Welcome to the unofficial start of summer!
May was busy as we caught up with so many innovative
pioneers in health communication, patient education, and disease
management. We're writing up these interviews soon but for now we're
covering the innovative campaign the CDC used to respond to the H1N1
crisis, and how big pharma is winning "fans" on
Facebook.
Please send your
comments and forward this email to your colleagues to help us build this
community.
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Google Wants to Know if You're
Sick
Last month
Google began asking some people who searched on the flu, "Did
you search because you or someone you know has the flu?" They
ask similar questions for searches on headache, ear infection,
insomnia, and dozens of other health conditions. They're asking for
two reasons.
First, the results will be used to establish trends in contagious
disease categories. In an interesting case of crowd-sourced health
informatics, Google discovered a correlation between the number of
searches on "flu" and the reported number of flu cases by
the CDC. Google FluTrends now plots "flu"
searches in real-time which is both incredibly accurate and shaves
two weeks off of traditional trend reporting times. The chart below
shows just how strong the correlation is between Google
"flu" searches and CDC data.
And second, the results will be used to determine if Google should
rank the display results to be more focused on cures. In public
interviews Google suggests that they'll look at aggregate data to
determine if their ranking algorithm needs to be adjusted.
But I also wonder if the answers to those questions might not be used
someday to offer up specific ads. After all, Google does make its
money selling ads. For users who click "yes" to a question
about headaches, why wouldn't Google pop up high priced ads specific
to headache cures?
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McNeil Pediatrics Launches
Facebook Page: ADHD Allies
Johnson & Johnson's McNeil Pediatrics launched
another Facebook page, targeting adults with ADHD, called ADHD Allies.
McNeil Pediatrics' Tricia Geoghegan was quoted as saying, "There
is no brand, any brand at all, on the site. It is about people
talking to people. It's relational as opposed to transactional."
While I love
that sentiment I think Geoghegan is wrong on both counts. There is a
brand, the McNeil Pediatrics brand, which is prominently displayed on
the site and that's good news for the company. Sure it's not
the Concerta® product brand, but I think empowered people with ADHD
will eventually link the product with the company who makes it, and
feel more affinity for McNeil because of this website.
Unfortunately when it comes to "talking to people" the site
falls short. The site's official leaders post messages on the
"Wall" once every few days, which I think isn't often
enough. More importantly, fans of the site are only allowed to post
answers to specific questions. The current topic is "please tell
us how you felt when you were first diagnosed with ADHD."
The restrictions on true, open conversations are clearly to avoid the
"adverse event problem" and probably to avoid any negative
comments whatsoever. Users must accept McNeil's terms of use before
posting, and they are instructed not to post comments about any
specific product or treatments.
Even though this is a social network on training wheels, this project
will be a huge success for McNeil Pediatrics. In less than a month
the site has gained over 6,600 "fans" and as an added
bonus, the PR launch of the site has resulted in ADHD Allies and
McNeil being mentioned on over 60,400 web sites.
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The CDC's H1N1 Flu Campaign:
Educating the Masses with Social Media
The chatter
among healthcare marketers with regard to social media often seems to
be stuck on the most basic of questions (e.g., What is it? Why should
we do it? What about adverse event reporting? How do we start?). Yet,
the Center for Disease Control (CDC) has quietly been doing
best-in-class new media marketing and education for some time.
The most recent example of this has been the rapid, comprehensive
roll-out of H1N1 (swine flu) information. While the main CDC flu website and their social media tools site aren't very pretty to
look at, they cover all the most important online media tactics.
YouTube - YouTube now gets more search traffic
than any other site except Google (source: ComScore) and delivers
over 100 million (yes, 100 million) videos per month. The CDC YouTube
channel has 46 different videos with an H1N1 video getting almost a
million views in the last two weeks alone.
Twitter - the CDC maintains four different
Twitter accounts including 2 different ones for the flu, which is
actually a bit confusing. Their main account @CDCemergency has an impressive 218,000 followers
and it's growing rapidly.
Facebook & MySpace - although the CDC has a presence in
these communities, their success thus far is less impressive; the CDC
fan page on Facebook currently has 6,300 "fans" and their
MySpace has 900 "friends".
Mobile - keenly aware of just how many
people are now surfing the web from their phones, CDC also provides
content optimized for mobile delivery at http://m.cdc.gov/.
Widgets - the most innovative e-health marketing
tactic the CDC uses is widgets which syndicates content across other
websites. Currently you can paste the widget code into your own
webpage or blog to offer a real-time map of confirmed cases in the
USA,
real-time pandemic flu news, and H1N1 tips.
While the H1N1 outbreak is a unique situation and
the CDC brings unmatched credibility and authority as a source, there
is no reason why any health marketer couldn't adopt these social
media tactics. Whether you are selling a glucose meter, an RA drug,
or promoting a hospital, social media can be among the most
cost-effective ways to connect with health consumers.
There is no guarantee you'll get a million views on YouTube or
200,000 followers on Twitter, but you'll certainly be reaching
thousands of active health consumers and opinion leaders in your
market.
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From the 4P's of Marketing, to
the 4E's
The classic
"four P's" of marketing-Product, Price, Place, and
Promotion-are old news according to Brian Fetherstonhaugh, the Chairman and CEO of
OgilvyOne Worldwide. With 25 years of marketing experience
working with the world's biggest brands, Brian's insights carry a lot
of weight. He believes the four P's have been replaced with the
"four E's"-Experience, Exchange, Everyplace, and
Evangelism. You can read his short article on this topic here.
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- e-Patient Connections 2009 - October 26
& 27, 2009, Philadelphia, PA
- Social Marketing for Pharma: Expanding DTC for a
Health 2.0 World - June 16, 2009, Princeton, NJ
- Games for Health - June 11 & 12, 2009, Boston, MA
- Health 2.0- October 6 & 7, 2009, San Francisco, CA
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What's the "e" in
e-Patient?
A term coined by Dr. Tom Ferguson to describe people who are
equipped, enabled, engaged and empowered to manage their health and
make health care decisions.
We're adding a few more "e"' s to the definition, including educated, expressive, expert, and electronic.
To learn more read our article here.
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If your work
includes finding, engaging, or educating today's e-Patients--whether
a Health 2.0, ePharma marketing or patient education company--I want
to hear about it. Shoot me an email to get us started.
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