Four out of five U.S. physicians online visited sites for healthcare professionals (HCPs) in the first quarter of 2010 according to a comScore and ImpactRx study.

General health content sites (such as WebMD.com) attracted 75% of physicians, while professional association sites reached 67%. Pharma support and pharmaceutical sites also did well, reaching 51% and 50% of physicians respectively. According to this research, social media sites came in the middle at a solid 40%.

The data is interesting because, according to the press release, it comes from: “a unique digital measurement solution that measures physicians’ actual online and mobile behaviors.”

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Metadata, which is invisible to anyone viewing a website in a browser, is part of the underlying page code. Search engines use this metadata: they pull the page title tag and description and display them on their results page. Anyone can view the site’s metadata by right clicking on a page. If you choose “view page source” from the menu that appears, you will see the code for the page, including the meta title and description.

Here’s an example of the metadata that has been written into the code for the homepage of Baxter’s ThereForYou.com:

Here is how it looks when Google pulls the metadata to display the title and the description in their organic search results:

Why Should Pharma Care?
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sent a letter to Novartis dated July 29, 2010, regarding a Facebook Share widget on their brand website, Tasigna.com. This widget pulled the content from the metadata. The FDA letter noted that this content did not contain fair balance.
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The FDA sent a letter to Novartis dated July 29, 2010, regarding a Facebook widget on their brand website, Tasigna.com. The key part of the letter notes that: “The shared content is misleading because it makes representations about the efficacy of Tasigna but fails to communicate any risk information associated with the use of this drug. In addition, the shared content inadequately communicates Tasigna’s FDA-approved indication and implies superiority over other products.”

In addition to Facebook, the site offered a way to share the content on Twitter, Delicious and Digg. This type of “Share This” functionality is increasingly common on websites. Novartis took the widgets down quickly, because when I looked yesterday they were no longer there. The screen shot below, showing the Facebook icon on the top right, is from a Google cached version of the site.

The FDA must have clicked on the widget for every page and reviewed each resulting Facebook message or reviewed the page source and meta description that is pulled. Below is an example, although not one of the ones cited in the letter.

It’s the Message NOT the Medium
This letter does not provide FDA guidance on Facebook. The important thing to remember is that this content did not follow existing FDA guidelines. So if you are using Share This on your site, carefully review the resulting text that will be shared. The FDA is paying attention.

This post was contributed by Eileen O’Brien, Director of Search & Innovation for Siren Interactive. You can connect with her on Twitter at @eileenobrien.

I’m not embarrassed to admit it: I love Foursquare. It may be a silly game, but it shows how technology – and society – is evolving and how location-based services will be part of our future.

Forrester Research recently found that only 4% of U.S. online adults have ever used location-based mobile apps like Foursquare, Gowalla and Loopt. The majority of users are males age 19-35 and Forrester recommends that most brand marketers wait for a larger audience before engaging. Others endorse jumping in now. I’m not suggesting that pharma brands should start using Foursquare, however it is important to learn about new marketing tactics so we can adapt them for our unique industry.

What is Foursquare?
Foursquare is a location-based social application. Go to Foursquare.com, create a free profile and download the mobile application to your Smartphone. The next time you are out, open the app to use your phone’s geolocator to show places near you and “check-in” at your location. You can also give permission to your friends on Foursquare to allow them see your location and vice versa.
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Patients are increasingly turning to each other online for health information. Prevention magazine released their 13th annual national survey Consumer Reaction to DTC Advertising of Prescription Drugs which provides more proof that people go to social media with their health concerns.

According to the survey (phone interviews of 1,501 adults) 60% of online consumers use social media. User-generated sites such as Wikipedia and online forums such as PatientsLikeMe.com had a following of 42% (both up 6% over last year), while health-related blogs like Rateadrug.com were at 30% (up 3%).

This research echoes other recent data and demonstrates that patients are looking to hear from others like them.

