Healthcare PR Blog

DDMAC Feedback on Social Media: The Sound of Crickets is Deafening

Nearly three months have now passed since the FDA's Division for Drug Marketing Advertising and Communications (DDMAC) held its hearing entitled “Promotion of FDA-Regulated Medical Products Using the Internet and Social Media Tools.”  So far the response from DDMAC and direction provided to industry can be measured by the almost deafening sound of crickets coming from the direction of Washington DC.

Hopefully, before we're too far along into 2010, DDMAC will provide constructive guidance to industry on the use of social media to communicate with patients. They certainly had plenty of feedback from interested parties during those hearings.

--David Avitabile

Good Direction or More Control?

For better or worse, on November 12 & 13, 2009, the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration and its Division for Drug Marketing Advertising and Communications (DDMAC) will convene a hearing entitled “Promotion of FDA-Regulated Medical Products Using the Internet and Social Media Tools.”  

Sorry, if you didn’t register by October 9, you will not be able to attend in person; however, all are welcome to participate.  Healthcare communicators, especially healthcare PR folks, should submit questions and comments to: “Electronic Comments,” identified with docket number FDA-2009-N-0441, at http://www.regulations.gov.  Everyone can watch and listen to this hearing for free by registering here.

The hearing will be just that.  Be prepared to listen to more than 80 (that’s right, eighty) 15-minute presentations by healthcare communication leaders from industry, academia, government, media and non-profits.  And, for one who has endured my fair share of FDA hearings, don’t expect any action, other than the obligatory, “We thank all of you for coming, for your time and thoughtful insights.”  “We will take all of your comments under advisement and will continue to compile outside comments and reconvene in 2010.”

We can expect that FDA and DDMAC will float a straw man document for comment in 2010.  And, perhaps after another hearing, they might finalize new regulations in 2010.  For those of us involved in healthcare communications, healthcare PR and medical communications, these new regs will help us reduce our risk of DDMAC violations.  However, it remains to be seen if these new regs will help or hinder industry communication to physicians, patients and caregivers. 

--John Kouten

Communicating with the Digital Health Consumer: Remain Teachable

Do you want to lead? Remain teachable. This is especially true for healthcare communications and marketing professionals who want to engage the digital health consumer (in other words, all of us). 

Next week, we'll be participating in the e-Patient Connections Conference in Philadelphia, organized by my friend Kevin Kruse. If you want to see a Who's Who of leadership in digital healthcare communications and social media, check out the speaker line-up and the program for this event.

So here's a Healthcare PR Blog shout-out to Kevin Kruse and his team a Kru Research for putting this meeting together.

I'm sure we'll have a few things to blog about following this conference. We look forward to seeing our friends and colleagues at this event.

Stay tuned.

--David Avitabile

 

Healthcare Public Relations and the Art of Storytelling

A 13-year-old girl is taking a train ride to New York City with her dad. During the journey, they talk to each other about a lot of things, including the usual topics of school, friends, texting (of course), boys, and getting along with her two brothers. At one point in the conversation, the daughter tells her father that one of her favorite things is when her mom, dad and all the aunts and uncles get together and tell stories about when they were young. She goes on to say that for the next family gathering, she really wants to make a “talking stick” because sometimes the kids find it hard to listen when the adults interrupt one another.

That’s a true story, told to me this morning. When I heard it, I thought about how very human is the need to listen to stories, and how amazing it is that even in our high speed, 140 character limit, texting and Twitter-obsessed culture, the art of storytelling and our need to be engaged by good stories is alive and well. I defy you to show me anybody more immersed in our short attention span media and communication culture than a 13-year-old girl. And yet she’s expressing her joy at sitting and listening to her parents and relatives tell stories about when they were young.

At its very essence, marketing is storytelling. As we continue to evolve new ways to communicate, as we blog and Twitter and use LinkedIn and Facebook, let’s keep in mind that conversation between a 13-year-old daughter and her dad on the train to New York City, and let’s not lose sight of the fact that no matter what the medium, we all still want to hear a good story.

Social Media in Healthcare Communications: to Tweet, or Not to Tweet, That is the Question

The following scene is no doubt taking place in the boardrooms of pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical technology companies all over the world:

Members of your marketing team are hearing a pitch from (insert any large multinational PR agency name here). After a seemingly endless capabilities presentation, the fresh faced 22 year-old Assistant Account Executive – who by the way will be running your account once the agency VPs win your business –then presents an all-singing, all-dancing social media blitz campaign for the national launch of your late-stage new product.

Some members of your team are mesmerized. They simply must have this thing that is being presented. Others are luke warm, and a few are just scratching their heads wondering how this is going to generate more sales.

I believe in the power of social media. If I didn’t, you wouldn’t be reading this blog right now. But the fact is that a number of healthcare PR firms are doing exactly what they’ve always done—flogging the latest edition of the “communications revolution” in order to maximize their revenues—often at the expense of the clients paying them for their “best strategic thinking.”

Social media technologies, including blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are, in some ways, transformational. Are they going to change the media landscape to an extent? Absolutely. Are they going completely replace traditional media channels? I don’t think so.

I believe that social media is a tool that can, and in many cases should, be part of the marketing mix.

I also believe that if your healthcare communications agency is telling you that you need to employ social media as part of your overall strategy, you should ask them to demonstrate exactly how the use of these tools helps achieve your objectives for the product. And if this question isn’t answered to your satisfaction, my advice is to spend your money elsewhere.

The basics of strategic thinking still apply. What is the objective? What strategies are going to help you meet your objective? What are the most effective tactics to support your strategy and achieve your objective?

Remember the “dotcom boom?” In some cases, banks and venture capital firms where throwing money at business start-ups that, in retrospect, now  seem utterly ridiculous. The dotcoms that had ideas that really made sense and sold things that people really wanted to buy are still with us today. The others are consigned to the scrapheap of history.

We live in a very exciting era from a communications perspective. In just the past 10 years, an explosion in new technologies has created massive changes in how we gather, access, consume and exchange information.

But the basic laws of healthcare marketing still apply. So does common sense, and DDMAC regs. Healthcare communications counselors have a responsibility to help their clients fully understand the strategic value of social media and how it can be used to benefit their business. Anything less is irresponsible.

--David Avitabile