I’m grumpy. This Saturday morning I got up with a cup of coffee and set out to look at my RSS feeds for news on the web. For those of you not familiar with RSS, it’s a RSS is a content delivery vehicle. You could think of RSS as your own personal wire service. I find it incredibly useful to keep up with news on healthcare social media, what’s up with Facebook and Google, and the occasional joke or stupid picture.

The only trouble with RSS is that it creates a firehouse of information to digest. Even if you categorize the feeds into different folders and priorities like I do, it’s a lot to manage. If I don’t look it at for 2 or 3 days, it’s easily over a thousand articles.

For the past few years I’ve relied on an incredibly useful little plugin called Postrank. Postrank scores each post in an RSS feed by the relative number of comments, inbound links, mentions on Twitter, saves on Delicious and other social media metrics. So, it became an easy matter to scan through my feeds and pick out the top 10% of articles to look at. It was a great time-saver and a wonderful way to separate the signal from the noise.

Enter Google. Last year Google bought Postrank. They bought it for its other side, which is functionality that show a website publisher the virality and social analytics of its posts. Obviously, that’s very important.

So, today when I turned to look at my RSS feeds the Postrank ratings were gone. As of May 1st Google had ‘sunseted’ Postrank. They have included it in Google analytics where early reports say it’s a great addition. However, they eliminated the user or consumer side of the product where it was tremendously helpful. It was a utility also used by social media analysts like myself to rank bloggers and other influencers in a specific category, similar to Klout.

Sad, sad. I love that the Postrank creators got their payout. But, this is the type of innovation that disappears when the big Borg-like goliaths buy you out. I would have been happy to pay a monthly fee for Postrank, but they never asked me.

Surprisingly, I don’t see a lot of buzz about the sunsetting and need for replacements for the user side of the product. There’s a thread staring on Quora for replacements, so if you have any thoughts that’s a good place to go.

If you have any doubts on who is in charge of calling the shots on Social Media, stop wondering. It’s Facebook, by size and impact. The platform is in control and the timelines to adapt to change are shortening. Facebook rolled out Timeline to brands on 2/29 and all brand pages will be forced to convert to the new layout if they have not opted in already on 3/30, no exceptions. We had a few months to look at the implementation for individuals, so at least we had a preview of what was coming at us.

There are some fascinating case studies of what brands have done to leverage Timeline, particularly brands with a rich history, such as The New York Times, or Coke. I’ll leave those analyses to others, my concern is what will happen to heavily regulated industries, like pharma. A collection of those other articles is here.

It seems just yesterday that we had to adapt to open commenting on pages (previous blog post Facebook Pharma Earthquake), but the changes today are in some ways more substantial in that they will force brands to truly engage or be sidelined. Take your pick, Timequake or Time Tunnel, there are lots of people who’d like to roll the clock back right now.

I’m going to assume you’re familiar with the most significant changes driven by Timeline, and just lay out the possibilities and issues with each of them (see the articles above for an introduction to these features). So, this is not a post for neewbies.

Cover Photo

Cover photos are the main billboard upon entering any page. For brands with a visual approach they can be a huge plus. Facebook rejects cover pictures that have an overtly promotional motive, such as a call to action, etc. However, a big issue with pharma is fair balance – reasonably similar prominence of risk information along with any claims. Cover pages are a natural location to make this happen. Will Facebook reject covers with disclosure or legalese embedded in the image? For now, Facebook has said, no ISI in the cover photo.

Pinned Posts

Pinned posts are an exciting new feature that span the full width of the page and are ‘pinned’ to the top of the stream. After 7 days they revert to their proper place on the timeline. Since they are juxtaposed with the cover picture there is great potential to use them for a call to action and/or necessary disclosure. You could potentially game the system by re-pinning them every 7 days – high maintenance, but perhaps high opportunity. There are character limits that will limit their ability so be used for disclosure.