According to the survey, 76% of online consumers look for others who share their medical condition for information. This was higher than even doctors (73%) and friends/family (66%). It’s important to keep in mind that the severity of the health issue can also impact this answer. The more serious the condition, the more likely that a patient will turn to a healthcare professional.
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Last week I wrote about the importance of paying attention to the details in your email communications and to always test. And test again. Today, I want to talk about how knowing your audience and delivering relevant and timely content to their inbox can result in big loyalty gains.

The day after my aforementioned email incident, I received an email of a different color. While it wasn’t explicitly personalized, it spoke to me so directly I couldn’t help but respond. For those of you who don’t know, our beloved Chicago Blackhawks brought home the Stanley Cup after a 49 year hiatus. As a life-long Chicagoan with many memories of going to games in Chicago Stadium and the United Center, my blood was pumping Blackhawks Red along with the rest of the city.
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More proof that doctors are just like the rest of us – they are using smartphones.

A Knowledge Networks study of nearly 11,000 healthcare professionals found 62% of specialists and 55% of PCPs report having a smartphone, and roughly 85% to 90% are using them for Internet and email. The survey showed that 17% of PCPs and 18% of specialists who have smartphones are using them for e-detailing and 29% of PCPs and 24% of specialists use them to participate in online surveys. This data is in keeping with other recent research.

Is There an App for That?
As of February 2010, there were 5,805 health, medical and fitness applications within the Apple AppStore. Of these, 27% were targeted to healthcare professionals according to the report How Smartphones are Changing Health Care for Consumers and Providers. For more about this topic, read the excellent report by the California Healthcare Foundation.

Why It Matters for Pharma
Be sure that your websites are optimized for mobile viewing. And consider a smartphone application and the mobile channel as another way of reaching doctors.

This post was contributed by Eileen O’Brien, Director of Search & Innovation for Siren Interactive. You can connect with her on Twitter at @eileenobrien.

(Image courtesy of slowburn on Flickr)

Working on customer relationship management (CRM) initiatives has me digging into the details on our customers (patients and healthcare professionals) on a daily basis. I get to ask myself questions like: How are they grouping? What behaviors indicate future results? What do we REALLY know about them? How can we best deliver what they are looking for?

And then, I get socked with a simple reality check: don’t forget the basics.  Pay attention to how you are talking, and connecting, with your customers.

In this age of personalized, one-to-one communications, I expect that all the emails that make it through my SPAM filter will be addressed to me. If not, they at least provide content that I would like to read. Imagine my horror when I received an email last week with the following intro text.
Dear {{First Name:default=Fellow Marketer},

OUCH. My heart broke for my ‘Fellow Marketer.’ I know how easily a simple typo in setup can create these errors, but I also know that is why you really need to pay attention to the basics. Funny, I haven’t read the rest of that email. I couldn’t get past that simple error.
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When you search a popular drug on Google the first result is now from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Google launched this new feature on June 21, 2010.

If you aren’t familiar with search results, at the very top and side are Paid Search ads (Pay Per Click). Below and in the middle are the natural search engine results where Google has started inserting the NIH in the first slot.

Now when you search the generic or brand name of a popular prescription or over the counter medication you get a pill icon and a box that provides a brief description and links to side effects, instructions, etc. The links all take you to the NIH site where the information appears to be licensed from the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists.

Here is what you’ll see if you search Advil.

Why It Matters
When I raised this topic the other night during the pharma social media and marketing tweetchat (#SocPharm), people generally thought it was a good idea. They liked the fact that the top result was a credible, trusted source that would steer searchers in the right direction. I disagreed because I don’t like to see Google making editorial decisions and I’d prefer Google to be like Switzerland.
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The New York Times recently reported on patients receiving financial incentives to take their medications or to comply with prescribed treatments. For example, a program in Philadelphia allows people to win $10 or $100 each day they take their drug — a lottery using a computerized pillbox.

According to the article, one-third to one-half of all patients do not take their medications and one-fourth do not fill prescriptions at all, which adds up to more than $100 billion in healthcare costs each year.

I usually have very strong opinions, but with this topic I can see both sides.
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