HEALTHCARE & SOCIAL MEDIA

To be a patient today is to be treated as a consumer. But treating patients as typical proactive, in control, well-informed consumers can backfire.

88% of US businesses are now actively monitoring online feedback and conversations online, according to a Forrester Consulting survey released today (click on headline for full article).

If monitoring audiences online is common practice in most industries why is not standard practice for pharma brands? Pharma brands traditionally aggregate a wealth of data on its customers (from market research, customer lists and sales data), but should it pay more attention to online information? For any marketer understanding the sentiment, conversational language and influencer of your brand is vital to help shape marketing and communication plans. Traditionally monitored by expensive market research online monitoring can provide a more cost effective alternative. This data provides an opportunity to provide better communication and engage for a brand in any communication channel.

The rise of social media has meant that any issue can be amplified to become a full on crisis, which could have dramatic implications on any brand or company. As part of any crisis management strategy for any large organisation social media monitoring is slowly becoming a “must have” rather than a nice to have. With healthcare being a highly emotive topic, pharma brands should aware of potential online issues and create strategies to reduce risk.

Online monitoring while overlooked by many pharma brands or viewed as a one off exercise should be taken more seriously. The digital footprints left behind by online conversation and interactions can be a valuable resource to improve marketing effectiveness.

Here's a good tip: Train your employees how to use social media this year.

The goal of the “Healthcare Hashtag Project” is to make the use of Twitter more accessible for providers and the healthcare community as a whole.

Glen Gilmore & Social Media: 10 Social Media Law & Governance Resolutions for 2...

A $10m (£6.5m) prize will be awarded to whoever can create a Star Trek-like hand-held medical diagnosis device (see full story by clicking on headline).

Let us look at this prize from a marketing and PR perspective, in particular for Qualcomm what will the get for their £6.5m. Already Qualcomm has created a news and social buzz increasing corporate awareness (at little cost), and with luck they might develop a new product for the prize money. More than just a clever PR exercise for £6.5m crowdsourcing a product is extremely cost effective.

In recent months the GCHQ “Can you crack it” challenge boosted the organisations profile globally and proved to be an effective recruitment exercise. Yes again more than a PR opportunity but an example of how a social can be used by a company’s HR function.

With pharma companies looking to reduced costs, is “social business” the future? Social business offer pharma new thinking and new opportunity to improve the cost effectiveness of business processes throughout its functions, so something that pharma should seriously consider.

Doing these things won't make measurement any easier, but it will make it more effective, and help you to improve your company's social media activities.

Ekaterina Walter is a social media strategist at Intel. She is a part of Intel’s Social Media Center of Excellence and is responsible for company-wide social media enablement and corporate social networking strategy.

OMG infographic shows the search process, from indexing right on through to search result ranking & delivery.

En 2009, le rapport Global Faces and Networked Places de Nielsen nous apprenait que les médias sociaux représentaient 10% de l'ensemble du temps passé (The Nielsen Social Media Report Q3 2011 http://t.co/FQFmUvl8...

[Infographie] Facebook représentera 50% des ventes au détail en 2015 ([Infographie] Facebook représentera 50% des ventes au détail en 2015 | Websourcing.fr http://t.co/HN9G4urb...

It’s fair to raise an eyebrow when a social network for healthcare comes along, but this network just might make you raise both eyebrows in surprise: HealthTap has created a healthcare social network with more than 5,000 real-live doctors to … (Facebook...

Une étude du CMO Council basée sur 1 300 consommateurs et 132 senior marketers a mis en évidence une profonde différence entre ce que les consommateurs (Qu’attendent les clients du Social Media ?

6 Incredible Examples Of How Twitter Predicts The Future | Twitter Tips And Updates From Buffer http://t.co/4z7AcGRo via @bufferapp...

A national survey found that Americans rely on Google as a major source of healthcare information, second only to doctors (Where do you get health information?

Le « livre blanc » se présente comme un recueil des bonnes pratiques pour piloter sa e-réputation, dialoguer avec les internautes et améliorer sa stratégie marketing.

BePATIENT : permettre à chacun de disposer des compétences et des outils pour promouvoir sa santé et sa qualité de vie.

Now, more than 66 percent of people look online for specific information about a disease or medical problem.

Sans faire l’unanimité, les différents médias, ou les différentes agences, qui se sont risqué(e)s au jeu des tendances se recoupent assez souvent dans leurs observations. Sans surprise, l’émergence fulgurante du marketing mobile et de la téléphonie intelligente (smartphone) figure en tête de listes. Toutefois, les observateurs soulèvent aussi d’autres nouvelles tendances importantes qui s’imposeront, et qu’il faudra aussi surveiller au cours des prochains mois, comme la socialisation des marques, les recommandations des utilisateurs et la curation de contenus.
Je vous propose donc une liste des 10 tendances qui reviennent le plus souvent à travers les plus importantes publications...

Words. Funny things, words. We use them all the time. In fact I’ve used 27 of them so far in this post.

But how do we use them?

We use them to write, to speak, to think, to communicate.

We use them as an index to our world. Everything can be categorized with words.

This could be one reason search engines work so well

Have you ever felt troubled when trying to add a stunning custom tab to your page but don’t know how? Since last year, I had found several that works great in providing sub-tabs and some with fan gate options. Today, it’s all about templates and widgets! Wouldn’t it be great if you can add one of these facebook applications together with some from 23+ Facebook Page applications to improve fans engagement? After all, it’s all about trial and error. Let’s head right to the facebook apps:

7 Killer Tab Customizers for Facebook Pages

Selon les projections faites par un analyste, le réseau social atteindra 1 milliard de membres en août prochain. (Facebook : le milliard de membres cet été ?

Sujet sensible et passionnel, la santé ne se prêtera pas au marketing digital aussi facilement que d'autres secteurs ("@kiwfranc Santé + e-reputation : ce qui change dans l'équation de la confiance (partie 1)

Originally published in Social Media Monthly magazine One of the most popular articles I wrote in 2011 was the first one of the year, a recap of the (Top 10 New Social Media Tools from 2011 http://t.co/AIDKlN3o...)...

Twitter On Track For 500 Million Total Users By March, 250 Million Active Users By End Of 2012 (#Twitter On Track For 500 Million Total Users By March, 250 Million Active Users By End Of 2012 http://t.co/uWs2zWAO...)...