Coming from the PR tech world where social/new media was widely embraced, it was a shock to the system a few years ago when I entered into the pharmaceutical/biotech PR industry and learned that almost all companies were taking a “wait and see” approach. This reluctance was not new to me. I had very similar conversations with my technology clients back in 2004 and 2005, but I never thought that I would be rehashing the same arguments 4-5 years later with my current and potential clients.
The questions are always the same:
- How do you measure social/new media?
- I don’t have the time or resources to dedicate to a blog/podcast/monitoring the blogosphere, tweeting, etc.
- I am too nervous to violate any SEC/DDMAC/FDA rules.
- I don’t want to lose control of the corporate/product message.
Does this sound familiar? Fear is definitely understandable and no one wants to waste their time on an endeavor that will yield little to no ROI.
So what can companies do? Fair question. Until the FDA makes a ruling on branded vs. unbranded content on the Web, then what is safe territory? While we wait for a ruling on branded content such as should Google ads have a pop up box listing all disclosures and side-effects via a 80- 140 character tweet-like warning, think about ways that you can push out approved news and information. Below are 5 simple steps that you can take to engage with social media platforms.
5 Easy Tactics for Social Media Initiation:
- Your content is already approved (a press release for example), so why do you just put it on the Wire and company Website?
- Add the title and tiny url to your company’s Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn status
- Sign up for multiple social media accounts
- Put your company on as many networking platforms as possible; Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn Groups
- It’s easy and fast, I promise
- Now that you have these accounts…
- Make sure you add these links/icons to your Website, e-mail Signatures, Bios, etc.
- Post often, but don’t spend a lot of time on content
- It’s all about page rankings, so get your content out there; adding a press release URL or link to an article with a simple message of “This just came out-very interesting read,” is sometimes all you need.
- If someone reads your company news or media article from your company’s Website, LinkedIn status or a Tweet, which results in an inbound BD opportunity, does it matter where they found that information?
And that is all you need to do to get started. So get off the bench and into the game; nothing was ever won from the sidelines.
Lisa Rivero
Director of Media Relations/Social Media
email Lisa
