SPECIAL REPORT
MOST SHARED
- Steelers' Antonio Brown Spends Super Bowl Week with Twitter Fan Turned BFF
- Robo-Deal Is All About Lowering Mortgage Principal
- Fidelity: 401(k) Balances Little Changed Over 2011
- Top Fashion Stocks for 2012
- Options Trader Scores Big on Diamond Foods Selloff
- iPad 3, iTV and iPhone 5 Should Drive Apple to $665: Money Pros
- Chesapeake Spurs Nat Gas Rally
- FBI Investigated Steve Jobs Drug Use
- Can Anybody Be an Entrepreneur?
- 'Mortgage Deal from Hell' Hurts Responsible Borrowers: Bove
- Victor Cruz ‘Understands’ Gisele's Super Bowl Frustrations
- Tamminen: The United States of India
- Unusual Volume: Taleo Jumps After Oracle's $1.9 Billion Offer
- Warren Buffett: Stocks Will Outperform Gold and Bonds .. and They're Safer 'By Far'
- So Now You Can’t Give Microsoft Away?
- Robo-Deal Is All About Lowering Mortgage Principal
- Groupon Needs More Disclosure: Analyst
- CEO to CEO: Taking a Job at a Startup vs. a Public Company
- Farr: Money, Jobs and Politics — We're Still in a State of Risk
- Markets Finally Get Greek Deal —So Where's the Rally?
- 'Mortgage Deal from Hell' Hurts Sound Borrowers: Bove
- Fidelity: 401(k) Balances Little Changed Over 2011
- Are Young American Workers a 'Lost Generation'?
- Westminster’s Most Successful Dog Breeds
- Greek Political Leaders Agree On Austerity Reforms
- Robo-Deal Is All About Lowering Mortgage Principal
- Fed Fines Banks $766 Million Over Mortgage Practices
- Spent Keurig K-Cups Filling Up US Landfills
RSS FEED
Pharma's Market
Text Size 
GSK & Pharma's Foray Into The Blogosphere
 |
Source: Ian Wilson GlaxoSmithKline |
GlaxoSmithKline sent me an email this morning calling my attention to its new external blog, "American Health: More Than Medicine." A pretty long name for a blog, one that screams that it went through the corporate approval wringer, but at least GSK is putting itself out there.
The entries are written by a "Michael F" whose byline up until today said he was with "GSK Communications." I'm assuming the earlier stuff was for internal consumption because today's inaugural entry for the new external blog identifies him as being with "GSK Social Media."
Of course, the hottest thing in social media right now is Twitter. But it doesn't look like GSK has gone there yet. There is a registered user with the handle "glaxosmithkline." Whoever is behind it hasn't posted a single update, but somehow they've attracted 70 followers. Other pharmas, though, including Roche, Novartis, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson are tweeters.
Most of the tweets (messages) are links to press releases and other official corporate communications. There's little, if any, freestyling by the drug company tweeters. I'm almost certain the corporate lawyers keep close tabs on what can and can't get put on social media. The government regulatory watchdogs are also beginning to get hip to pharma's foray into social media in an attempt to make sure the companies mind their marketing p's and q's.
And that's why I think it's important to point out that GSK says the blog won't be a drug-pushing vehicle. Michael F writes, "More Than Medicine is expressly uninterested in promoting GSK brands. As stated in our credo, our intent is to express a point of view and create a dialogue on health and healthcare issues you can't find anywhere else - not to serve as another product marketing vehicle." So, there's no link on the blog homepage to a coupon for the diet drug Alli.
But I'm not sure you can't find it anywhere else. I suspect it's only a matter of time before most, if not all, of the big pharmas launch external blogs. JNJ's tweeter also writes a blog, but it doesn't have the same feel as GSK's.
I'd also like to see some of the execs in the blogosphere. Sure, their stuff would get lawyered and might read like a formal newspaper op-ed piece, but as has been my experience with this blog, eventually, hopefully they'd start to let some of their personalities show.
Big pharma, by its own admission, has a major image problem. What better way to try to put a face on these monolithic corporations than by leveraging the social media craze to their advantage?
What's more, it would cost 'em next to nuthin'.
This Update: So, it turns out GSK is on Twitter after all. But apparently, it's tough to find. Michael Fleming, the company's Senior Director of Social Media emailed, "For some reason we were having trouble coming up on Twitter searches earlier, but that should be getting fixed." And he added that, indeed, there are plans to have various GSK execs write blog entries and to make room for "the occasional visiting non-company blogger." I won't be one of them.
Questions? Comments? and follow me on Twitter at mhuckman
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes
