I had to laugh when I read GSK’s Twitter page because frankly it was pathetic. I believe that if you are going to do something that you need to do it right or not do it at all as every consumer touchpoint is a reflection on your brand and company.

Well, in most circumstances, not much.  If you consider the fact that most pharmaceutical companies aren't engaged with Facebook on a widespread level at the current time, the fact that Facebook is making an interesting change to its pages doesn't seem particularly relevant.  But if you consider the things that the pharmaceutical industry should be doing on Faceook, and probably one day will be - listen up. In case you've been living under a rock, you will have heard that beginning Saturday, Facebook will allow people to set up their own vanity URLs.  Right now, when you sign up for Facebook, your URL is a randomly assigned bunch of numbers and letters, which is a little odd.  However, if you have a Twitter account, you have a URL that is www.twitter.com/YOURNAMEHERE .  So what? Well, one thing that I've picked up on lately in Twitter is that someone has set up Twitter accounts with the name of nearly every major pharmaceutical company - meaning that if a pharmaceutical company wants to set up a Twitter feed in the future, they either have to unseat the squatter or put something additional to their existing name.  For example, Sanofi and Merck Serono each have Twitterfeeds with followers, but no logo and no updates.  It would appear that people, thinking they were the real thing, signed up to follow them, even though there are no updates.  In other words, it would appear that someone is squatting on the names of companies.  If names can be squatted on Twitter, why not Facebook - and not just companies, but brand names.  So that is why, it might be a good idea for companies to consider their plans for social media now, rather than later - other than the fact that pharma companies are already so very far behind in utilization of new media. 

Social media, a lot of people are still contemplating whether to get into a social media program and some are even wondering what it’s value really is but on the Internet the product life cycle for new technology is accelerated to Web time which means that one day you’re hot and worth billions and the next you’re eBay trying to wonder what the hell happened.

Yes, despite my past misgivings about Bloggers Dining at Pharma’s Table , I accepted an invitation from Rob Halper (responsible for JNJHealth , J&J’s YouTube page) and Marc Monseau (blogger at JNJBTW Blog ) to dinner at Piano Due in NYC. The purpose of this dinner was to discuss the shifting landscape of healthcare 2.0, an informal discussion about social media and the healthcare industry. Thank you J&J for a great dinner! I enjoyed meeting up with “old” friends and making new friends as well

CureTogether: A Social Network for Patients to Share Symptoms and Solutions to Improve Thier Health Daniel Reda, Co-founder of CureTogether.com, will talk about this new social network that helps people anonymously track and compare health data, to better understand their bodies, make more informed treatment decisions and contribute data to research. Guest: Daniel Reda , Co-founder of CureTogether.com Live Streaming Audio Date: Thursday, May 28, 2009, 1 PM Eastern US time

Remember the 14 Notice of Violation (NOV) letters that FDA sent to 14 drug companies citing their Adwords — paid search engine ads — for violating FDA regulations? At issue was (and still is) the so-called “One-Click Rule,” which states that an online Rx drug ad can mention the brand name and the benefits (indications) without including all or any of the major side effect effects (fair balance) as long as the fair balance is just one click away (ie, on the landing page). See ” The ‘One-Click Rule’: Rant or No Rant

Yes, that's right; patients.  Not doctors, nurses, pharmacists, payers or other HCP's, but patients. Patients are the people taking the therapies, educating themselves, their families and other sufferers about the disease, and quite frankly, often the marketing people responsible for the commercialisation of drugs.  They can make or break your brand as promoters or detractors without you even knowing it, so my advice to Pharma marketers is ignore them at your peril