Two days of meeting on social media for….

I was skeptical when the FDA held two days of meetings on social media last year and was even more skeptical when I saw that a majority of the presenters were from agencies who stand to benefit from more relaxed social media marketing oversight.  After all that we know that:

• A former FDA official is saying “If the industry thinks the FDA is going to come out with thoughtful and complete guidance on how to use social media in 110 different circumstances, it’s going be very disappointed.” via eMarketer

• That over 60% of consumers do not want to hear from pharma companies on social media (via Rodale DTC study)

The FDA, if it follows the safe road that Mr Pitts suggests, can regulate DTC marketing but the issue at hand is that DTC marketing is evolving and changing beyond the FDA’s ability to regulate it. It is changing in that consumers today are becoming empowered patients who are in more and more frequency turning to the Internet for health information and, more importantly, their health choices.

There are some DTC marketers who feel that TV spots are going to lead to conversion but then there are some people who believe that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.  What essentially has happened is a paradigm shift in the way patients are making healthcare decisions.

Patients no longer trust pharma company websites to give them the information they want and need.  They want essentially to know “how does this medication work and what potential side effects am I going to have to deal with?”   To this day the most visited pages on product websites are often the safety information pages.

Does this mean that pharma marketers are stuck doing the same old same old in an era of new media ? The answer to that is NO.  Pharma marketers can first acknowledge that TV is great for awareness but that to get consumers to ask for or talk about an Rx they need more pull through efforts such as;

• Having more than one home page targeted via different key words on search engines with messages for each segment.

• Better, more user friendly content that does not require a dictionary to understand.

• Put side effects in perspective and do more than list the side effects from clinical trials; put in language they can understand that is relevant to them.

• Share content with other health service providers and HCP’s so they can integrate within their websites.

• Join people in community.  Believe it or not you can still create a Facebook page that allows people to talk to one another and share information around a health condition.

• Deep link everything.  Help consumers find good credible information via the Internet and direct them there.

I can understand the FDA’s position.  Even if they issued guidelines they would be out of date within a few months as the web continues to evolve.  What the FDA really needs to do is decide how they can increase trust with consumers by providing clear, consumer friendly health information that help consumers make good educated health decisions.