Starred Posts

Starred posts span the stream and will draw substantial attention. Any brand can use them to illustrate important milestones. Conservative regulatory teams could use them for precautions and disclosures.

Private Messaging

Private messaging has the allure of being a way to handle AEs or troublesome conversations and keep them off the wall. Private Messaging has to be initiated by the user, not the page. Through placement of prominent community standards, we could communicate that this is the preferred messaging for AEs and off-label concerns.

Personalized Experience

The page now shows your friend’s interaction with the page as part of its very fabric. Regulatory teams get hives with dynamic pages. There is the possibility of AEs, off-label or just trolling there. Can it be moderated? Facebook has said the API is open, so leading vendors like Liveworld should be a help. InTouch Solutions PharmaWall has adapted to the changes and remains an excellent solution.

To Sum Up

There may be ways to hack the new Facebook ecosystem and make pages acceptable from a compliance and regulatory point of view. Though that’s a huge barrier on it’s own, the larger issue is that unless brands truly engage  they are becoming more and more invisible and irrelevant in an individual’s Facebook experience. Unless pharma and healthcare brands maintain an active and engaged wall, their share of voice in a users stream will be negligible.

Pharma pages will be making a choice over the next week whether to pull out the tent pegs and leave, or decide that the long term reward of true engagement effort is worth the effort. Yesterday the Janssen UK Psoriasis page decided to close. The reasons given were the effort required for moderation (per John Mack’s blog), but I wonder if adapting to Timeline was a trigger. It’s another Facebook Deathwatch (well documented by Dose of Digital last Summer).

Please comment below.

Yesterday Google made a major revision in its search algorithm  called Search, plus Your World. This change has been called ‘the most radical change ever’ on Search Engine Blogs. Google will now be incorporating data from its social network as well as the public Internet when delivering search results to people.

What this means in practice is that now if you are searching on Google for Diabetes, social media interactions on Twitter, Tumblr, etc, from your contacts will be highly ranked in the search results. So, social media’s ripple effect is about to become much stronger. This will also be a boost to Google+, Google’s Social Network. Since so many people start an Internet session with a search session, and so many people use Google, the impact will be immense.

This change will only occur in English on Google.com. Posts that are not ‘public’ on Facebook will not be picked up by Google. Here is Google’s blog post on the change.

Over the holidays, and without fanfare, the FDA issued Draft Guidance for Responding to Unsolicited Requests for Off-Label Information. The title of the guidance is a little deceptive in that within the document lies some draft guidance on dealing with social media in the form of ‘public’ platforms where some of this conversation may take place. The guidance doesn’t give us a road map for working with social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, but it is progress. The most noteworthy element is that unsolicited public inquiries for off-label information, as an example in YouTube comments for a pharma YouTube channel, should only get medical affairs contact information as a response.

The guidance came out while everyone was still digesting their Christmas dinner and it flew right under the radar of all the pharma Twitterati during the lull between Christmas and New Years. People returning to their offices in January found it in their inbox and panicked that the FDA has said something, anything, about social media. Digital agency leads scrambled to produce a POV on the guidance and the blogs began (email me if you want my POV).

There are now many, many interpretations and analyses out there, and Fabio Gratton did a great job of collecting them into a Storify stream listing all of the articles from media, agencies, pharma companies, and law firms. Another great tool was created by Jon Richman of Dose of Digital fame – this one is a flowchart for deciphering the sometimes tangled logic in the guideline. I love the sense of humor.

The FDA has some sharp people on their staff that clearly understand social media. The original request for response on social media (over two years ago, now) demonstrated a strong grasp of the issues. Therefore, it’s surprising that the FDA does not address moderation in the draft guidance. Moderation may be used to pre-review comments prior to public posting on platforms managed by companies.  It is possible using moderation tools to prohibit posting of off-label comments entirely and to respond to an inquiry privately without it ever being seen by the public.

