Call Me Square, But I Don't Get Foursquare

Today, a friend sent me an invitation to join Foursquare.

Frankly, between Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, I feel I'm more than covered in terms of my social media coverage.

I primarily use Facebook for my personal use, to reconnect and stay in touch with people from my past and present, to brag about my kids and share the occasional joke. (Okay, I also bring in my work life by posting links to this blog. But primarily so my friends and family can get a sense of what I do for a living. I did, however, open a Facebook page for our agency, too.)

I find LinkedIn to be incredibly valuable as an alternative to resumes. I use it for looking for talent, checking on prospective clients, and seeing who's been checking on us. It's also a great place to join in business-related discussions.

As for Twitter, I use it strictly for professional purposes. If I see an interesting article about a topic that interests me, I might share it with my peers. I'll also let them know when I have a new post on this blog. And I'll occasionally use it to speak one on one with someone.  But that's about it. I never could understand those who feel the need to tweet about what they're having for dinner.

Over the years, I've received many invitations to join other social networks that seemed very similar to LinkedIn and Facebook. I even signed up for a few of them before realizing that they were more trouble than they were worth. Who has time to keep up with all these things?

I had been hearing a lot of buzz about Foursquare and knew it was different enough to merit a look. At the site I watched a video that in very simple terms, explained the purpose of the network: "Check-in. Find your friends. Unlock your city."

You use it to let others continuously know where you are and what you think of it. If you post a lot about an establishment, you may be able to earn special rewards at that place. If you are the person who posts the most from there, you are deemed its "Mayor."

I understand that I don't fit into Foursquare's demographic. I'm sure that it will come in very handy for programs that we develop for our clients. It's really kind of neat.
 
But frankly, I don't have an urge to tell people where I am. If I'm not at work, I'm probably at home. And there, I'm the "King of the Castle."





-Mark

A Yogurt Culture of Lies

One of the things that excites us about social media is its ability to neutralize false or misleading information being spread on the web.
 
If there is negative sentiment in the blogosphere about your brand that is based on inaccurate reporting or someone with an axe to grind, you simply inject some truth into the discussion and turn the dial "up to 11" until the dialogue becomes more balanced. 

In Buenos Aires, the Danone company took a novel approach to doing this when its brand of probiotic yogurt, Actimel (DanActive in the U.S.), fell victim to a viral email hoax. The email, which circulated all around Argentina, directed people to a web page that warned that the yogurt is addictive, that it destroys the stomach's natural defenses and that it is harmful to children.

Danone initially responded by engaging the bloggers and websites that had posted the misinformation, answered questions about the report on its own website and ran a commercial addressing the issue.

Then it tried something different: It invited people to another site where they could generate their own rumors about their friends who then received an email inviting them to the site. There the friends would see the rumors about them, along with the message, "Don't believe everything you see on the internet. I'll show you how easy it is to spread a rumor about you."

"What we are trying to do is show people how easy it is to lie and deceive on the web, and how careful we as consumers must be to get truths about brands," said Sebastian Garcia Padin, owner of Danone's Argentine agency, Sinus (say what?), which created the campaign. "What the Creador de Rumores is doing is telling people 'Be careful'."

In the first month of the campaign, more than 40,000 people visited the site, and more than 100,000 individual false rumors were created and sent.

No lie.

-Mark

The United States of Social Media

An interesting study was released yesterday by Arbitron and Edison Research.

It reveals that 48% of all Americans over the age of 11 now have profiles on at least one social networking Web site. That includes 78% of all teenagers.

According to the study, the usage of social networking sites in the U.S. has doubled over the last two years.

Of these people, 30% say they check their profiles "several times a day." That's up from 18% just last year.

Most surprising is that the number of people with social profiles does not decrease with age as much as you might expect.

In fact, usage by people 55 to 64 and 65 and over has increased by about 300% each year over the past few years.

"Social networking has become a part of mainstream media behavior," says Tom Webster of Edison, who also points out that the usage of social networks by 18 to 24-year olds is almost 100%.

