Doing things that matter - the impact of social media on Pharma

This morning, in one of my favourite blogs, 'Confused of Calcutta', I noticed a recent post I had missed:

"Today, at a time when Facebook announced passing 200 million members, there are still people who think that social networking sites and tools are a fad, an irritation, a waste of time. It doesn’t matter what you tell them: you can mention the role of such sites and tools in the Obama campaign, in the Mumbai terrorist attack, in challenging repressive regimes, in humdrum daily work. They don’t care, all this is just a waste of time. Just like e-mail was, and mobile phones, and BlackBerries. Just like computers were before that. Or for that matter the telephone."

Some of this might also be applied to the white elephant in the room that is Pharma, or perhaps some might think an ostrich in the sand might be more apt, yet an email from a friend brought me this  interesting link on ADHD, showing a new information site on Facebook:

It was created by J&J's company, McNeil Pediatrics.  Although ADHD is common in children, apparently 9M adults also suffer from the condition.  The site is interesting because Facebook's new structure allows them to customise the tabs for different sets of information and education, including managing time and work overload/concentration issues.  There are podcasts, links to experts, self assessment questionnaires and all sorts of other tools for sufferers to try out.

There is also a nifty Facebook feature that allows people to become a 'fan' of such site pages and thus virally spread the word, since others will see the notifications that X became a fan of Y in their Facebook lifestream.  It will be interesting to see how the concept develops over time.  It's not exactly direct engagement per se, but it's certainly a step in the right direction. 

Comments

[Jonathan Richman]

The image you have here is for ADHD Allies, which is targeted towards adults with ADHD. McNeil Pediatrics also created ADHD Moms, which was (as best I can figure) the second pharma Facebook page (Gardasil was first). There are several others out there now and not just on Facebook. Check out my wiki with many more examples of pharma and healthcare social media: http://bit.ly/B3PR7

[MaverickNY]

Yes, it was meant to be ADHD Allies, Jon, although I noticed it was sponsored by the Pediatrics group. That kind of amused me in a wry way :)

It is good that their are several other examples too; I think the Gardasil one was nominated for an award recently.