John Mack of  the Pharma Marketing Blog hosted a fascinating, by invitation only conference call today to discuss the first-ever pharma branded Tweet for Novo Nordisk’s Levemir™.  Never one to mince words, Mack suggested in the invitation that: Novo Nordisk’s Branded (Levemir) Tweet is Sleazy Twitter Spam!. Novo Nordisk Selectively Copies & Edits Kimball’s Tweets. Read more »

We advise clients to ALWAYS “register an account on Twitter for both the brand and company well in advance of needing it for crisis communications.”  You don’t even have to use it, just be prepared.  It’s like putting batteries in the smoke detector: it’s no fun climbing the ladder to do it, but you’ll be grateful at 3AM when it alerts you. So it’s interesting to note that Twitter is experimenting with “Verified Accounts” which promise the imprint of authenticity on a user’s Tweets.  Does this really matter?  Consider: Exxon – brand jacked by “Janet” who tweets as the putative spokeswoman for Exxon-Mobil “@1WineDude, did you know that the Valdez spill wasn’t even one of the top 10 worst spills in history? Read more »

From the President who made social media a key tool in his campaign comes the biggest news for health care, pharmaceuticals, biotech and medical device manufacturers yet: an articulated vision for health care reform that is gaining traction. What the final legislation will look like is anyone’s guess: Will it be, as The New England Journal of Medicine suggests a “value-based system”? Read more »

As first covered by PaidContent, Nielsen Online reported today that MySpace beat Facebook by about 3:1 in terms of video streams watched, with an average of about 40 minutes per viewer per day. Facebook users on the other hand averaged about 11 minutes a day. Read more »

As if mastering the obscure art of ethical Search Engine Optimization (SEO) wasn’t difficult enough along comes a term to make it more confusing: SEO 2.0.   An ill-defined and conveniently vague term that can mean almost anything, including: Converting visitors to prospects who take action such as filling out a form, downloading a white paper, watching a video, or placing an order. Optimizing your site for social media and link sharing with services like StumbleUpon, Digg and Facebook. Read more »