For this group, he adds, "Social networks... are the new phone."

I came across this report only minutes after seeing a news story about how the Census Bureau is seeing a very low response rate on its survey.

Maybe the next Census should look to the social network sites instead of people's homes?

-Mark

Weave It and Believe It

We created the picture above to demonstrate to prospective clients how social media is not just about one specific channel or discipline, but rather, the weaving together of them all.

It’s about advertising, PR, relationship marketing, customer service, and promotion. I’m sure it’s also about a few other things I can’t think of at this moment.

As I was putting the slide into yet another presentation, I got to thinking:

Even as we’re all struggling to learn about social media, it’s teaching us about the various disciplines we may never have paid much attention to in our own little silos.

I was a creative. My world was limited to striving to do the best creative work possible. To devouring the award show books. To creating great ads and commercials that would get into those books.

Now I find myself discussing – even almost understanding – analytics. Yet back in my general advertising days, the only data I wanted to hear was if enough people were watching my commercial to keep it on the air.

Likewise, I’m now keenly aware of the importance of crisis management, although not long ago, PR was about as mysterious to me as America’s fascination with reality television.

You could say the study of social media has made me a student of marketing in general. It’s helped me to think more holistically about how to reach and engage people.

It’s made me realize that creativity is about more than just clever headlines and eye-grabbing visuals.

It’s about using technology and smarts to listen and learn from consumers. To strategically engage them in a dialogue in which they actually want to take part. And ultimately, to provide them with the valuable information, support and guidance they seek.

What’s more, very few businesses today have a budget large enough to support four or more agencies on their roster. One agency that embraces the best of all of these disciplines provides much more bang for the buck.

It’s been a long journey getting to this broader view.

I just had to learn how to knit.

-Mark

How a Pharma (Or Any Highly Regulated Business) Can Evolve Into a Social Media Leader In 5 Easy Steps

With marketing budgets tighter than ever, pharmaceutical companies are hungry for new ways to reach and engage highly qualified prospects at a fraction of the cost traditional media. Social media is just one new weapon in the pharmaceutical marketer’s arsenal. Used with the proper strategic rigor, it can help to amplify exponentially the good will generated from a company’s other marketing and public relations -based initiatives, providing much more bang for the buck.

By simply dipping the toes of its digital footprint into the online communities where both doctors and patients congregate (and data shows they are congregating more and more), a business can be a fly on the wall and gain invaluable information about what patients, healthcare providers and caregivers are discussing in terms of the disease state, treatments – even their experiences with customer service.

A lot of what’s being said on blogs and forums is positive and a lot of it is neutral. But what usually stands out most is a very vocal minority that knows how to use social media to vent its displeasure. (Think... um...Tea Party.) This is what makes the news.

It’s also what makes pharma companies nervous about using social media.

Case in point: just a few weeks ago, Sanofi Aventis had (an unofficial) Facebook page overrun by an organization of former breast cancer patients (the “Taxotears”) who suffered permanent hair loss (alopecia) due to their use of Sanofi’s chemo drug, Taxotere. The patients posted photos of their bald heads and accused Sanofi  of not properly warning them of the possibility of alopecia as a side effect of treatment with Taxotere. The warning is indeed printed on the brand's materials, but it seems doctors may not be making enough of a point about it when discussing possible side effects with prospective patients. It will be interesting to see how Sanofi responds to the situation. In this situation, considering that the page is counterfeit and infringing on Sanofi's logo, I might suggest dispensing with the usual social media rules of engagement and have Facebook pull the plug on the page.

It’s adverse events like this that make pharma companies nervous about the use of social media. But if a company is properly prepared to anticipate such events and has a procedure in place, social media is the best way to turn a negative discussion into a positive one.

We always talk about pharma’s squeamishness about social media – the regulatory issues, and so on.  But when you think about it, what industry is better prepared to deal with these things than pharma, itself?  After all, pharmaceutical marketers have a couple of decades under their belts of working within rigid FDA guidelines. 