We’ll see if 2012 is the year to finally see some guidelines.

Facebook has rocked the pharma world with its announcement that pharma ‘whitelisting’ will largely disappear on August 15th. Whitelisting has been a special exemption where pharma has been able to prevent people from being able to Like or comment on their Wall posts. So we might actually have to engage with people rather than broadcasting. Terrifying!

And indeed it is terrifying in our highly regulated world. Comments about products that might be off-label or adverse events are big issues. The extremely negative downside of dealing with these complexities has scuttled many a promising program.

There’s been quite a hue and cry among the pharma Twitterati over the past few months on these changes. Some excellent articles are:

• Pharma and Healthcare Facebook Page Deathwatch 
• Pharma Facebook Commenting Is Open: Remain Calm
• WGC: Facebook Page Commenting Changes
• Pharma reaction to facebook changes foregrounds three tiers of Social Media

However, I find two points absent from the discussion:

The Big Loophole: For a person to comment. Like, or interact with the wall, there has to be something there to interact with. If a brand removes all content from the wall, leaving it bare, there is effectively no commenting or Liking possible. There are minor flaws with this approach – a person can still comment on the profile pic, for instance. There are major flaws with this – with no interaction on the wall, your page is on Facebook, but it is essentially invisible, as without interaction it will never publish content to the streams of your Likers. However, it is straightforward, if not simple, to use Facebook’s Social Plugins on a custom tab to maintain virality and one-way publishing to the streams of your Likers. This is the sort of work-around we are used to in our regulated industry. This is a loophole big enough to drive a truck through.

Moderation: Facebook’s native moderation tools have gotten much stronger. Using the block list, it is possible to block almost any questionable post from ever showing on the wall. It is entirely possible to use these tools to create a ‘triage’ type strategy that would divert the most difficult items to a review team, queue moderately challenging items to a regulatory consultant, and allow other comments to stand. These criteria can easily be built by a competent PR agency. If the challenge is too daunting or the potential volume too high, companies such as LiveWorld can work with your legal/regulatory team to build a model that will work.

Facebook has lost patience with the industry in hopes of it producing adverting revenue to offset the special care and feeding the industry gets. Brands and companies are going to have to evolve into what Facebook is for, or abandon ship. The end will be a more rewarding environment for everyone.

Today Google announced it’s wallet, an electronic wallet located in your cell phone with tap-and-pay technology. With Google’s engineering prowess, it’s got to be a smooth customer experience – frictionless, as the saying goes.

Why so late? Doesn’t it seem like we should have been tapping and going at 7/11s and gas stations for a while now? The credit card companies have tried all sorts of experiments in Quick Service Restaurants and cabs for a while, but nothing seems to have caught on.

Google’s solution uses a near field communication chip to enable the magic, and requires companion hardware on the receiving end. Not every phone will have this technology for a while, but it does seem possible that someone would soon offer a standalone NFC wallet the size of a credit card. I’d sign up for that. Digital is infinitely scalable, so why not put your credit cards, frequent shopper cards, gym card, etc. on a digital wallet? At least it would leave you with a much smaller wallet with just your bills and drivers license, even if you were carrying an extra item.

It will be interesting to see whether this wakes up the bank associations like MasterCard…and American Express. Google does not know who they are dealing with. Those companies are fierce competitors and payment methods are their expertise. I worked on the transition from paper to paperless for gift cards and other instruments in the 1990s, and while these companies my not be first, they are fast followers and tenacious.

This story originally appeared in PRWeek Insider on 04/20/11 (subscription required).

More People are playing Farmville than Watching Dancing with the Stars. More people are playing Texas Hold’em Poker than are watching Glee.* And Zynga, maker of Farmville, has about half the monthly active users that Twitter does – 135MM versus 283MM.

Clearly, gaming is a big part of American life. People are choosing gaming for entertainment over all the other immersive options out there. As smartphones become even more ubiquitous, that puts a powerful gaming machine right in everyone’s pocket.

