the Facebook page and blog provided no clinical data to support any of their claims 

In December 2012 the FDA sent a warning letter to Amarc Enterprises regarding two websites. This letter has garnered attention because it references Facebook. The FDA details a variety of serious concerns over the way Amarc is marketing their vitamins, in particular their websites have numerous testimonials that are unsupported by clinical data. For example, “PolyMVA helped save my life. I began a regimen of PolyMVA…After 3 months, the Stage 2 cancer was down to Stage 1.” These vitamins have not been approved by the FDA and are being improperly marketed as drugs. Similar claims were made for pets using the products and the FDA notes that this is also a violation.

Here is what the warning letter says about Facebook:
“We also note claims made on your Facebook account accessible at: https://www.facebook.com/poly.mva, which includes a link to your website at www.polymva.com. The following are examples of the claims: In a March 10, 2011 post which was ‘liked’ by ‘Poly Mva’:

• ‘PolyMVA has done wonders for me. I take it intravenously 2x a week and it has helped me tremendously. It enabled me to keep cancer at bay without the use of chemo and radiation…Thank you AMARC’”

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it seems that Graph Search is more of a concern for individual Facebook users and what they include on their profiles 

There has been a lot of buzz regarding the upcoming Facebook Graph Search launch and its effect on healthcare marketing. Some of the blog posts have been fairly negative and a little alarmist. I believe that the new Graph Search won’t be a big issue for pharma marketing and will potentially allow pharma companies to distribute their resources and information further than ever before, though this opportunity will require marketers to take additional precautions.

What is Facebook Graph Search?
In an effort to try to combat Google’s strong hold on the search market, Facebook has developed a new way to utilize their search functionality within the social media platform itself. Graph Search is currently in Beta; you can sign up for the waiting list on facebook.com/graphsearch. Facebook says they have a great deal of work ahead of them to incorporate all the items into the Facebook sphere.

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It remains to be seen how users will react to all this additional marketing 

Facebook’s announcement on February 29, 2012 that it would allow brand pages to use the timeline format overshadowed the debut of their new ad formats. For large advertisers Facebook “premium offers” now allow ads to be posted to newsfeeds and timelines. This front and center placement of advertisements shows that Facebook is serious about selling ad space. Facebook’s logout page will also now feature ads. In addition, news feed ads will start being seen on mobile devices.

Page owners can take wall posts, including polls or videos, and easily convert them into ads. The idea is that these ads will become less like advertising and more like storytelling. As Facebook’s customer marketing director, Mike Hoefflinger, said at the launch, “We are evolving from advertising to stories. Ads are good, but stories are better.”

These ads also try to add in a social element. If you view a premium ad, Facebook will expand the ad to include a line that shows which of your friends “like(s)” the page.
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Approximately 8 disease focused Facebook pages were taken down by pharma companies rather than open them to comments 

A few months ago Facebook announced that on August 15 they would enable commenting on biotech and pharmaceutical Facebook pages. The exception would remain pages that specifically focus on a prescription product and not building a community. Now that this deadline has passed, I wanted to see what impact this new policy had on the pharma Facebook landscape. I focused on prescription medications and pharmaceutical companies, not hospitals or over-the-counter drugs.

Lunesta appears to be the one pharma brand taking advantage of the exception and remains on Facebook with comments disabled. A few companies are using a workaround: by taking down all their wall posts there is no way for people to comment. These include Botox, Juvederm, Latisse and Novartis, although Novartis notes: “The Novartis Facebook page is being redesigned to align with new Facebook policies.”

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