In social media, transparency and authenticity is key. Companies can’t make false or inaccurate claims or hide their mistakes or products’ shortcomings. Unlike those in other industries that can play around with semantics, pharma companies have long been held accountable for their actions and know what it takes to abide by a firm set of rules. So what industry is better prepared for social media than pharma? It just takes some smart planning, good strategic thinking and a little courage. Here are a few suggestions for venturing more deeply into the unchartered waters of social media (with water wings):

1. Who does what? Decide who on the team will be responsible for what: monitoring conversations, engaging in the dialogue, handling MLR, etc. Without clear assignments, mistakes can happen. (Even with them, mistakes will happen.) The important thing is to expect the unexpected and have the right people in place to handle it. This means everyone will have to take on a little extra responsibility beyond their original job descriptions.

2. Socialize social media. To get everyone in the company more comfortable with the inevitable, have them create their own Facebook pages and Twitter feeds.  Just make sure that they don't use them as vehicles for delivering the company's point of view. These are purely for personal use only.  After everyone gets a little more comfortable, create a corporate Facebook page for employees to use. Get the hang of moderating the discussion. Open a corporate Twitter feed and practice using it as a tool to engage the community – not as just another PR outlet. Create a company blog and have members of every department contribute to it. But before doing any of these things, develop an editorial calendar that strategically fits your marketing plan. Then adhere to it.

3. Create a fast lane to legal. Like any one-to-one conversation, social media happens in real time. When someone says something worthy of a response – or even more importantly – a correction, you don’t have the luxury of time.  So a process designed for reviewing bigger and more complicated materials over a much greater length of time simply won’t cut it.  By the time the material is deemed kosher, it could be too late to engage in the conversation. Create an HOV lane to your legal department. 

4. Make monthly “digital house calls.”  Have your company's medical experts openly drop in on the most respected and heavily frequented disease state-related forums to answer questions and correct any misinformation they find. They should be clear that they are there on behalf of their company, and they should clearly substantiate all of their information. While they’re at it, they should also look at any Wikipedia entries about your brand and the disease state it covers, and politely correct any inaccurate Wiki information or discussion posts. But the corrections should be made only in the "Discussion Bar" notes, NOT in the Wiki, itself. Leave good source material and the active Wiki community will make the change for you.

5. Create a spokes-patient. Have him or her write a weekly blog about their personal patient journey experience and regularly post entries for a video diary on YouTube. They can also (with full disclosure) correct misinformation like the (and with the help of) the experts in the previous suggestion. Your spokesperson could also write emails for a retention program, leading the patients by example. This concept could carry into above the line media, as well.

It’s all about tiny steps. But even a tiny step is one in the right direction.

By the time the FDA gets around to establishing social media guidelines for the entire industry, your pharma company will have smartly and carefully established itself as a leader in social media.

-Mark

The Transformation to Transformational Marketing

At the recent ePharma Summit in Philadelphia, Pfizer’s Joe Shields threw out a provocative question:

“Would the shift to specialty pharmaceutical products lead to less disciplined marketing?”

Joe wondered whether the higher margins of many specialty products would cause pharmaceutical marketers to slip back into the bad habits of yesteryear and spend without a lot of forethought to efficiency and ROI. 

Pharmaceutical marketing, by necessity, has gotten more disciplined as the margins have shrunk on many of the blockbuster brands. Expenditures that were once considered the price of entry – massive booths at medical conventions, national network advertising campaigns and fully outfitted field forces of 5,000 or more – are now routinely and rigorously questioned.

In the past, management wasn’t asking, so why bother measuring? (About 10 years ago, I remember being told by my boss when proudly describing a large cost savings I had helped engineer, “that’s nice but not important here.”) 

Things have certainly changed.

To answer Joe’s question, I don’t believe that the shift to specialty pharmaceutical products will lead to the unexamined spending of yesteryear but I do think it could result in increased spending as it has the potential to completely retool marketing in a way that advances patient care.