Gaming is not just for kids. 18-49 year olds make up the largest percentage of gamers at 49%, and the average age of the most frequent game purchaser is 40 years old. There are more people over 50 that play games (26%), than children under 18 (25%).*

Gaming for Healthcare?

Anyone who has observed their teenager in the death grip of level  10 of Angry Birds recognizes the complete concentration and immersion that experience offers. Could some of that focus and engagement be used for healthcare?

The Journal of the American Medical Association took a look at the impact of health gaming and found that: “Sufficiently engaging games might enhance the effectiveness of health messaging, allowing individuals to practice useful thought patterns and behaviors and encouraging them to explore and learn from failure in safe virtual environments.” JAMA reported that recent games had positive outcomes, such as Re-Mission, a game for adolescent and young adult patients with cancer, which improved adherence; and Wii Fit for obesity. Now, if that language sounds a little academic, consider the tone of most healthcare educational materials, which tend to be dry and impersonal.  Gaming can blend education and entertainment, so you can learn while having fun.

It comes back to your marketing objectives. Can you educate through a gaming experience? Can you motivate through a system of goals, feedback and competition? Could gaming be another way to tell the story and get the message across? If so, gaming could be an emerging avenue worth trying.

Gaming clearly has advantages on the social web for sharing of scores, competition, and team play.  From a news perspective, there are many angles, from the patient, to the disease, to the game itself. Gaming offers multimedia assets that can be used in news releases, YouTube, or Facebook.

What works for consumers, works as well with healthcare practitioners. What better way to teach a doctor about a new mechanism of action than an immersive and interactive game/learning experience? With the increasing use of tablets and other devices in detailing, the opportunities will only increase.

This story originally appeared in PRWeek Insider on 04/20/11 (subscription required).

With the emergence of today’s digital space, it is safe to say that bloggers are the new reporters and journalists. Their content reaches many at once and is easily accessible by a click of the finger. What bloggers choose to feature on and write about can go beyond just sharing light on a particular topic. Their opinions are well trusted by faithful readers, and their posts have the ability to persuade and most importantly, greatly influence perceptions. Blogging was one of the first Web2.0 technologies and it changed the dynamics of influence.

What does this mean for PR?

It is important to find bloggers who address the same audiences as your company.  Once you find them, research their dos and don’ts. There’s nothing more wasteful than spending a significant amount of time reaching out to a number of bloggers and pitching stories, services and/or products that turn out to be of no interest to them. Also, make sure that these bloggers are people who do want to be contacted and if indicated, make note to follow their particular guidelines on how they would like to be reached. These initial steps can make the difference in unanswered emails, one-time features, or a series of professional partnerships based on lasting, trusting relationships that successfully introduce many to your company and the work that you do.

For Healthcare PR?

Bloggers have become a frequently referenced source of healthcare information. So, finding and reaching out to influential bloggers in your category is a critical component of your outreach. Bloggers themselves are individuals, and should receive customized communications instead of mass mailed press releases – they should be targeted to their blog and their community. Blogs should be analyzed to determine relation to the disease state, influence, and on-label suitability.

Special considerations may be necessary for healthcare. Some pharma companies are only comfortable reaching out to bloggers with journalistic credentials – those who have established a presence in traditional as well as online media, or are otherwise recognized as an authority in their area. Blog monitoring may need to be carried out to monitor the conversation and gauge response by the community. This, in itself, can lead to useful insights for companies. And understanding bloggers’ rights to make honest statements regarding products is a hard pill for healthcare companies to swallow.

However, the reward is a more personal interpretation of your news, told in an engaging way to a very interested community. Sometimes, it is through these posts that a person might first hear about a new procedure or drug. Ultimately, your company will engage in impactful relationships with people who have very personal connections to the stories shared.

When it comes to blogger outreach, make the effort. But do your homework first.

