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Health care and Social Media

Pharma and other heath care companies are usually quiet when it comes to social networking. To date, the best effort I have seen is from Humana (insurance company). They actually aren't present on the social networking sites, but they have built some great online content in the form of informative and interesting videos about healthcare. You can catch those here.

But, there are hundreds of companies out there that participate in health care. A recent article from BNet reports that Pfizer is making it's move into the world of social media with an active facebook page. (Some companies like Genentech have facebook pages, but no content.) Additionally, they have a blog for their scientists. Understandably, pharma companies are hesitant to enter a world where the content and messages can be generated by the customers. On the other hand, this is why being a part of social networking is so crucial. Most companies use it to connect with their customers and get feedback they wouldn't otherwise hear. The though part about pharma and healthcare participating in these forums is the lack of regulation.

Right now, the FDA and other government regulators decide what companies can say and how they can say it. The best example of this is the recent commercials for the birth control pill, Yaz. The original commercials aired, but apparently were found unclear by the FDA. So they had to release another commercial to straighten things up.
Check out the commercial:



Other errors or instances of misinformation have much more severe repercussions for the company. Fines are good example. Given the sensitive nature of their communication, Pfizer is taking great strides in connecting with customers while trying to maintain some level of regulation. As the article notes, they have launched a playbook for employees to help them make informed decisions about responding to customers and posting content. There are no re-shoots for social media so let's hope it works.

Facebook Marketing

Like I mentioned in my post on Stickybits, Facebook is gold mine of valuable information for markers.

For more information, check out the article Yahoo Finance just published talking about what companies are doing now to get more information about consumers from Facebook.

Stickybits: Fun for free?

There is a new way to use your mobile phone while shopping these days. The new phone app, Stickybits, allows you to scan bar codes to win prizes and score discounts on products. Their "Explore and Score" motto mixed with their bubblegum website makes you feel like a kid again. Remember how much we all loved scavenger hunts? This time though, there could beer and more waiting at the end of the rainbow.

To add to the fun, they have created programmable bar-codes that you can leave on products with a message including audio, video, text, or photo. As people find the bar-codes they can leave their own message, creating a stream as the product changes hands. Combine that with geo-tagging and you have a whole new way to communication via product dispersion. It reminds of whereisgeorge.com, but more temporary. (Money is made to last unlike a Coke can.)

While this all sounds very fun and engaging for the consumer, where is the return on investment for Stickybits? According to their website, the app is free and the prizes are free. They still collect your credit card info and shipping address. Their intent with these items seems harmless enough. They sometimes make the user pay shipping and handling and having your address is required to send your free prize.

As of March 2010, Stickybits had received $1.9M in funding (see the Tech Crunch article). The problem is how are these investors going to earn a return on their investment? My guess: they're selling your data. Marketing data is lucrative, but difficult to get. Facebook has been routinely selling data about it's users for years. When the alternative for companies is to engage in costly focus groups and market surveys, Facebook data is gold mine of uninhibited consumer thoughts on products. In a Feb 2009 article from the Guardian, Facebook Lexicon is mentioned as a tool that allows users to track topics and postings on people's walls. Add this to Facebook's advertising revenue and you have a company valued at more than $65 billion. Facebook has laid the path, now Stickybits can use their model to generate revenues the same way.

I think Stickybits will possibly eclipse Facebook in lucrative data, if they can generate enough users. The key is that Stickybits is linking the users with actual products. To the makers of Coca-Cola, Stickybits means they have direct access to how many people are scanning their bar-codes, what they are saying about that exact product on the message stream, and where the products are traveling. If I were a brand manager, I would be jumping with joy. Easy access to data? Yes, please!

Stickybits' combination of products and social networking looks like fun and games to users. To a business, it's a dream come true.