflect, is all of the other niche social networking sites that are out there. These affinity-based social networking sites provide users with a group that has common ground. MySpace and Facebook don’t really do that, unless you are actually friends in the real-world definition of the word. People who may have spent time on MySpace may now be found instead on BakeSpace, Ravelry, Mashable, LinkedIn, Gather, or any of thousands of other options. Why spend time turning down “friend” requests from spammers when you can talk about what you are really interested in on these other sites? And you can’t leave out the fact that many retail sites that at first glance don’t seem like social networking sites, like Amazon and Etsy, actually have very strong community features to keep users engaged longer and more often.

The situation is simply akin to the development of cable networks and the proliferation of niche broadcast channels. Marketers have had to deal with a constantly fragmented television viewership over the years — why would they think it would be any different online? As the hype wears down, MySpace and Facebook’s numbers will level off and probably see ups and downs. Some new huge player we can’t even imagine will come onto the scene and we’ll all be talking about it. And at the same time, all of these smaller little sites with strong niche affinity groups will continue to flourish.

Welcome to the new normal of the social Web.

Technorati Tags: comscore, data, social networking, media bias, myspace, facebook fatigue

I want to give a big shout out to my client, Chop Shop Studios. They recently participated in the 48 Hour film festival and did great follow-up on it by posting their fabulous film to YouTube and then blogging about it. Add to that, since they invited me to the screening — I was able to take a few pictures — which I posted to Flickr.

Since these are some of the lowest cost marketing and self-promotion techniques around, it’s a shame more people don’t spend the time taking advantage of these channels. It’s really just a few minutes a day, or when you have something interesting to share. But, like anything new, there’s a learning curve to overcome to make sure you understand the techniques and best ways to use all of this technology.

Technorati Tags: 48 hour film project, chop shop studios, blogging, youtube, word of mouth, wom, flickr