This story originally appeared in PRWeek Insider on 04/18/11 (subscription required).

Two weeks ago a Marc Jacobs intern publicly melted down on Twitter and then quit. Two weeks before that, Chrysler experienced some Twitter road rage, and an agency was fired. And two weeks before that, the Red Cross had to confiscate the keys from their tweeter for #gettngslizzerd.

Imagine if these accidents had happened in a healthcare setting? We don’t need FDA guidelines to understand the hot water we’d be in.

Pharma company Twitter feeds are heavily stage-managed. Posts are vetted by an army of regulatory and legal staff, and updates are timed like Obama’s inauguration. The few branded Twitter feeds are even more tightly controlled. But who tweets and how? It’s usually a junior staffer copying and pasting the approved post and frequently using their own choice of software. That’s the weak link. The examples at the beginning are a cautionary tale of people inadvertently mixing their personal and professional profiles, and of tweeters going off the rails.

Software Rx: Twitter feeds are frequently handled using a dashboard like Hootsuite which can manage a number of feeds at once and offers analytic capabilities for tracking tweets and mentions. It can handle Facebook pages as well, enabling you to easily syndicate content selectively across the social platforms. Even multiple clients can be set up. The lure is strong to add your personal accounts, and create a mothership dashboard so you can be complete master of your domain. Resist it, it’s a bad idea. It’s all too easy to click the wrong icon and post to the wrong account – especially late at night or in a busy airport. One wrong click and you blast your personal tweet about that new band to your client’s followers. Or, you might post that handbag website to your client’s Facebook page. Amusing, yes, but it’s not as funny the next morning.

The best practice is to create separate dashboards for work and personal accounts using different email addresses and logins. Then using themes, give them radically different colors and backgrounds so you can easily distinguish between them, no matter how flummoxed you might be. For added safety, consider using different browsers, like Chrome for work and Firefox for personal.

Mobile Rx: The same goes for mobile devices. For tweeting on the go, use a different mobile app for your clients and personal tweets. Put them on different pages or folders. Don’t tweet and drive.

Content Rx: If you’re tweeting for a pharma company or brand, your hands are already tied and the blinders are on, just carefully press ‘send,’ per the above. If you’re fortunate enough to be tweeting for a hospital or association in a less structured way, you need to have some guidelines for the voice of your feed. You are the spokesperson of the brand, and while you want personality and authenticity, behave as if your every tweet could be on the cover of USA Today, because if you screw up, it will be. Consider using a workflow where tweets are approved before they are issued.

So take your medicine and tweet me in the morning @markhdavis.

You have to be of  ‘a certain age’ or a classic rock fan to remember The Who’s song Going Mobile. But it’s very relevant today. Forester predicts that by 2012 more Internet access will occur throughout mobile devices than PCs. Sometime it seems it’s coming quicker than that. If you look around you on the train platform and see the folks nearby crouched like preying mantises over their mobile devices, it’s here today.

In the past few months there have been some excellent articles about the fragmentation of the web into various ‘walled gardens’ such as Facebook. One of my favorites is Forrester’s article and term, The Splinternet. Wired Magazine had a September cover article called The Web is Dead along the same theme.

So what’s a marketer to do? Get mobile fast. You don’t have to redo your whole website for mobile, just the essential pages a person would need on the go. And you don’t have to cover every mobile device, just the main ones your audience uses.

It turns out it’s not necessarily that difficult. A structured blog like this, running on WordPress, is a natural. For instance, WPTouch is a free WordPress plugin that shows a powerful, well-designed mobile theme version of your site to the most popular touch-based smartphones like the iPhone, Google Android phones,  and Blackberry. Over 90% of mobile web traffic originates from these devices. Pretty amazing, and it only takes minutes to set up. A paid version is only $39 and offers many more features. So, Goin’ Mobile may not be so hard – “keep me movin’,” like the song says.