Specialty pharmaceutical products, by their nature, apply to smaller, more engaged patient populations often fighting for their lives against devastating disease. These are patients willing to be seen, to be heard, to be known. And knowing and interacting with these patients is taking on different forms than it does with marketing primary care medications. 

In marketing specialty products, more intimate, unvarnished ways of understanding patients including watching lives unfold on personal blogs often offer more relevant insights than the traditional tools of understanding such as large scale A&U’s. Tactically, marketers find themselves in deep conversations with patient ambassadors rather than crowded around a tiny TV monitor on a commercial shoot.

And with this more intimate view, has come greater empathy. It is devastating to be told stories of how pulmonary arterial hypertension saps people of their energy so much so that a short walk to the kitchen for a glass of water is an overwhelming obstacle. On the other hand, it is heart-warming however to hear that same person’s son drove 30 minutes to get his mother a glass of water.

This greater empathy combined with the marketers' natural problem-solving nature, is leading some to shift focus: 

From selling products to transforming patient lives. 

No matter how many well-researched mailings we send, some people simply don’t have the life skills, the mindset, self-esteem or financial wherewithal to successfully address their health challenges. The question for pharmaceutical marketers then becomes “What changes can the marketer help the patient make so that they have the skills that not only help them take their medication but make sustainable changes that impact their overall lives and health going forward? 

Marketer as social worker? Think again.

Customer transformation is marketing. According to “The Experience Economy” by Pine and Gilmore, customer “transformations are a distinct economic offering.” Transformation marketing views its business as changing customers in a sustained way. Published in 1999, the book outlines various levels of economic value from extracting commodities to delivering services to finally guiding transformations.

The idea is not exactly new to pharmaceutical marketing either. People at the ePharma Summit spoke about needing to focus on “value beyond the pill.” However this statement still makes the pill rather than the customer the central point of reference. A more customer centric version asks, “what sustainable changes can we help the patient make to improve their health?”

The answer will probably lead to spending increases on more comprehensive patient services. 24-hour nurse lines cost more than IVRs. Behavior modification programs are more complex than the usual set of patient mailings. True social media marketing and on-line community management is more labor intensive. And designing transformative patient experiences will have a higher CPM than your average television spot.

But the result could be far-reaching changes in patients lives that go beyond the pill and their disease to transform the whole way they approach their health and their life. And it is these fundamental changes that will also enable them to successfully adhere to their medication regimens.

Certainly, mine is an optimistic answer to Joe’s question. I’ll admit, I have a natural affinity towards half-full and rose-colored glasses.

How would you answer Joe’s question?


-Dorothy

 

 

Study Pushes Envelope, Thinks Outside Box And Drills It Down To A More Granular Level

I just came across a Reuters story about a study published by Opinium, a research company in the U.K. It reveals what workers today consider the most annoying things they have to deal with on the job.

Along with such expected grievances as "people not cleaning up after themselves in the kitchen" and "talking too loudly on the phone" is my own personal neck hair-raiser: obnoxious business jargon, which the study kindly "drills down to a more granular level." Here are the results, ranked from the most grating, to the just plain annoying:

1. Thinking outside the box (21 percent)

2. Let's touch base (20)

3. Blue sky thinking (19)

4. Blamestorming (16) (sitting down and working out whose fault something is)

5. Drill down to a more granular level (15) (Look into something in more detail)

6. Let's not throw pies in the dark (15) (we need a plan rather than a haphazard approach)

7. I've got that on my radar (13)

8. Push the envelope (12)

9. Bring your A-game (11) (Be ready to do something to best of ability)

10. Get all your ducks in a row (11)

Having spent most of my career in the creative departments of advertising agencies, I had mostly been sheltered from hearing such hooey. But on occasion, I do get to hear such beauties as, "how do we make it an actionable item?" and other "game-changing" phrases which hopefully won't be "gaining traction" around the Extrovertic office.

I'd love to hear your least favorite office jargon. We'll "run it up the flagpole and see who salutes."

-Mark