Five key questions product managers are asking about how to manage their brands and their risk in social media.

1. Q&A
Five tough questions product
managers are asking about
social media

2. Don’t we expose ourselves to more adverse events?
Only a tiny fraction of social media posts contain reportable AEs.
You may have seen this Nielsen map. It looks at 500 random posts:
A 494 messages mention an identifiable patient
B 100 messages mention a specific medication
C 56 messages mention an identifiable reporter
D 14 messages both mention a specific medication
and an identifiable reporter
E 4 messages mention an adverse experience and
include and identifiable patient and a specific
medication
F 1 message also included an identifiable report
That’s a .2% chance
Nielsen Online, “Listening to Consumers in a Highly Regulated Environment,”8/2008

3. What if someone says something else negative
THEY ALREADY
CAN (& DO)
On iGuard, WebMD, iVillage,
Twitter, etc., etc.
NEGATIVE =
CREDIBLE
People trust positive comments
more when they also see negative
There will always be negative comments about your brand.
Ultimately, it’s what you do about it - act on it, respond
to it, change it - that builds social media esteem

4. Can we just disable comments and push content out?
Halfway social isn’t social
It has to work
the way people expect it to work

5. What do you expect from the FDA?
Good news: The FDA understands the issue
A lot of it revolves around
the five questions we
posed … things like
accountability,
responsibility, ownership
of the information and
regulatory requirements.
[The codes] were
written decades and
decades ago… people
weren’t thinking about
Twitter back then.
Dr. Jean-Ah King, Special Assistant
to the Director in DDMAC

6. What do you expect from the FDA? (CONTINUED)
Bad news: We’ve got a long way to go
Technology will keep changing
No guarantee of guidance
Comment period is still open
Any draft guidance has comment period
Feb 24 speech is just
an update on what
they’ve heard
One possible outcome
is “status quo”
If it is written, look for
a 90-day review +
iteration
Any guidance won’t be
technology-specific
and won’t know the
next evolution

7. Is it really worth it?
70%of
consumers
believe pharma
information from
their non-expert
peers is credible
48%of
Americans trust
pharma less than
they did five years
ago
YES.
Could it be because we’re not part of the
conversation? Push advertising isn’t going to change
those numbers. Engaging and adding value is.
iCrossing, How America Searches: Health and Wellness, January 2008
DDB, Health is the New Wealth, 2009