Seed Newsvine
The power of social media
It's very easy to publish a BLOG today. Both Windows and Mac have built in programs that make posting a BLOG as easy as writing content and clicking a couple of times. Both Google and MSN now have specific search engines to search BLOGS and while some are a lot more popular than others consumers have a lot to say, especially when it comes to healthcare choices. Keep in mind that most people do not have dreams of "hitting the jackpot" and selling their BLOGS for big bucks rather they just want to sound off about their experiences and frustrations.
A couple of Internet BUZZ agencies have sprouted up that can both monitor buzz and "plant" stories about your product to create buzz. This is extremely risky. If your audience finds out that you hired someone to falsify posts it could cause a lot of damage to your brand and company. In fact some high level executives have been fired for sock puppeting posts on message boards and BLOGS.
There are some free sites that allow you to monitor
the buzz on the web. You enter a keyword, such as
your brand, and search and a graph appears to show
you the buzz around your product or brand. A visit
to BLOGPULSE foe example and a
search of the keyword Byetta comes back with a
huge list of of what people are saying about this
product. The data, however, does you no good
unless you have someone who can constantly monitor
it and present recommendations that are actionable
to leverage or counteract the buzz. It never
ceases to amaze me that drug companies will spend
hundreds of hours in research and with metrics to
measure a TV spot but when it comes to all the
analytic tools on the Web they are clueless.
Social media is the
new branding and rather than think of it as the
"anti-branding" marketers, especially DTC marketers,
need to look NOW for ways to leverage social media.
The first step is to understand that it's our job to
act as brand aggregators not to push non-relevant
information to a skeptical audience that will
continue to search the Web for transparency about
your product and brand.
